Thursday, April 25, 2013

Jenn's Going to Africa!

Jenn says that she is going on an adventure next month to Africa!  Her TTouch friend Edie Jane arranged the trip to South Africa, Botswana, and Zimbabwe and it sounds like Jenn is going to have the trip of a lifetime.  First of all, Africa is really far away and really huge.  Jenn has to travel 8,000 miles over 22 hours just to get there and she is only visiting a small part of the continent.  But here's where she is going:
Jenn flies into Johannesburg, and she gets to spend two days exploring.  She plans to go to the Elephant Sanctuary at Hartbeespoortdam.
Jenn will have the opportunity to get up close with elephants and learn about how they use positive reinforcement based animal husbandry techniques to keep the sanctuary elephants happy and healthy.

Then, it's off to the Pilanesberg Reserve
Pilanesberg Reserve is located on an eroded volcano crater (one of only three the world)The reserve has lions, leopards, black and white rhino, elephants and buffalos and a wide variety of rare species including nocturnal brown hyaena, cheetah, sable, as well as giraffe, zebra, hippo and crocodile, to mention but a few.

If you ask Jenn, she has always wanted to see all these animals in the wild, but especially her all time favorite, the cheetah.  Wait a minute!!  I thought dogs were her favorites.  Hmmph!

After two days in Pilanesberg, Jenn gets on a little tiny plane and is off to Botswana for five days at RAW Botswana (Ride and Walk), an eco-camp in the Okavango Delta.  The Okavango Delta is a very special place, the largest inland delta in the world.  It floods several months out of the year, which attracts large groups of animals from all over southern Africa. Jenn is staying in the Motswiri camp, near the Selinda spillway on the far right side of this map:
So Jenn can hike and boat to watch the animals.

Whoa!!  From Botswana, the group heads into Zimbabwe for a few days at Victoria Falls.   Victoria Falls is the largest waterfall in the world, twice the height of Niagara Falls. 
From there, it is back to Johannesburg for a bit of a rest before flying back to North Carolina. Puppies aren't welcome on this trip-which means I have to stay home.  Bummer.   But Jenn is really looking forward to playing adventurer even if she has to go without me! 

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