Wildlife paradise

Trip Start Jul 26, 2008
1
10
41
Trip End Nov 27, 2008


Loading Map
Map your own trip!
Map Options
Show trip route
Hide lines
shadow

Flag of South Africa  ,
Wednesday, August 20, 2008

When we arrived at St. Lucia 13 people got out of the Baz Bus with us at our hostel, Bibs.  13!  How unlucky are we-the thing only holds like 19.  So we were tired and annoyed by the time we got to our room.  Chris made a late lunch (eggs, baked beans and toast-something we have been eating a lot of because eating at restaurants is expensive) and basically slept until morning.  We initially happy with our room, superficially it looked okay, a tv with a couple channels, a mini kitchen, bathroom, and porch.  The German happy campers even showed up the next night and we had a fun time hanging out on our porch and going to a bar.  But while out at the bar we got some good tips from the locals.  A) we were staying at a bad, overpriced place and he told us a better place to go. (which we sort of figured by now.  Upon further looking "rustic" turned into dirty and the giant cockroaches running around the room were stressing me out big time.  Plus the hostel was loud at night.)  B) we need to eat Biltong (local beef jerky-extremely popular in Afrikaner culture) pizza from St
on the porch at Bib's
on the porch at Bib's
. Pizza, with the addition of feta cheese, olives, and mushrooms.  It was so good we had it twice.   
We quickly moved out of our hostel to a holiday flat.  It was 3 times the size of our NYC apt and was sparkling clean.  The kicker was it was 65 rand (about $8)less than the crap hole we were staying at.  We liked St. Lucia from the start-now we love St. Lucia! 

There is a lot to love about St. Lucia.  It is on what is called the "Elephant Coast", on the eastern coast of South Africa.  It has the Indian Ocean to the east and the St. Lucia wetlands to the west.  So you have beach and swampland within walking distance.  We took a boat cruise through the St. Lucia Estuary and saw tons of crocs and hippos.  The streets are full of exotic plant life and are very pretty to run through.  Monkeys and meerkats roam the yards and streets.
Also very nearby is Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve.  We took a game drive and saw 4 of the big 5 (elephants, rhinos, lions, and buffalo ... but no leopards).  We also saw lots of other animals including zebras, a hyena, warthogs, impalas, inyalas, and giraffes.  A couple cool things we saw was dozens of vultures eating a carcass left by a lion, and a zebra with a fresh bloody scratch along its back where it was clawed by a lion.  The park and St. Lucia was a very cool wildlife experience and the biltong pizza was awesome!

 
 
 
Slideshow

Use this image in your site

Copy and paste this html: