Surfin' Safari

On our first weekend, after a long week at school, we decided to rent a car and head to Jeffrey's Bay. J Bay is known by surfers worldwide for it's constant waves. So what did we decide to do while we were there? Surf, of course!

We signed up for a 2 hour lesson with a wonderful instructor, Andrew. He told us that we were "literally going to stand right up on our boards" by the end of it. Oh, how easy it sounds! However, it's a little harder than that. We spent two hours catching the waves, falling off, and fighting our way back out there to do it all over again. It was the most fun I have had in a long time! I absolutely loved it! No, I am not a natural born surfer, but I did stand up and got to experience surfing for about a half-second. It was amazing. A few of us had so much fun that we are hoping to rent boards in PE and try our luck again.

After surfing, we were exhausted. We lounged on the beach for a bit and watched the dolphins swim by. Then we ate at was Jeanine said is the "only Mexican resataurant in South Africa." It was quite different than the Mexican restaurants we've got at home. So, please, go out and have a veggie quesadilla and a margarita on the rocks for me!

We decided to keep our rental car for one more day. On Sunday, we drove about 15 minutes to Seaview Lion Park. As we pulled into the park, we were greeted by several springboks and blesboks. We were so excited but hurried to the back of the park in hopes of catching the lion feeding. We were a little disappointed to see that the lions were in fenced in areas. It was more like seeing them in a zoo than in the wild. However, they were still quite beautiful creatures, and we got to see them eating. It was actually very gross to was a lioness rip into a dead cow--but that's the Circle of Life!

We then drove past some free roaming baby giraffes with their parents and a family of wildebeasts to get to the place where they kept the cubs. For about $7, we got to hang out with and pet 6 month old lion cubs. One of them, Melissa, was hanging out in a tree, and she licked my head and began chewing my hair. Yes, I'm in Africa!

We also got to see 4 week old tiger cubs! They were precious and sucking on little pacifiers. I also really enjoyed the meerkats. They reminded me so much of my mom's chihuahua Zach!

It was a wonderful first weekend! Now I am back in school and still adjusting to the many differences between American schools and South African schools. I'll tell you more on that later! Until then, Hakuna Matata, friends!