Sondela

 

Due to the benevolence of our music teacher, two visiting girlfriends – Bethany & Lydia – and J#3 & I were able to stay a whole week at this 4-star lodge for free. Completely!  Note: maid included. *Ahh*

 1km down the road from our chalet was an entertainment area. There was a large pool, Jacuzzi pool, tennis courts, mini-golf, table-tennis, trampoline and lapa there. We made that trip several times during the week!  Since Dad had dropped us girls off in the kombi, we walked everywhere.  Now, this was a game farm with mostly wild game roaming about (not including us :)…

On our way to our chalets earlier, we’d seen 2 Wildebeest in the road.  Monday evening we were outside reading/writing and talking right outside the house when a large male Nyala came right up to us.  Juli ran to get some bread, but I called to her, “Uh, we’re not supposed to feed it bread…. (and as the Nyala backed me right up to the house)… and I’m dead!”  Lydia and Bethany had gotten away and were inside laughing. Thankfully, the fellow realized I didn’t have any food in my possession and turned away, only to pose for a few pictures before moving on to the next willing neighbor.

Tuesday morning we walked the 4km back to reception to register for the bike ride the following day.  Juli had suggested we try to find and take a bike/walking path.  Due to a sketchy map, it was basically a nightmare. We found a worker and asked for directions to reception. HA!  Let me say, he did try.  I'm just not Sacajawea.  All we got down was “pole, pole, pole, pole, pole.” So, being the good followers that we are, we followed all the little white poles, and weaved ourselves through bushveld until we saw a familiar building off in the distance. “Look at that! I know that’s close to reception! Yay!”

 

The walks were always exhilarating as the game wasn’t restricted and you never knew when one (or more!) was going to jump out of the bush nearby.  I was only chased a short distance by an Nyala once; when I let it know I was lacking food, he turned away.  During the week we were able to see Nyala, Impala, Hartebeest, Wildebeest, Warthog, Kudu, a couple snakes, and many different kinds of exotic birds.

The following day we set out on our 10km bikeride with our guide, Piet.  We had a surprise right outside the gate when Piet said, “Stop, stop, stop.” We all stop, stop, stopped and he gathered the dung from around our bikes. We were informed on the one belonging to red hartebeests and the other impala: “See the shapes? See?”… “YES! I do! (*ok. Put it down.*)

He made the appreciated effort to point out the names of different growth and we learned the difference between the male and female mapula trees: the male tree grows straight up and has inedible fruit whereas the female tree spreads out and the fruit is edible. A fellow African friend of the guide told him that the fruit is “nature’s way of telling us that men don’t know how to cook like a woman!” :)

After the ride was complete, we rested on the grass at reception.  An Afrikaans fellow there found out we had walked the 4km to reception, jumped on bikes for the 10km ride, then were about to walk 4km back to our chalet, and a further 4 to go swimming. He exclaimed, “Wow! You are lekker fit girls!”  Why... thank you, I think.