After over 8 months of planning and scheduling, Africa finally came.  Saturday Zach and I, Mark, and Jeanene arrived at the airport bright and early to catch our first flight.  We flew from Salt Lake > Atlanta and then from Atlanta > Johannesburg.

Both flights went unexpectedly smooth.  It was 18 total hours of flight time and both Zach and I slept more than 12 hours.  When we arrived in the Johannesburg airport we picked up our rental car and drove into the city.  The only car available to fit all four of us and our luggage was a manual Nissan truck.  So not only did Zach have to learn how to drive on the left side of the road, but he had to do it while driving a stick shift.  It was fairly easy to navigate around and we made our way to an area of the of the city called Sandton where our hotel was located.  Sandton is much different than down town Johannesburg.  It is more of a financial area:  tall glass office buildings, hotels, malls, and the like.  Mostly new development for the World Cup.  Everyone warned us how dangerous Johannesburg was going to be and we were prepared for the absolute worst.  Fortunately, we stayed right in Nelson Mandela Square at a beautiful, clean hotel.  It was attached to a giant mall as well, which meant Zach and Mark had access to fountain drinks and ice at the KFC located in the mall’s food court.  It was nothing like I had pictured it to be.  It felt as we weren’t in Africa at all!  We ditched our bags in our rooms and all went to dinner at a restaurant in the square.  We ate at a great steak and seafood place and spent our first night in Johannesburg walking around and exploring our temporary neighborhood.

The next morning we all woke up, ate lunch, and drove to the Lion Park outside of Johannesburg.  It is an animal reserve where there are all of these exotic species [exotic to us Americans, I guess] of animals that are native to Africa.  First we got to feed the giraffes.  The volunteers give you bags of pellets that are made of dried plants and vitamins and you walk up onto a wooden platform.  First, I have to admit that giraffes are SO much bigger in person.  I’ve seen them hundreds of times on TV and always pictured them to have the body of a horse with a really long neck.  Their legs [at least the adult male] were so tall that I could have comfortably walked right underneath his belly.  The giraffes would walk right up to the platform and stretch their necks down to our level and stick out their long, black tongues.  They would lick the pellets right out of your hand!  If one of us was feeding them, another could walk right up and stroke their faces.

They felt exactly like horses to the touch.  They had incredibly large, dark eyes with the longest lashes.  Even though they were much larger than expected, they were incredibly sweet animals.  Once all of the giraffe food was gone we made our way back to our car to do a self drive through the park.  We drove around the grounds and then to each individual area.  We saw springbok, ostriches, impalas, and zebra out grazing in the fields.

Then we drove through the lion camps.  Fun fact:  lions sleep 16-20 hours a day!  Most of them were sleeping when we got there with the exception of a few rowdy cubs.  I couldn’t believe how close you could drive up to them!  (Little did I know we would be even closer a few days later.)

We all were shocked once again how large these animals were.  There were several different areas where you could drive past the different groups of lions.

There were also wild dog and cheetah camps.  After we drove around the whole place we went back to the main lodge area for our lion cub interaction.  A guide takes you into a pen where all the cubs stay until they reach a certain age.  Here you can pet them, play with them, and depending on their mood: pick them up.  Luckily for the four of us, it was still nap time.  We could walk right up to them and pet them.  One even let me put my hand on his paw for a little bit.  It was the same size as my entire hand.

The last thing we did at the park was the Cheetah Walk.  They piled a small group of us into a bus and we drove over to the cheetah camp.  We thought we would all get out and get to interact with the cheetah, but the guide left us all in our seats.  Minutes later they open the door and a big male cheetah climbs right onto the bus with us!  She told us that he liked to sit in front, so she let him.  Like he had requested it or something and he was just another tourist on the bus.  He was just a couple feet away from us.

It was quite intimidating and all of us could not keep our eyes off of him.  They drove us out to the open field and they let him off the bus with us right behind.  They let us all gather around to pet him, brush him, and feed him treats.  I was the first to interact with him.

The guide warned us that he [the cheetah’s name was Massai] liked to put his paws wherever he wanted.  They cautioned us that if he put his paw on any part of your body to stay very still to avoid his claws.  I started to stroke Massai’s head and neck and within seconds he looked up at me, picked up his paw, and put it right on top of my foot!

Cheetahs purr like house cats when they like something but don’t meow or growl like other big cats.  They chirp like birds!  It’s the cutest thing.  It almost makes you want to hug and cuddle them…until you see their teeth and claws.  The others got to pet him and brush him and then it started to rain.

He did not like the rain one bit.  He crouched down and decided he wasn’t having it.  We snapped a family pic and then all got back onto the bus.

Massai climbed right into his front seat, but as the bus got moving he decided he didn’t want to sit there anymore.  So he made his way down the center aisle between the seats and sat right next to Zach and I.  Having a cheetah roaming free in the back of a bus right beside you was a little freaky.  [Notice Mark’s face…]

After we got back to the lodge we returned to the car to drive back into the city.  We ate dinner at a great Italian place a short drive from our hotel.  It was the perfect way to kick start our animal adventures!  I laugh now thinking back how excited we were to be SO close to those wild animals, and yet we had NO idea what we were in for…