Schindler Adventures: Into the Wild

We're "on safari." Who ever thought we'd say that? It's really quite remarkable. We left Johannesburg yesterday morning (in our rental van with a broken gas gauge) to head toward "the bush." Our van has a GPS very similar to ours at home, which is very lucky, as Dr. Storey argues with "her" a lot, and Steven and I are often called on to see what she's talking about. :)

On our way out of town, we got some wonderful commentary from Dr. Storey, which gives us a little foretaste of what's to come when we begin visiting apartheid resistance sites tomorrow. We saw the downtown of this giant metropolis (about 5 or 6 million in Johannesburg), including several "informal settlements," with hundreds of homes made of unmatched pieces of tin leaned together; the headquarters of the old secret police, where many resisters "accidentally fell" from the 6th floor; middle-class normal-looking homes surrounded by very high walls, some with razor wire; and the site of Sophiatown and the Church of Christ the King, the first black neighborhood to be forcibly moved to another part of the country.

The safari has been wonderful. We're staying at a really lovely lodge just on the edge of Pilanesburg National Park, and we have taken several "game drives" into the park to find animals. We've seen amazing things which I previously thought were zoo-only animals! And all without fences or cages. We have seen several elephants, zebras, hippos, giraffes, rhinos, baboons, warthogs, wildebeasts, lions, impalas, several kinds of antelope, and birds galore. And searching for the animals is half the fun! We have also enjoyed relaxing a bit, catching up on our sleep (getting rid of jet lag) and getting to know our travel companions (who are wonderful!) as we've admired the detail and complexity of God's creation. We've been humbled by the ways these animals work together, within and outside of their own herds, and by the way the ecosystem works as long as everyone does their part. If only we humans could take some cues from these brilliant creatures, perhaps all of us could have "enough"!!

Tomorrow we're headed to Pretoria and then on to Johannesburg, where we'll see lots of important reminders of this country's troubled past and present struggles. There is much more to come...

This may be my favorite photo of the trip so far! This little giraffe family paused at just the right moment for me to take their portrait.

A small elephant pausing for a snack. There was a baby traveling with this little group, and I waited very patiently to take its picture, but its mom insisted on standing between the baby and our jeep. Ah, well - such is life! Did you know that elephants can eat for 20 hours per day, and sleep an hour or less?

Here's a young zebra with its herd. They recognize each other by their stripe patterns, but I certainly can't tell the difference.

The hippos spent much of the morning under water, and most of the afternoon lying near the shore. This young (yes, he's smaller than the others!) guy seems to want the others to get up and play!