We arrived safely in South Africa after pretty long flight. We were delayed in Melbourne due to thunderstorms then we had another 2hr delay in Sydney when someone was sick on the place and needed a doctor. Our flight path from Sydney to Jo'burg took us over Antarctica which was very cool to see.
We're staying in a hostel that is close to the airport, a few people told us not to stay too close to Jo'burg while we were here. I asked the hostel owner if Jo'burg was OK to visit during the day on foot, he said that was not a good ideas, he'd been mugged (well at least attempted) just last week for his mobile phone while he was driving, but instead he managed to make of with the muggers knife and didn't lose his phone. The knife now sits behind the bar.
On Saturday we went for a tour around Soweto. It wasn't really what I expected, there were quite a few homes that wouldn't look out of place in Melbourne and were probably worth a couple of million Rands. Of course there are areas where poverty is more visible, we went for a short walk through a shanty town where we got to meet some of the locals who were very friendly. We didn't feel un-safe at all (probably because they rely on the money from tourists). After Soweto we drove through Jo'burg - nothing to see there really.
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On Sunday morning we had a great idea to drive to Lethoso, but all the car hire places had massive excesses we needed to pay to drive that far in to another country. Instead we hired a car and drive just past Pretoria to the 'De Wildt Cheetah Park'. Its a smaller reserve that was one of the first places to breed Cheetahs in captivity, now they have about 10% of the world population. Although the Cheetahs are only about as big as a large dog, and very skinny, they were quite fierce. If you stare them in the eye for long enough they will hiss and stamp their paws in front of you! As soon as the guide and handler come near, they lie down and start to purr or meow like a little house cat because they know they're about to get food. Once the food is tossed over the wall they become wild again and fight for the food.
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To give the Cheetahs some exercise the park handlers tie lumps of meat to a little shuttle on a rail 9like at the greyhound track) and fire it off down a clearing, the Cheetahs can accelerate from 0 - 100km/h in 3 seconds, so they can catch it pretty quickly. As well as Cheetahs we saw Wild Dogs, Hyenas, lots of smaller species of native wild cats, Ostriches, Impala, and even a few small monkeys that steal food from the other animals (well, only the slower ones). Overall it was very cool to see these animals, we even got to pat a Cheetah. That night we stayed in Pretoria which was the first place that felt very dodgy. At least we had the car, but we made sure the doors were locked and windows were up!
Yesterday was Monday and unfortunately most of the cool things are closed on Monday's. We still had the car so we drove to Stekfontain Caves which is in a reserve called 'The Cradle of Human Life'. The caves that we walked through are absolutely massive (each cavern was the size of a cathedral or large hall) and contain the oldest bones of human ancestors ever found. The biggest find was in about 1997 (I think) and it was of a complete skeleton of a small child which they called 'Little Foot'. It was a pretty big find because it filled in an important gap in the evolution tree. The oldest bones that have been found have been dated to over 4 million years old, so people (or our ancestors at least) have been visiting, living, and hunting in the area for a very long time.
Today we're catching a bus to a place near Kruger. We then get to start our volunteer program. We've been told that we'll be helping to track and record lions in a reserve, so the next 2 weeks will be like one huge safari. Should be good!
