Grassroot Soccer Internship: Safari!!!

So, I had been bugging Lindsay and Hooter about going to see rhinos at a nearby national park and they finally gave in this weekend. Although the park, called Mokala, has many other animals, I was most excited to see the rhinos. In second grade, when we learned about endangered animals, the rhino was my favorite and this was finally my chance to see one!

Before even entering the park, we spotted these zebra and I immediately hopped out to snap their pictures. They're gorgeous and I couldn't believe how close they were!

One of the best parts of the park was that there were barely any other people visiting. We only ran into one other car during our drive, which lasted over three hours. Another fun part was that we didn't need a guide and were able to drive ourselves. The first animal we saw once we entered the park was a Kudu. Kudu are giant and quite impressive with their huge, squirrely horns.

And then we saw warthogs! I was reminded simultaneously of The Lion King, and my Beagle, Lucy. Needless to say, the warthogs can run a lot faster than Lucy.

We also got extremely close to a group of probably almost one hundred buffalo. At first, I was really excited and then, quickly got scared as one just a few meters from the car started to stare us down. Only later did we learn that out of the Big Five (elephant, lion, leopard, rhino, and buffalo), the buffalo kills the most people per year. So glad I learned that after the fact. Fortunately it never charged and we cruised past the rest of them, completely in awe.

We also saw a lot of these animals, which are pictured on the license plates in the Northern Cape (the province that Kimberley is in).

Towards the end of the afternoon, I became pretty convinced that we wouldn't see any rhino. I tried not to be disappointed since we'd already seen a ton of animals. But suddently, Hooter spotted one! It wasn't very close, but it was definitely a rhino. I hopped out of the car for a better look and sure enough, there were two larger rhinos with their baby off in the distance.

Although we didn't see the rhinos as well and as close as I'd hope, we'd still seen rhinos. I definitely didn't need to see any other animals after that. But soon enough, we found a beautiful herd of giraffes, which was probably next on my list after rhinos and zebra. Their bodies were larger than I had imagined, yet their colors were stunning.

Last but not least, we almost ran over this little guy on the way out. He was too cute to pass up, although he was terrified of me and scurried away as fast as possible.