SAFARI: giraffes, zebras, rhinos, two standoffs with elephants, and more!

Below we have added a ton of pictures from our safari weekend!  I have TONS more and have posted a bunch on my facebook as well as a SUPER cool video of an elephant!  I don't even know where to start because it was such an AMAZING experience!!!! On top of being an amazing experience, it was great to just leave homework behind (no matter how much we had) so that we couldn't worry about it while we were away!  So we left Friday morning at 8 a.m. and had about a 4 hour drive to the place we were staying at.  We got there mid-day, dropped off our bags where we were staying (the cutest little cottages ever) and immediately went out and started safari.  We saw all kinds of animals the first day: impala (look like deer), monkeys, giraffes, rhino, buffalo, zebra, tons of birds, and a few more things.  We were super excited to be out and seeing all of these animals so up close and personal.  Then we ate dinner at a restaurant of the place we were staying at and it was amazing!  The food they had there was SOO good!! (especially the breakfast)  We ate all of our meals from this restaurant during our stay there.  We woke up at 5 a.m. the next morning and went out again to look for animals.  We really wanted to see lions and elephants this day.  So we went out and didn't have a ton of luck most of the beginning on this day.  So at around 4:00, we saw an elephant butt sticking out of some bushes.  We were all super excited so I asked our tour guide if we could wait until he came out!  I needed a picture because my 3 year old cousin really wanted one of an elephant (and so did we!!).  Anyways, our tour guide said it might be too long because the elephant was eating.  We parked our car and saw that the elephant was making his way out the other side of the bushes so we drove over here and parked.  The elephant began to emerge out of the bushes and our tour guide is telling us to be extremely quiet and not to move.  The elephant came up maybe five feet away from our car, stared at us, made this huge loud HUFFING noise and shook his head so that his ears flopped all over.  It was SOO scary and intimidating to be that close to such a HUGE elephant, but amazing at the same time!!  So the elephant goes back to eating, then crosses the road in front of or car and does the same thing!!  Then he just kept on walking!! It was absolutely insane and unlike anything we have every experienced before!!  Luckily, one of the guys in our group was recording the whole thing so we will need to get that video from him!!  This was one of the highlights of safari for us!!  We continued to see TONS of rhino, giraffe, zebra, cape buffalo (got surrounded by a herd of these as they were crossing the street around our car), monkeys, impala, and so on.  The other two groups did get to see lions this day and we didn't, but we were totally fine with it because the elephant encounter was so incredibly amazing!!  Our last morning there, we woke up at 5 a.m. again and went out. We continued to see all the animals we had seen TONs of already.  Then, we turn a corner and there s an elephant in the middle of the road. So we pull up maybe 10 feet away and just park.  The elephant proceeded to snap branches off of the tree and eat.  The snapping of the branches was so loud and it just echoes through the whole place.  I decided I would videotape this elephant.  So he turns, looks at us, and starts to walk over to our car.  Again, intense adrenaline.  The elephant then walks up to the front of our car, turns to face us and presses his head up against the front of the car and begins moving his trunk around inside the grill of the car.  Remember, this is an OPEN vehicle, no windows. So, we are face to face with this elephant.  Dead silence, all we hear is the creaking of the car from where he is putting his trunk.  We are staring at him, and he is staring at us.  Then, he just walks back and along the side of the car (maybe 1 foot away from Joey).  This was our SECOND encounter with an elephant and ABSOLUTELY amazing!! Our guide explained to us that neither elephant was angry or mad that we were there, rather they were curious and wanted to come check out what we were all about and the reason the first one huffed was kind of just to say "Hey, I see you.  I don't mind you, but remember that I am bigger than you." So after this we went back, packed up and then drove around the park in our buses.   As we were driving, we all got to see a pack of wild dogs which is one of the rarest things to see in the whole park so that was pretty awesome!!!  We never did get to see lions, but one of our teachers said that he is going to take those who didn't see lions to a lion exhibit which should be fun!!  the rest of this week has been pretty stressful, but we have also have some amazing times with friends and the people around us as well!!  Our D-group is going REALLY well which is exciting!!  Joey and the boys are in a prank war with some of the girls here and the boys put these HUGE moths and about 10 frogs in the girls chalet.  Lets just say they were not happy, but I told them not to mess with boys because boys go big or go home! :)  I got to skype with the Borbas (my cousins) and tell them about Safari which was really fun to see the little girls get so excited!  WE have two weeks left of our intensive classes and then we have service sites which we are looking forward to!!  This weekend we will be going to do a Zulu immersion experience where we go and stay the night and learn how the Zulu people live their everyday lives.  We are looking forward to that!!  It is definitely really cool to be here and to be able to worship God through his amazing creation that we are surrounded by day in and day out.  A few prayer requests: that we would be able to stay focused and finish school strongly, that God would continue to reveal to me and Joey what our life ministry is going to look like, that God would continue to create space for relation while we are here, that God would prepare our hearts and teach us how to be servants while we are at our service sites, and lastly, for our friends in the park that we miss so dearly!

Below are a few (well, kind of a lot) of the pictures from Safari.  Like I said, I also have a ton of them on my facebook!!  And a video!! Let us know if anyone has any questions and sorry that this blog is so long and that we are lagging in the blogging!! :)  

Miss and love everyone from home

Shalom, Katie and Joey

our safari car :)

our little hut!!

zebra

African sun and rhinos in the back :)

giraffe

these ones are from our first elephant encounter^^

these are the second elephant encounter ^^

buffalo^^

 rhino ^^

 inyala^^

Pumba :)

wild dogs - one of the rarest things to see!!

rhino under the tree 

buffalo

monkey&&baby

monkey

<33