Our Safari in Mabula

Sunday evening, we packed, getting ready to leave Mt. Everest for the last time on Monday, March 2^nd.  The mission work is over, we’re on our way to Mabula, a game preserve and our Safari.  On the way, we stop and eat at a South African Chicken diner.  The food was fine, but all the food places run on South African time.  You order your meal, and sometime later it comes.  It may come in 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes.  There just weren’t any “fast food” places in South Africa.  If they were called that, they didn’t live up to their name.  We were able to eat outside, however, when the food came, along came the yellow jackets.  They really seemed to enjoy Andy’s meal, so he finally sat at another table to eat.

We arrived at Mabula at 4 pm.  They were waiting for us with cool drinks, cookies and a warm welcome.  What a surprise, to be greeted like that.  We got to our rooms, and regrouped and met at 4:30 for our evening safari.  We loaded into the vehicle and off we went.  We were able to see a young elephant, about 6 years old.  He was off by himself, but we were never able to get in front of him to see him walking towards us.  We saw many other animals, and enjoyed drinks at sunset on the African land.  As you watch the pictures, you can see the names of the animals at the bottom of the pictures. 

Then we came back and had dinner at 8.  There were 7 different kinds of meat which we could pick and they would barbeque it there for us.  It was open, so we could go back as many times as we wanted, so we were able to sample many things.  Then a group came out and did a show for us, and they picked Andy and Becca to help them perform.  Can you tell which ones they are?  Don’t they both fit in well? 

Tuesday we’re awake at 4:45 am, and meet the rest of the group and load up for our morning safari.  This morning, we see more of the animals, get closer to some, but we don’t see any elephants.  We do, however, see where one has been.  You can see how we know that in the pictures.  The one animal that really impressed me was the giraffe.  It was huge.  It had to have been at least 24 feet tall.  We don’t have anything to compare it with, but we were sitting up 8 feet off the ground, and that is where I took the picture. 

 Then we packed and stopped at a street market.  While there, we noticed a seller who was wearing a cross necklace.  Marty asked him what the cross meant, and he said, “I am a believer in Jesus Christ.”  We had a uplifting chat with Patrick.  How nice it was to find a believer who shared his faith with us. 

Then off to another street market where Becca got stung by a hornet.  Then we got Margaret to the airport and checked in.  Then we dropped Greg and Muriel off at their hotel.  They spent another 10 days in South Africa, flying to the Cape and then back to Kruger State Park for 4 days of safari.