Adventures of MonkeyHouse: South Africa, Thulani & A Spring of Hope

This last (very long) blog post encompasses all of week two of our trip - unique in its own right as we spent the entire week in a single location. A quick bit of background - in summer of 2021, Damon & I attended a fundraising event for the Friendship Gardens in LaPorte, IN hosted by close family friends. The final auction item was a one week stay in a private villa in Hoedspruit, South Africa - just outside of Kruger National Park. Damon made the mistake of going to get dessert just before bidding started, and I raised my paddle until we "won" the auction. The villa, named "Thulani" supports A Spring of Hope - a charity that provides money to improve schools in South Africa by providing access to water and sanitation facilities, school gardens, and health and wellness programs.

Day 10 - Thulani

Our flight from Nairobi to Johannesberg landed after midnight (including the one hour time change), so by the time we got to our hotel room and went to sleep, it felt like 3am. We only slept a few hours (damn 5:30am wake-ups), had a leisurely breakfast, showered and walked to check-in for our next flight (our hotel was inside the airport). Our 1pm flight was only about 35 minutes to Hoedspruit, South Africa. The Hoedspruit airport/air strip was a former air force base, so it was large relative to the other places we’ve landed - and it had a concrete runway! Our driver, Lucky, was waiting and brought us to our new home for the next week – Thulani.

Our stay at the villa included a private chef and a private driver, available for game drives whenever we wanted. We knew the house had 5-bedrooms, and to all the people we invited to join us here who decided not to come, boy did you miss out!!! Thulani is affiliated with A Spring of Hope non-profit that goes to supporting local schools. We will be visiting the school as part of our package later this week.

It is hard to give Thulani it’s due in words, so I videoed the entire grounds, this is just the inside.

Inside the main house are three gorgeous bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room, living room, and sitting room. The sitting room has 180 degrees of floor to ceiling windows looking out into the bush.

Front of house, our trusty cruiser, and Kelvin

View of yard from back window

Livingroom & Fireplace, and whiskey

(Side note: Damon is currently standing in the window playing monkey-see, monkey-do with a baby monkey just outside).

Monkeys grooming on porch in front of window

Not sure who is watching whom...

Hey dad - the humans are out - let's watch them!

Outside, there is a full BBQ fire pit, full dining area, private pool, and several seating areas both shaded and not shaded, and an upstairs deck with two massage tables where the masseurs will come from town for our massages. There is also a watering hole to attract animals – and it works. As I type this, there are monkeys on the deck looking through the window at us! We were warned to keep the doors always closed because the monkeys like to get in the house and grab food. So far, just from the window, we’ve seen many different antelope, monkeys and wart hogs at the water hole, and an enormous giraffe (Peter) on the front driveway.

Other critters on the driveway

Peter on the front driveway

Critters at the water hole

Warthog at the water hole

Nyala - always grazing

The house is stocked everywhere with self-serve food and beverages – fridge filled with beer, pop, water; snack closet with everything imaginable, table with baked goodies and candy. Did I mention we are currently the ONLY people in the house? Supposedly another couple joining us Tuesday – they will stay in the 2-bedroom guesthouse.

The grounds are difficult to fully explain - Thulani is part of a private game reserve called Moditlo Private Game Reserve - about 10 square miles in total - containing about 110 private residences and 1-2 lodges. Think private gated community, only with predators. The reserve contains "the big five" plus all other animals you would expect to see. I think it is maybe missing hippos and crocs. We are not allowed to walk around outside the house alone. The houses are not close together, but you definitely know they are there as you drive around. About 20 of the houses are occupied year round, the rest are vacation homes. Admittedly, the grounds are more developed than we were hoping, but I guess we will see!

After we settled in and unpacked, we went out for an evening game drive with Kelvin. The grounds here are much different from what we were used to in the Serengeti & Kenya. There is no off-roading, and you cannot drive onto the private property of individual homes, even if there are animals. There seem to be a lot of roads we can take and very few cars.

There are signs of civilization here – directional signage, electrical wiring, there is a train that runs along one side of the perimeter, which has electrified fencing to keep animals in (or out).

Electric fence surrounds EVERY game park

We also border another private reserve – usually they let animals wander between reserves, but the other reserve is predator free so people can walk outside there; however, apparently the leopards know how to get under the fence, so they go back and forth. Does one leopard in 12,000 hectares still mean I would walk around? Hella NO!

On our game drive, we saw the usual suspects – giraffe, zebra, warthogs, all sorts of antelope, a couple lions from a distance eating a wildebeest, wildebeest, etc. – but nowhere near the concentration or numbers that we’ve seen the last few days.

Lion in background eating a wildebeest (I spared you the close-up)

Just some zeebies in the road

My goal is always to see elephants – there is supposedly one family of about 25 that stick together – find one, you find them all. We searched in vain for a while until it was completely dark, and we were driving back to the house for dinner. It will never cease to amaze me how the guides here can quickly scan an are with a hand held spotlight and say – “there is a tree full of baboons” “there is a giraffe” “There is the wildebeest that the lions killed earlier today” – I can’t even see half the stuff when it has been pointed out AND the light is shining on it!

As we were driving back, I commented, “well, I guess the elephants are on vacation today”. No sooner did the words leave my mouth when we heard a bunch of crashing and crunching next to us. Kelvin put the flashlight on the brush and BOOM, the entire herd of elephants just a few feet from us.

Content with our sightings, we were back at the house where Charlene (our ROCKING chef) had a delicious meal waiting for us – fried chicken and pasta with veges with home made cake and ice cream for dessert. I can already tell that I’m leaving here 10lbs. heavier. Charlene’s food is Ah-mazing. After dinner, we sunk into our super comfy bed for a glorious night of sleep. The next 6 days are going to be awesome.

Days 11-12 - Thulani & The Panorama Tour

Today is mostly a relax day, but we did have a 5:30am wake-up to hit the game drive early. It was chilly but expected to hit 103 degrees today. Pool day! The game drive was the usual suspects. We did see a lion neck deep in the wildebeest carcass we saw last night and lots of giraffe. We were hunting for leopards after another group spotted one, but the brush is so thick, we couldn’t find it. Back at the house, we had breakfast – homemade brioche French toast, sausage, fruit and yogurt with fresh juice and coffee. I’m normally not a foodie poster but damn the food here is delish.

Currently sitting in the front lounge writing while monkeys play all around us outside the windows. The day ended up being super hot - we hung outside on the back deck reading and watching animals, enjoyed a light lunch outside, and then the heat hit. We moved inside, watched monkeys in the window, read, wrote blog notes, read, watched warthogs, Nyala (antelope-y animals) and monkeys play in the pool. Read some more, decided it was definitely too hot for an evening game drive (still 102 degrees at 5pm), read, wrote, posted, ate dinner, watched a movie, went to sleep. After the last week of non-stop movement and excitement, we so needed a few days of rest and are loving every second of it. And if you are counting, that is lots of meals and snacks, and a total of about 11 steps today.

***

In a strange twist reminiscent of Chicago weather, the temperature dropped about 50 degrees overnight. We woke up to very cold and very windy and very gray outside. Lucky (our tour driver) came to pick us up at 9am, so after we had another wonderful and huge breakfast (thank you Charlene), we were off. Just as we were getting ready to walk out the door, I saw a flash of movement in the kitchen and watched in shock as a little monkey jumped onto the cookie counter where three containers with cookies, biscotti and chocolate reside. The monkey skipped the enormous fruit bowl and went for the biscotti. A monkey after my own heart.

Monkey in da house

Little dude tried mightily to get it open to no avail. I’m yelling for help and finally went outside to grab Kelvin, “there’s a monkey in the house!” This seems to be a not uncommon occurrence, so Kelvin came in and shooed him out the window he had jumped in from. These little monkeys are not a huge problem, baboons on the other hand are apparently mean, destructive and stupid and can't find their way out of the house without destroying everything. Thankfully, we haven’t seen many of those around here.

A two-hour drive through miles and miles of orange and mango trees later, we were in the mountains on the "Panorama Tour" – hitting four interesting viewpoints and geologic structures. The first stop was the Three Rondevals. It was COLD and incredibly windy. The view was nice even in the clouds. Signs said this canyon is the third largest in the world. The wind was a bit much so after a quick view, we were off to the next stop – Bourke's Luck Potholes.

Cool View - one rondeval in lower right corner

Damon on a rock

Windy. Rondevals in the background!

The Potholes area turned out to be much less windy – we went down where it was more protected – and, the area was gorgeous, a serious of natural swirly holes and caverns carved out by rocks and water.

Cool geology

We are hiking!

Swirly holes

Bourke's supermodel

We were allowed to hike around the area (first time "free" walking since we arrived in Africa!) without worrying about escorts, spears, flashlights, or animals eating us. We enjoyed checking everything out for about an hour and then hopped in the car for our third stop. Third stop, the Lisbon Waterfall, was quick but offered two waterfalls.

Waterfalls!

We also used the opportunity to support the locals and bought a carved wooden elephant. Because, of course, I am all about the elephants!

We stopped in a local restaurant where I safely ordered pasta with chicken and Damon ordered (to my horror) Zebra kabobs.

Bad Damon. Eating Zebra

Zebra, or Zeebies as I refer to them, are maybe my second most favorite animal out here. And there he was, chomping away on one. Bad Damon. He forced me against my will to take a miniscule bite – tasted like pork. During lunch, Lucky told us about a previous gig working catering for a film logisitics company. He catered to Celine Dion, Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio, and a few other big names. He called out Tom Cruise because Tom paid for the entire crew of 350 people to have a day off and enjoy one of the nearby game parks. Pretty cool if you ask me.

Our fourth stop, Window of the Gods, was, unfortunately, closed due to the weather. Our understanding is that it is a view of the whole area/valley from the top of the mountains. Given the clouds and wind, we figured there would be nothing to see and we heard from another guide that it was either closed or not worth it, so we skipped it.

We arrived home around 4pm, in time to meet the new guests who had arrived earlier in the day – Jeanette and Greg, from Florida. They had a 2-day delay due to flight cancellations and their luggage has yet to arrive. They went on the evening game drive (this is their first time in South Africa), and we were like, nope, we’ve been in a car all day and it is cold as balls outside. When they came back (frozen, with few sightings), we had another wonderful dinner, sat by the fireplace, chatted, and retired to bed.

Day 13 - Spring of Hope

Early morning wake-up at 5:30 for our 6am game drive. My goal was, as always, to find the elephants. It was still relatively chilly outside, so after no good sightings after an hour or so, we were cool with heading back. Apparently in the cold weather, the animals mostly hunker down. We saw so many animals in the Serengeti and Kenya, that anything here is just bonus and we don’t mind our reading and relaxing time.

Reading by the fire, breakfast, reading by the fire, writing, all to prepare us for a late morning massage. Yes, I know, rough life. The masseuses come to the house and typically use the massage chairs on the upper deck outside, but given the weather, the coach house was heated for us as the other couple opted to stay in the main house with us, and the massage was in there. We had a fantastic 90-minute massage, showered, and prepared to visit the school our auction/donation supported.

Reminder, we are at the villa because of a fundraiser auction back in 2021. The money raised went partially to fund the Friendship Gardens in LaPorte, and partially to the Spring of Hope foundation, which funds local schools in South Africa. Part of our package included a visit to one of the schools to see how the money is being used.

It is hard to fully describe this experience, but I’ll try. Driving to the school, we could see “progress” – tons of partially built cinderblock structures. I don’t know if people lived in them, but by our standards, they were unlivable. There was garbage everywhere – thousands upon thousands of green beer bottles on the sides of the road. Both intact and broken. The roads were mostly dirt and the grounds were mostly sand.

We learned that Spring of Hope was started when one woman, JoAnne, visited the area about 20 years ago and wanted to help. Long story short, she was eventually connected with a school where the principal was willing to hear her out. What started as just buying shoes for kids turned into funding a regular water supply for the school to building out the school, to increasing food programs to building/improving 45 schools in the area. The basics – food, water, shoes – that was what she was trying to bring.

The schools are attempting programs to help boys and girls understand respect, have girls understand more about pregnancy and how to avoid it, and other basic programs to help them in life. The school we visited held about 900 kids up to 7^th grade. The principal wasn’t sure how many students because the government only counts “documented” children, not those who are not recognized by the government, presumably because they are too poor to have birth certificates. He was guessing they had about 100 of those kids. The kids were all in a sort of uniform – black pants or skirts and white shirts.

We visited the “kitchen” comprised of an empty concrete room with three huge metal vats attached to propane pipes. That is where they cooked one meal a day for 900 kids. For some kids, potentially their only meal. We saw the vegetable garden where the kids are learning how to grow vegetables both so they can have more nutrition and so they can learn how to grow food themselves. There were chickens running around so the kids can have eggs once per week. They had 2 toilets, but not enough water to flush them. Not sure what the kids did about that. Each classroom held 50-60 kids. We visited one room – it was a madhouse. I don’t know how kids can learn, but it was overflowing and had only one teacher, but kids were writing on the chalkboard trying to learn. We didn’t take pictures because it seemed odd.

About the kids – while they do have visitors somewhat regularly, we were definitely an attraction. They would hide behind objects and we could hear them chattering about us. The boldest would jump out and yell ‘HELLO!” and then run away. Then a few more would jump out and yell "HELLO". They followed us everywhere. Once I started high fiving them, it was game over. They lined up to high five with huge smiles on their faces loving the attention.

Then our guide started a chant with them, we think she was chanting “do what I do” and they responded “I do”. Whatever we did, they would follow – jumping around and dancing. They loved it! So did we.

The high fives continued, and then the hand holding started. Any time my hand was free, a little hand would grab it. Then the hugging started. Hug one kid and they all just piled in for hugs with the biggest smiles. One after another, running in to be in the hug group. It was amazing. Some of the shyer kids would stand off to the side, but if you invited them to the hug group, they came running. A perfect example of how kids just want to be noticed, loved, and included.

Hugs all around!

Smile!

The entirety of a library for 900 kids

Eventually, we had to peel ourselves aware from the group and waved at everyone from the car as we left. A lot of kids were getting out of school(s) at this time, and we saw hundreds of kids walking home on the side of the road. Some kids were barefoot, and I kept thinking about those beer bottles. I honestly don’t now how or if this will change me moving forward – it is easy to go back to our cushy life, but I think and hope that Damon and I will find new ways to give back. As JoAnne has proved, one person can make a big difference in the lives of so many.

We opted not to go on the evening game drive as it was a bit chilly out, so we relaxed by the fire, enjoyed our millionth amazing meal, and went to bed early. Again.

Day 14 - Bush Walk

Today was a brutal wake-up – 4:40am for our 5am pick-up to go to our bush walk! For the first time in almost 2 weeks, we will get to walk in the bush instead of riding in a cruiser! My tush is thankful. Our guides for this morning, Michael and Lynne, are, best guess, mid-60’s and have been married for 30-some odd years (they couldn’t remember) – ironic since today is Damon and my 10-year wedding anniversary. Woot woot! They drove us to a private reserve where we spent a solid 20 minutes trying to figure out how to check in with an electronic gadget. Boomers. Am I right?

We were the only ones in the park, not surprising since it was still the butt crack of dawn. We paused at a huge termite mound and Lynne mentioned that she had heard there might be wild dogs nesting in the mound. Wild dogs are generally very difficult to find – there are very few, maybe only 400 or so in the area. We didn’t see any activity and started to drive away when my eagle-eyes spotted movement and it was a wild dog! We had been at the wrong termite mound. We were rewarded with an amazing treat – two wild dogs AND their two little babies. We watched the pups play with mom and munch on a kill we could not see. The parents seemed like they wanted to go out and hunt, but wouldn’t leave while we were still there, so we moved on. Awesome first sighting and we were not even hiking yet!

Dad keeping an eye out

Playful pups

Termite mound house

We opted to not hike there, you know, wild dogs hunting for prey and all, and eventually found a good spot. I hopped out of the cruiser and saw Michael was loading his elephant rifle along with a holster filled with spare bullets.

The elephant gun

He showed the bullets to us and explained that they were a caliber that could take down a charging elephant - each bullet was roughly the size of my index finger. He did say, he had fired to kill only one time in ten years - had to take down a charging elephant - one shot to the brain :(

Nature hikes in the bush consist of a lot of looking down – at poop, footprints/trails and plants. We spent a strange of time investigating fresh buffalo poop. Michael would nudge each pile of poop we came across with his toe to determine how fresh it was. That, along with fresh hoof prints led us to a group of grazing buffalo. Michael: “Oh, look, they noticed us!” Me, while one main buffalo is staring us down: “Aren’t they the most dangerous animal of the big five? Do we want them noticing us?” Lynn: “Let’s see if we can get closer, which way is the wind blowing” (we walk) (six buffalo are staring us down) Michael: “Oh, the wind changed, I guess they know we are coming”. Lynne “this looks like a good place for coffee”. Me: "Yeah, perfect spot - six buffalo staring us down in ramming distance." The buffalo: "we are out of here" and they ran away.

Just some buffalo behind us

What are you looking at??

With no buffalo to stare at, we continued walking and eventually found some rocks where we could have coffee and chat and, from an elevated perch, easily see our surroundings. We walked to a lake looking for more animals, but no one was there. We tracked lion prints in the sand, so fresh that Michael pinned the location in the chat app everyone uses to track animals. I was walking with my head on a swivel thinking, if we are tracking a lion, should we maybe be looking up and around rather than down at the ground??? Not to ruin the ending, but we did not find the lion and we were not eaten.

Pic from our rocky perch

Just a walk in the predator infested bush

Our fearless guides

Eventually, we got back in the cruiser, went to a lake and found some elephants – we had to wait around because (this is gross), the male had a constant drip as he was in male heat (I forgot the actual word). Michael wanted us to smell it. What? Ew. Truly, they were wonderful guides and shared a lot of knowledge with us.

I am definitely not breathing here

We returned to the house for a late breakfast and spent most of the afternoon lounging outside as the temps finally started to warm up. I spent a lot of time watching the water hole – we had countless Nyala come through, and at one point, seven warthogs were all drinking at the same time. Not exciting game, but fun to watch regardless.

Seven warthogs lined up

But wait, the excitement isn't over yet!

While I was relaxing outside with my headphones in, I hear frantic banging on the window. I look over and Damon is furiously summoning me and yelling “rhino!” I am barefoot, I run through the house throwing everything in my hands - earpods, ipad, sunglasses - everywhere and run out the front door with Damon & Charlene (our chef), who still has her cooking apron on. Kelvin threw Charlene the keys to the cruiser and tells us where the rhino is while he jumps into another truck to go throw out garbage. Charlene, not an expert in manual driving a '95 land cruiser, can’t get us going, so Damon jumps into the driver’s seat and off we go.

Driving in the "wild" with no experienced guide!

We find the rhino about 1 minute away – it was on private property, so we couldn’t get too close. We were jockeying for good position on the main road and backed into the brush to get a better view.

We've seen a couple rhino before, but this one, hands down, the biggest rhino I've ever seen (white rhino). In this reserve, they cut the horns off the rhinos to discourage poaching (poachers kill the rhinos to get the horns), but the horns do eventually grow back.

Close enough!

Big boy

The rhino stands up, slowly, and slowly turns around, locks eyes with us, and starts to move toward us. If you read my previous post, rhinos move fast and are aggressive, and again, this is one big mofo rhino. Charlene and I start screaming “go go go go go!”, Damon whips the car into gear, starts to pull forward, and then rhino stops. Not ones to miss a good animal sighting, we yellat Damon to “STOP– it is okay! We're good”. We stop. The rhino starts coming at us, we start screaming again “go go go go go!” That was enough - especially for Charlene. We left and the rhino turned back around and plopped back on the ground. Enough adrenaline for mid-afternoon and we went home.

Damon & Charlene

At 4pm, Kelvin took us out on our afternoon/sundowner game drive. We saw “our” rhino in the distance – he had mostly stayed in the area. Happy with our rhino sighting, we carried on. And then we saw another (different) white rhino in the brush. We angled for a better view, but he was tucked pretty far back. So we kept going. Then we saw a THIRD (different) male rhino – this time, it was drinking from a fountain maybe 20 yards in front of someone’s front window. One rhino sighting is good – but three??? We followed this rhino (at a distance) as it slowly meandered through the brush. Kelvin parked us in the road where he thought the rhino would pop out. Sure enough, the rhino comes sauntering out of the brush and walks across the road right in front of us. Our best rhino sighting yet!

And crossing right in front of us (notice no horns)

Rhino emerging

We carried on and found a mama giraffe with her one-month-old baby – with the umbilical cord still visible. The baby was hiding, so we didn’t get a clear look. As we were looking for more to see, we passed a truck and the driver told us they had seen “wild dogs at the little Africa gate”. Kelvin told us that there are/were only two known wild dogs in this private reserve, and he hadn’t seen them in three years - so this was a big deal. We quickly headed to the location where they were last spotted and saw a pile up of about six cruisers in the vicinity. Because the reserve is private, it has been rare to see more than one or two cruisers anywhere, so seeing six was definitely unusual. Just as we pulled up, everyone started to disperse, no wild dogs. The next 20-30 minutes were comical.

The majority of buildings in this reserve are privately owned with only one or two lodges. A wild dog sighting is rare and it was posted on the neighborhood chat and EVERYONE came out looking. All of the cruisers were the locals all out running around trying to find the dogs - two dogs in ten square miles. Cars were driving haphazardly everywhere with people pointing and directing. “did you see them? Did you see them? I think they are headed in XYZ direction!” There is also a What'sApp chat board for animal sightings.

Kelvin used his tracker instincts, and we went in a different direction. He was watching the impala. Were they calm? Were they visible? Were they hiding? As we were approaching a dry riverbed crossing, we see an impala bolt across the road in front of us, so we turn in that direction quickly. Next thing you know, impala being chased by a single wild dog up the riverbed and they crossed right in front of us! They were there and gone in a flash. But I count that as having seen it. Boom.

We continued to look for the dogs, but the sun set quickly, and it gets dark fast. We finally called it quits and went home where we enjoyed a fabulous anniversary dinner with our Florida housemates, whose luggage finally showed up! Early to bed as we have another early wake-up for our last full day here (sad face).

Thulani's anniversary gift to us!

Day 15 - Last Day & Target Shooting

Last day! Woke up at 5am because I thought there was a monkey in our room. Woke Damon and made him turn on the light. No monkey. Officially got up at 5:30 for our final morning game drive. By 6am, the sun was already almost up, but it was still cold outside. We bundled in our warmest clothes and blankets knowing that in a few hours, we will be in shorts and t-shirts as it should get into the 90’s.

Our first sighting was the mama and baby giraffe from yesterday – this time, a much better view! We OOOH’d and AAAH’d, and then started the cruiser, which scared the baby, who ran away like a gawky teen.

Mama and baby giraffe

I’m always looking for elephants, Kelvin is always looking for leopards, and Damon is scanning for who knows what. We found no elephants and we found no leopards.

Driving up the road, we see movement ahead of us – just a female lion walking up the road right toward us! She is walking casually, kind of looking at us, saunters up right next to the cruiser (thankfully Damon’s side), stops right next to Damon (about four feet away), pauses for a moment (at this point, all I can think of is, if she turns and lunges at us, will Damon take the hit or will he duck and I’ll get a lion in my face???), she is staring directly at us. She wiggles her haunches a little and I'm thinking, damn, she is about to eat us. She turns back, still paused, takes a huge poop, and then causally continues on her walk. Not sure what message she was sending, but since it did not involve eating us, all good. We followed her up the road until she turned into the brush (thankfully in the opposite direction of the baby giraffe), until eventually we lost her.

Close encounter

We spent the next hour or two following leopard tracks – a lot of activity, but no sightings. Then we did the same with rhino tracks, with no luck. Happy with our two good sightings, we went home for breakfast.

Our big activity today was supposed to be going into Hoedspruit and shopping. Since neither Damon nor I are even the slightest bit into shopping, we changed things up and made plans to meet up with Michael & Lynne (our bush walk guides from yesterday). The plan was for them to take us to a shooting range where we could try out their elephant guns. For anyone who knows guns, they had two guns - the "small" one was a .375 and the"big" one was .458. Their only purpose is to kill a charging elephant with a single shot. The bullets, again, were the size of my index finger.

One bullet can take down a charging elephant

We get to the range - this was totally informal - no training, no safety briefing, they just put up the target, handed us the guns (they held the bullets), we all put on ear protection and BOOM. Damon went first with 3 shots - nailed the outer bullseye each time (he trains regularly at a range). I go in like, yeah, I can do this. Lynne is much older than me and I've seen video of her cranking shots and reloading in seconds. I lift the gun, which is MUCH heavier than expected. I sort of attempt to line it up to the target. BOOM. I hit the 8 1/2" x 11" piece of paper that the bullseye was on! Success in my book.

Guns are heavier than they look

Damon's first 3 shots on bullseye vs my first two shots on the paper!

The gun definitely had kick. I was up for another shot. Lined that sucker up and BOOM. Hit the paper again, but the kickback was brutal. I knew immediately I had done some damage to my arm (judging by the "oh sh*t, I'm done" that immediately came out of my mouth. It is one week later as I write this and I still have a purple and green bruise roughly the size of the butt of a rifle on my upper arm.

One day later

Damon took a few more shots nailing the bullseye each time. He even hit a little balloon tied to a string in one shot. Color me impressed!

We got back th the villa in time for our final game drive. This time, our housemates, Jeanette and Greg, joined us. Side note - by this point we had learned that they are somewhat famous, having their own TLC reality show about their transgender daughter. Interesting people fighting a big battle - even bigger given they live in Florida. They've been in the white house, met the President (Obama), been on Oprah, Barbara Walters, among others - kind of cool. They seemed totally normal and I never would have known if it hadn't sort of come up in conversation naturally.

Our final game drive was a total bust. No leopard. No elephants. We did come across some friendly giraffe who graciously posed for nice sunset pictures.

Just a couple giraffe in the road

Not edited...

Our final dinner was cooked by Kelvin - a BBQ with enough meat for 35 people cooked in the outdoor pit.

BBQ in the dark with predators

We invited Charlene, Kelvin & Lucky to have dinner with us and enjoyed lively conversation. Kelvin put out some of the scraps for "whatever" to come eat in the backyard - they guaranteed a civet would show up (fun fact: apparently people pay extra for coffee beans that have been eaten and then pooped out by a civet). The civet showed up. We watched it eat but did not search for coffee beans.

The civet

For our final morning farewell, the mama and baby giraffe wandered into the back yard. Baby was hiding and was easily spooked, but really - how often do you get a giraffe in your backyard ???