I spoke ENGLISH

Africa is full of pleasant surprises. So many of my wishes came true!!! My favorite animal is a cheetah and I’ve never seen one before now. I’ve seen so many big cats, which I love. And tons of my favorite bird, vultures (I do have my reasons). I’m not used to people speaking English to me, which is a nice surprise. And all of the places are staying are extraordinary! None of us ever want to leave!!! I just can’t wait to write about it!!!

I was sooo happy, and slightly shocked, when someone spoke English to me! I kept on stuttering while I was trying to figure out the Spanish word for what I wanted to say, then I remembered that they were speaking English. I kept on saying “gracias” (Spanish) or “obrigada” (Portuguese) when I meant to just say “thanks”. It’s going to be quite a transition when I have to speak Swahili.

And next there’s the hostels and hotels. Almost all of them have provided a delicious, free breakfast with our stay. And they’ve given us wonderful recommendations, ½ of our planning was solely based off of our hosts recommendations. They’re very hospitable. And our tour guides are equally helpful. We’ve booked 2 other activities (not including all the activities that were planned for our 11 day camping trip from the host of our first hostel) because our tour guide suggested it and called to help us book it. They’ve suggested restaurants and driven us there, and if they were booked, they would bring us to another one. I was pretty surprised and I couldn’t help wondering how often that happened. And other travelers helped too! I’m hoping that more places that we visit will be as welcoming as Namibia.

The animals we found were incredible and I found just about all of the animals I’ve been hoping to see. The first African animal we saw were a bunch of young lion brothers with their mother. It was hard for me to breath when I first saw them. I’ve seen lions before, but it’s infinitely different when you’re right up next to them in their natural habitat. It’s nothing like being in a zoo, I hope everyone gets to experience this sometime in their life. Then we saw a white rhinos and we drove off the path to get a better look. There were 4 of them, a mom, a dad, and 2 kids. That checked 1 animal off of my brothers “what to find” list, but we still had to find the black rhinos. Did you know that both black and white rhinosauroses are critically endangered? I’m sooo glad we got to see them. We did end up seeing a black rhino, but that experience didn’t really encourage me to look for more. We saw one that was just going around trees eating leaves, black rhinos don’t travel together, they’re too aggressive. But we went out and started to follow it through the “bush”. I knew we’ve been following it a little too much when I started looking at us with an annoyed look, and I was right. It walked in the middle of the street and faced our safari truck and started to run forward, it stopped soon after that, but it definitely scared me! He only charged as a threat or warning because we were invading it’s space. But the next time we saw one in our car, I practically begged my family to turn around. I swear my dad was about to honk at it! At least if one of my friends has a near-death experience, I can relate. The next thing we found is definitely going to be one of my top 3 experiences for our whole trip. My favorite animal is a cheetah, I love their grace, speed, and agility. I love their spots and their characteristic tear-mark that runs from their eye to their mouth. They have long legs and their spots turn to rings the further down the tail you go. I really admire cheetahs and I’m glad the first time I saw one was when they were in the wild and running free (although we never actually saw them run). I literally couldn’t breath when I first saw them. It was either look at the cheetah, or breath. ½ of the time I chose cheetah, but I swear I had to think for at least a second and a half to breath in and a second to exhale. I was sooo amazed and I was about to hop out of the car to get a closer look! I’m actually glad that I haven’t seen cheetahs in the Denver Zoo! If I did, the first time I would’ve seen one was locked up in a box!! It’s sooo much different when your not 10 feet above the animal with concrete and glass in between you. Cheetahs normally travel in pairs. The two that we saw were brothers and there used to be four, but the cheetahs had a successful kill that the lions wanted, so they fought. The lions won and 2 of the brothers died during the fight. This story made me tear up a little. We ended up seeing 7 cheetahs total, 3 different groups. In one of the groups, the cheetah crossed the road right in front of our car and started meowing. At least, his version of a meow. Cheetahs tweet like a bird when they’re meowing and it was the funniest thing I’ve ever heard! This paragraph is getting long, so I better move on…

All of the 3 things I talked about in my blog fit nicely together, like puzzle pieces. We found a place to stay, by using English. We stayed there and saw cool animals, and then we spoke to someone without google translate. They told us a place they stayed and LOVED. So we went there and saw more animals. It was like a chain of events. English- place- animals- people- English- place- etc. All of my experiences in Africa were amazing, but if I had to choose my favorite, it would be the cheetahs.
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