Wednesday, June 25, 2025

We got up at 7:30. It didn’t feel quite as cold as the day before. We got ready and hiked down the hill. Tammy’s dad had made porridge so we had that and coffee. I also had one of Renee’s rusks that had raisins, nuts, and seeds in it. Rusks are kind of like non-sweet biscotti. You dip them in your coffee. I enjoyed trying it. The downside was that the end of my coffee was filled with wet crumbs and seeds. The giraffe skull and vertebra were left by college students who visited earlier as part of a research study.

We got ready to go hiking. As we were starting off, they mentioned that the hike would be at least ten kilometers (over 6 miles). When people said they might not want to go that far, they said there is a shortcut that would only be 4 kilometers long. I would have done the longer hike had I been forewarned, but I hadn’t brought water. We enjoyed the short hike. We saw multiple giraffes really close up including several babies. 

When we reached the shortcut point, five of us decided to go back to camp. The instructions were simple and mostly involved walking on the main road. As we were walking, a man who works at Zingela stopped us and asked if we were trying to find Zingela. When we said yes, he told us we had missed the turn for Zingela. We were confused because we thought we were supposed to stay on that road. He told us we needed to turn around and go back. Then he told us he was joking and that we were going the right way. 

We got back to camp and went to shower. Tammy showered in the bathhouse because Heidi had told her that the best hot water was there. I showered in the cliffside shower. They literally have built a wall around the edge of the cliff and hung a shower head there. It had a beautiful view of the river below. The water was great and the sun was warm, which was nice because the wind was cool. After I got done, I came down and we hung out by the river with Heidi, Anthea, and Tammy’s mom. The group that did the long hike barely made it back in time for lunch at 1pm. That meant they had hiked for four hours! We saw the goat family around camp. One of the goats looked like he was wearing a diaper!

We had cornbread (“mealie bread”), avocado (“avo”), cabbage salad with ramen noodles, lettuce/vegetable salad, and ham for lunch. After lunch, six of us played Acquire and I won. We went to get our credit cards so that we could walk to the lodge and pay for our stay. Sandra hiked up our hill with us so she could see where we were staying.

Kelvin and Sandra walked to the lodge with us. We went and got our credit cards and walked back to the lodge to settle up. We found it funny that we paid more for staying in our rustic rondavel at the top of the hill than Tammy’s parents paid for their accommodation with an inside shower. After we paid, we found out that the lodge internet was working again so we got the password and connected. We were like starving people who have a buffet in front of them! We only stayed for about ten minutes, but it was long enough to send a few messages. We walked back and hung out by the river. Andy came down after showering in the cliffside shower and told us he had seen a snake in the shower. He told the story in such a funny way. I was very thankful that I had already had my cliffside shower experience. He described the snake and Laird said it was a Red-Lipped Herald, which is non-venomous. Colin and Kelvin came up to see where we were staying and Kelvin saw the snake in the shower. We went back down and sat around the campfire until dinner was ready. The appetizer was crackers and soft cheese. For dinner we had chicken curry on rice, Zulu bread (sweet moist white bread), pumpkin fritters/fat cakes, and vegetables. We had vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce on it for dessert. We sat around the campfire and talked. Renée and Andy are great storytellers. They have some crazy stories! Renée and Laird swam with their horses across a river with (aggressive) Zambezi sharks circling them and another time they were mountain biking on a trail called Die Hell and it was super hot and they didn’t have food or water. 

We hiked up to our rondavel and got ready for bed. We read for awhile before going to sleep.