Lion King

Well I road tripped home from college but that was just a long 12 hour day with nothing exciting other than the company and the fear of catching the virus so instead on this December day we will travel back in time to August of 2017 when my parents were lucky enough to win a trip for two on safari in South Africa at a silent auction. Knowing this was the trip of a lifetime my brother and I were added to make it a wild family excursion!

My mother, our trip planning genius, was booking our flights and noticed that we had a layover in Dubai so she extended our layover so that we were able to leave the airport and sightsee around the city! This is an incredible and sneaky travel hack to give yourself just 24 hours to experience a new place.

My brother and I wanted to jet ski to the islands they were building and go indoor skiing and my dad wanted to taxi to the Grand Mosque but none of those quite fit the time constraint we were under. We were able to go to the top of the Burj Khalifa (2,722 ft high!) and explore the underground mall which were both very cool. Guess I’ll have to make my way back someday and have my final destination be Dubai instead of it being a layover.

After Dubai we landed in Durban which is the third largest city on the Indian Ocean side of South Africa. We booked a stay in an AirBnb for two nights to explore the city before going to the safari location. Unfortunately, I got food poisoning on the 8 hour plane ride to Durban and was sick for 5 days so I was unable to sightsee around the city but that is a gory story for another time.

I can’t share the name of the location of the safari place to protect the animals inside it so for these purposes we will call it Pride Rock. Pride Rock was within the park fences so we always had monkeys in our windows which was very odd and also comical. It was a quick reminder in the morning that we were in a very different place than home. Everyday was roughly the same, we would have a morning game ride at 5am because that’s when the animals are out and active and another one in the afternoon around 4pm to catch them again. We had one night drive to peek at the nocturnal animals and on our last day we had a sundown drive with a “sundowner” which is your beverage of choice as the sun sets.

I underestimated the excitement and beauty of seeing an animal in its natural habitat. I’ve watched Planet Earth and been to a zoo so I thought I was prepared but when an elephant would magically appear out of nowhere it was thrilling! We drove around with our guide Janine just looking for all sorts of animals. One of the most exciting things was seeing the babies! There was this baby rhino with so much personality who was just running around bugging all of the other animals and it was adorable! It reminded me that animals are very much the same because the baby rhino acted very much like a puppy.

Adventurers, I hope you all get to see your favorite animal in their natural habitat because it brought me an incredible amount of joy and appreciation for the world. Consider donating to an organization that protects the habitat of your favorite animal or sponsor its’ care this holiday season.

Open those atlases, find where your favorite animal lives, and plan your next trip! I’ll see y’all in the 2021.