visited states

not quite as impressive as visiting lots of countries, but i've visted 27 % of the states!




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visited countries

i've been to only 4% of the world!



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back from africa

going to south africa for a second time was an amazing experience. if you'd like to read more about it here's some snippets from the email i sent out to friends and family:

on damon's birthday his best friend had arranged for him to go cage diving with sharks! so i went along with him (not intending to go in with sharks, just to keep him company on the boat). it was actually a really cool experience. it was a small boat, 2 guys running it and one other guy there to cage dive. we had to go really early in the morning, and went on the boat to seal island (sharks eat seals, so sad) and it's interesting cuz it's actually the only place in the world that sharks breech (jump out of the water) to catch seals. the guys on the boat have actually done quite a few tv specials on these sharks. they've recently done one for a show in the states, and were on the bbc planet earth show. anyway, so we stopped at seal island to see if there were any sharks around, and we had only been stopped a minute when we saw a shark jump out of the water and eat a seal. it all happened so fast! so they put out this decoy that looks like a seal to attract sharks, and right after they put it in the water a shark came up and tried to eat it! but then that shark left, and other sharks would come up to the boat and try to eat it, but then they would swim away. to cage dive they need the sharks to stay around so that you can see them when you go into the water. so unfortunately even though we had at least 5 or 6 massive great white sharks come up to the boat, damon didn't get to go into the water with them. it was a really cool experience though, and we were both happy to be able to see them in action. makes you think twice about swimming in the ocean!

i was conviced that i should try surfing (me, the one who can't swim!) so the next day i got all ready and went out for my first surf (body board really) and i loved it!!!! i struggled at first cuz i was wearing flippers and i couldn't walk in them, and i kept bending my ankle the wrong way, but once i took them off i had a great time! the water was freezing cold but the wetsuit kept me warm. now i regret not going out surfing with damon all those other times, i've been missing out!

then on monday we flew to johannesberg. we arrived there and drove straight to the lion park. as you can guess from the name, they have lions there. lots of them! and little baby lion cubs in an enclosure with baby hyenas, that you can go in with and play with! it was so much fun. and they're not strict at all! you can just play around with them like they're little kittens. they have very sharp claws, i have the lion scars to prove it! it was so worth it. we also drove around there and saw some grown up lions...very active grown up lions! we saw them mating, and we saw a lioness feeding her cubs, very eventful! they also had other animals there, and we got to feed the giraffes which was good fun as well.

it was about a 2 hour drive from johannesberg to the pilansberg game park, and we stopped along the way at a cute looking african village place, and it turned out to be the one that they went to on the amazing race! how cool!

we arrived at the pilanesberg which is basically a huge national park, it's all fenced in and has lots of african animals inside. in the park they can roam free with each other, they just can't get out of the park. it has the big 5 (elephant, rhino, lion, leopard and buffalo) although we didn't actually see all of them. we stayed in a luxury tent which was just outside of the park (no one actually stays in the park, there are lions roaming around!). it was a really big tent with a real bed, a proper bathroom and even a little fridge. the best part was that there was an electric heater, it got really cold at night! we stayed there for 4 days (3 nights) basically spending the day getting up very early to drive through the park and spot animals when they just woke up, coming back for breakfast, going out for another drive, then going out for dinner. we saw so many animals! quite a few different types of antelope (kudu, impala, springbok, etc), 2 different herds of elephants and one big male elephant (who tried to charge at a car), a few different giraffe families (so graceful), lots of white rhinos (2 that stayed in the road pushing each other and play fighting, so we eventually had to turn the car around and go the other way or we would miss breakfast), hippos in the water, warthogs, zebras came really close and a whole herd crossed the street right in front of the car, a few mongoose crossing the road (is it mongeese? or mongooses?), a jackal (he was quick, we were lucky to see him, our only predator that we spotted!), and we could hear lions on 2 different mornings, but the grass was tall and they must have good hiding spots because we never saw them. if you want to look up more about pilanesberg here is a website
http://www.tourismnorthwest.co.za/pilanesberg/

we also went to sun city one day while we were up there.
http://www.suninternational.com/resorts/suncity/
it's basically a big resort, it was once the only place in south africa that you could gamble which made lots of people go there. now it's just a fun place to go. even though the water was cold we spent most of the day at valley of the waves, playing in the wave pool, going on water slides and in the lazy river (which was not all relaxing as a bird pooped on me and there were strong water sprays of cold water!) then we walked around and played some games and did a little bit of gambling.