South Africa, Jes, and Puppies!!!

 Hey guys, we know we know, it’s been a long time since a blog post. Hopefully this will help make up for it. I am going to attach a few pictures with some captions to show what we have been up to lately. The highlights are obviously the visit from my parents, the visit from Jes, and, maybe unkown to many people, the birth of 5 puppies. Yep, Thika is officially a father and it’s a good thing that we are here to help raise them a little bit because as you would imagine, Thika just stays on his chair. Nothing has changed for him. I will definitely be attaching some photos of them as well. But first, here are some photos from our trip with my parents to Kruger and Cape Town!

 

Here are my parents standing in front of a place called Bourke’s Luck Potholes. This is a spot in the Mpumalunga Valley where whirlpools form holes in the rock that have the appearance of a pot hole. It is a really beautful spot along a stretch of road they call the Panorama Drive.

Here are a few pictures of different animals that we saw in Kruger. Obviously, we saw an incredible amount of animals while at the park but I just picked a few photos that I enjoyed to share with you. Unfortunately, we have no photos of lions. Jordan and I are looking like we are going to go the full two years without seeing any lions.   We may have one or two game drives left in Gorongosa though, so you all need to cross your fingers for us!!

This is a cool picture that Jordan got of a Giraffe checking us out from behind a tree.

Nothing like a group of hippos sunbathing themselves a bank. Jordan was especially happy to see the hippo calf there in the front. Jordan has a belief that all baby animals are cute, no matter what, but the hippo definitely challenges that belief.

Here is a flattering photo of hippo for you all.

This is a photo of a Nyala, in my opinion, one of the most interesting antelope-like animal the parks have. Check out the stripes and ears on that thing.

Here is another cool antelope-like animal. This is a Kudu. While in cape town, I had the opportunity to try eating some Kudu. I had a Kuda and Impala stew. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell the difference between the two once they were stewed but I hear that Kudu is a bit tougher then Impala. Either way, it was delicious.

We were fortunate to encounter a herd of buffalo crossing the street. There must have been hundreds of them. We were waiting for awhile as they crossed and a bunch had already crossed before we even got there. It was a pretty cool experience.

Here was an elephant that we were lucky that Jordan spotted when we were doing our own personal game drive. Up until this point, we hadn’t really seen an elephant close up so my parents were really excited to encounter this one. We were snapping all kinds of photos and enjoying the moment when this guy walked out of the trees….

This guy, had to be, and still is, the largest elephant that I have seen here. He was enormous. Words can’t even come close to describing how big he was. After this guy came out of the trees, my dad wanted to get a good view and take some photos so he switched the car off, which caused me to immediately remember our experience with Jordan’s parents when the elephant charged us so I quickly suggested to keep it running. Good thing too because he clearly was not too thrilled about our presence. After coming out of the trees, he followed us down the road for a bit, flapping his ears. It was definitely one of the highlights of the trip.

Another highlight of the trip was when we had the chance to ride elephants. We got to spend about an hour hanging out with the elephants and learning all about them and then another 30 min riding them. We got to see how truly incredible the memory of an elephant is. There were about 8 of us that got to meet one of the elephants and feed him food while the trainer repeated each of our names four times. After the interaction and ride was finished, the last activity was to bring all of us out and have us stand in a new order and see who the elephant remembered. The trainer would take a hat and set it on the ground and then tell the elephant to pick up the hat and hand it to someone. He got all 8 of us correct. It was pretty amazing.

This was a classic moment of the trip. I don’t even have to say much about it. Just look at the look on my mom’s face. I am proud of her though, it was a big step…good job mom!!

After Kruger, we then flew to Cape Town for the last part of the trip. Everything that Jordan and I heard about Cape Town being one of the most amazing places on earth was definitely true. It was a pretty amazing experience seeing how different Cape Town is from, well pretty much everywhere else.

This is a photo of the waterfront. In the background is the clock tower where you can find the boat to Robben Island. Robben Island is where Nelson Mandela spent much of life as a prisoner. We were lucky to actually go on Nelson Mandela’s birthday and it was fun seeing everyone so excited that it was “Madiba’s” birthday. For those that aren’t familiar with his story, I really suggest looking it up. It is pretty amazing.

 

These photos are of us overlooking the Cape of Good Hope. The Cape of Good Hope is sometimes confused as the southermost point of Africa but it is in fact just the Southwesternmost point. However, it is a pretty cool experience to be there at the edge of such a huge continent.

No trip to Africa would be complete without seeing the penguins right….

Our last full day in Cape Town, we went wine tasting in the Stellenbosch region. When we saw that the Jordan winery was located there we obviously had to make a stop. They had very good wine but it was a little on the expensive side, sound familiar…

And then Jes came…

This is Jes and Jordan with our friend Emily Kremser, also an Oregonian. We stick together.

Like we do with all visitors that have come to visit us, we had to take Jes to Vilunkulos, our nearest beach. We stayed really busy there with snorkeling and horseback riding. Here is Jes anxiously waiting for her horse to start trotting.

Here is my lounging in a hammock at the beach talking to my parents about buying our plane ticket for coming home. It was a big moment for us. It seems so much closer now that we have our tickets home.

After the beach we then went to the park at Gorongosa to go on a few game drives. We were able to go on a morning drive as well as a sundowners. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see as many elephants or lions as I would have hoped but here are a few of the park’s staples that we got to see a lot of:

The infamous warthog!

This is a saddle-billed stork. He was fishing at this moment.

These guys are water bucks. I love the white ring around their backsides.

While at the park, we stayed with friend’s to save money so we had to sleep on the floor and I couldn’t resist taking a photo of Jordan in the bed that she made for herself. In her words, “it’s cozy.”

And on to the puppies! Upon return to site after travelling with Jes, we came home to a very, very, pregnant Shindi. Shindi, by the way, is Thika’s girlfriend. She has been coming around for awhile now and that is when we realized that she was pregnant. Jordan thinks that she waited for us to return to have the puppies but I think that it was probably just a coincidence. Either way, the day after we returned, she gave birth to 5 little girls.

 

Here is Jordan checking on Shindi and the puppies before she heads to class. It has become a common occurrence for us before and after class.

Shindi trying to make space for all 5 pups to nurse at the same time. These are hungry little girls.

Here is a close-up of the one puppy who has yet to be named. We were hoping for some assistance from the family back home. We will open the floor to any good ideas. As it stands now, we call her no-name.

Shindi in a little bucket with her puppies. Jordan had put them in the bucket so she could clean their room and Shindi couldn’t help but climb in there with them.

They couldn’t help but climb all over their mother.

Getting a much needed rest from all the eating and squealing.

And for good measure, gotta give the dad a shout out as well. Thika decided to climb up into the bench at a local restuarant with me. Good thing the people like us there and put up with Thika’s ridiculousness.

Well, that is all I got for now. I hope you guys enjoyed the photos and terse descriptions. We miss you all and are getting really excited to come home in 3 months. For a more exact countdown, feel free to contact Lauren Bryan or my mother. See you all soon!!!

Brian and Jordan

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