Yesterday the team began the day bright and early for our planned safari. The drive to the safari was two and a half hours. We drove by beautiful scenery and also passed by some fires and run down schools. Once we reached our destination, Hluhluwe Umfozoli Park, we made a quick restroom and lunch stop. There was a neat monument in tribute to the men and women who died in defense of nature conservation in Kwazulu-Natal. The monument contained the cardinal doctrines of the main religions of the world.

As we began to drive into the park the first thing we saw was a springbok. The springbok is an animal that has elegant horns and white on it's side with a black stripe. As we kept driving we also spotted some peaceful zebras eating grass in the fields. As we kept driving we ran into an elephant in the middle of the road! Luckily the elephant was not aggressive! We got very lucky along our way and spotted various different kinds of animals among which were water buffaloes, reedboks, rhinos, wart hogs, and giraffes. As we exited the Hluhluwe iMfolozi Park we saw a group orangutan walking around near the entry/exit gate. One orangutan had a baby on it's back. The entire trip was exciting and it was amazing to see the wildlife roaming freely in their natural environments.

Once we left the safari park we had to drive another long hour to get to St. Lucia where we had reservations to take a boat ride in the estuary. To get to the small town of St. Lucia we had to drive over a bridge which is the only entry way into the town. The population there is only six hundred people! Once we arrived we boarded the boat right away. The captain of the boat was a female as was the rest of her crew. She took pride in letting all of the passengers know that we were in good hands with an all female crew. The captain was very informative and explained a great deal about the animals and their habitats as well as some of the history of St. Lucia. On our boat ride we were able to see pods of hippos in the water. The hippos were huge and appeared very lazy as they sunbathed and napped. We also were able to see the Kingfisher Eagle, crocodiles, and some brids specific to the region.

While enjoying the peaceful cruise on the beautiful estuary, one of our chaperones was enjoying a nice, cold can of Diet Coke. With the excitement of spotting a crocodile hanging out with the hippos, Greg leaped up to get a photo and accidentally knocked his empty coke can into the estuary. Greg was full of shame and guilt because he littered in the pristine environment.

Our last stop before arriving home was a visit to Richards Bay to walk along the beach and up the pier. It was beautiful to do this at night time and amazing to see the sky filled with stars. It resembled an ocean with floating candles and it was the icing on the cake of our fun filled day. We got home around midnight which might be our latest return time so far. In it's entirety the day was very long and all the LASA team members got home very tired, yet excited about the day's adventures.