Day 14: Last day!

 After our late night being stood up by the hyena, we had our latest start of the trip: 9:00 am full breakfast of eggs, potatoes, pancakes, sausages, bacon….mmmm! 

I was WIDE awake by then, due to a little issue with my intention to take a shower. Somehow, our plumbing system had become electrified somehow late the previous night, unknown to us. Carli got a jolt when adjusting the water that night, but assumed it was an anomaly. I turned the shower on when I was dry, stepped in, and reached for the handle to adjust the temperature, now wet and standing in water. Snap! Sizzle. ZING! I got one major jolt, through my hand, up my arm and right down through my feet! It left a light burn mark on my fingers! Naturally, I jumped out of the shower, and swatted the handle with a dry towel to turn off the water. So I texted Carli, got dressed, and went over to the main lodge a few minutes early. There I discovered that Surprise, our chef, had just had a similar experience with the kitchen sink! 

After breakfast, we made a final shopping stop in Hoedspruit, where we picked up the last of our souvenirs, then went for ice cream. Mmmm!

Next we went to see Jessica Hippo. Jessica is a 23-year-old orphan hippo, rescued when she was a few hours old. She lives in the wild, but comes to her rescuer’s house daily to beg for snacks, and sleep on a mattress in the house with her own blanket. 

You can find more info at Jessicahippo.com

Jessica coming to the dock

Saying hello

Posing…or waiting for treats

Eleanor feeds Jessica sliced sweet potatoes

And Kailey

And Ivy

And Cecilie

And Lucia

And me!

Kailey is feeding Siem, a younger male orphan hippo

Eleanor

Ivy

Cecilie

And me.

After leaving Jessica, we made a short stop at our lodge to pick up our shower things, then to human Jessica’s home on the reserve for showers. We had found out that the repair crew wouldn’t be there until after we left Saturday!  Even with 6 of us and 2 bathrooms, it went pretty quickly. And no shocks!

After that, we headed to Three Bridges for supper. Jessica (the human one!) joined us and we had a delicious meal. (Ask me about Matilda pizza!) 

Then back to the lodge to finish packing. Except when we arrived, the power was off. This was the second evening, and apparently it would be off between 7 and 9 pm every other night for “load shedding”, or what we call rolling blackouts, scheduled outages due to an inadequate electrical grid. Some of our group packed in the dark with their phone lights; I opted to go to bed and get up to pack in the (very early) morning.


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