South Africa #30.

Today is Saturday Oct 26th. Today is mostly a bus day as we drive into the Great Karoo Desert on our way to Graaf-Reinett, the town whose name sounds like a guttural clearing of the throat. None of us ever did learn how to pronounce it.

It is another sunny day and the wildlife was prevalent. The 3 birds here are Blue Cranes, which are the national bird of South Africa. Apparently they are becoming very rare and Wellington was overly excited to see them, and if that wasn’t enough, we saw a flock of +40 of them in the field. He couldn’t wait to tell his fellow guides of this amazing sight.

They were huge and beautiful, but hard to get a good picture from a moving vehicle. Actually, our driver did pull over and we were allowed to peer around the corner of the bus (so as not to startle them), but they all took flight the second they noticed us. 

We also saw warthogs and their babies, springboks, some oryx (I have no idea how to write the plural of that), monkeys, 2 giraffes, various other antelopes, and a type of gnu (which is also called a Black Tailed Wildebeest). All just wandering in the wild. So amazing. It was very Dr Seuss.... “We saw a Gnu in the Great Karoo, and an Oryx too.”. Such whimsical names for everything.

These are oryx.  Oryxs? They are the national animal of South Africa. 

Wellington (such a great name hey?)kicking back as we wait at a “Stop an Go”, which sadly isn’t a fast food restaurant, but rather a road construction delay. But a bad day at a road delay in the Great Karoo Desert is still 100% better than a good day at home. 😊. Our group was small enough that no one had to share a seat, so glorious! The bus had 7 double seats on each side, so everyone had lots of room for all their accoutrements.



There are termite mounds by the thousands, huge mounds that average up to 3 feet in height, some as high as 5-6 feet. Fun fact: the termite queen can live as long as 50 years. The aardvark (anteater)is their only predator, other than humans, and they (the anteaters) break the mound open and devour all the inhabitants, so if you see a mound with a large hole in the side, you know it’s empty. Termites are a great source of protein for people and are on many menus. A huge hole in the side of the mound makes it easy for a person to know that its not worthwhile looking for a termite colony and to move on to the next one.