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South Africa
Part 1
Capetown, Knysna, Plettenbery Bay, Oudtshoorn
The trip started with drama as 3 flights from Buenos Aires into Johannesburg were cancelled due to the Chillean volcanic ash cloud. Luckily the travel assistant at Aeorlineas Argentina took pity on me and gave me a seat on the first flight out of Lima which meant I had just enough time to meet the connections I had originally booked and make the start date for the trip.
The first part of my South Africa trip started with a three day drive from Capetown stopping for quad bike tour of a reserve, wine tasting, zip lining, dolphin watching and sight seeing - no churches or temples involved. Then on to Cango Wildlife Ranch which was to be my place of unpaid employment for the next 10 days.
On arrival at the volunteer house I discovered there was no tv, no heating, the furniture comprised of a wooden garden sofa & charis, stained mattress beds with distguisting duvets with stains to match the mattress and a rather furry fridge. Its a good job that the animal encounters to follow were good otherwise I would not have stayed longer than 1 day.
On the first day at Cango Wildlife Ranch I enjoyed a walk through the park with the cheetahs, played with 3 baby tigers (5 months old), hand fed leemars and threw chicken necks to the Marabou Storks. The activities for Day 2 included cage diving with a 4 metre crocodile and his two female friends, preparing minced horse meat for the big cats and of course playing with the baby tigers again. The following days were spent as follows:
Pepared the animals food and fed - lemars, otter, red river hogs, pigmy hippos, squirrels, bats. Blue Divers (like baby antelopes) merekats, bats, porquipine, cheetahs, leopards.
Cleaned out the cages of 4 boa constrictor snakes - previously removed by their keeper
Cleaned out the baby crocodile cage which contained 47 mini crocs. All was going well until one rather impatient croc decided to bite me instead of waiting till it was his turn to be put back into the lurverly clean tank.
Fruit bat decided I looked like a tree and attached itself to my leg -nice - NOT
Held a 4 metre albino bermese python and boa constrictor - much less scary than the bat.
Photo opportunities with white tigers, leopards, lions, cheetahs.
Wearing 6 layers of clothes at the start of each day then peeling them off to 3 layers as the sun came out around noon.
On my day off we hired a car and drove to Cango Caves - one of the main local tourist attractions. Unfortunately I didn't get to do the ostrich riding as the ground was too wet for the ostriches (obviously they didn't have wellie boots).
I am now going to enjoy 2 weeks resting in Cape Town (once I have been to Table Mountain, Robben Island etc etc). Last trip starts 16th July which will involve camping in rather cold conditions but hopefully again the animal experiences will outweigh the horrible bits of roughing it.
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