And then...

(as if this were suspenseful...)

So of course by the time we got to our lodge I was SO crabby. I was having a hard time not venting my frustration at the German elbow-y lady next to me. And to make matters worse, she would STALL at potty breaks and take FOREVER to get out of the bus. Inside my brain I was screaming, "GET OFF THE BUS! GET OFF THE BUS!" But outside, smiles.

Passive agression.

So we get to the lodge, and we were really late because we hit a traffic jam, so we were ushered quickly to our rooms. I thought mine was supposed to be a treehouse. But it was a very nice concrete room. So stupidly, I say, "Isn't this supposed to be a treehouse?" And she goes, "oh, yah, you're in the Treehouse Lodge". And then I bring my backpack back out to the bus...but we were supposed to get a night time game drive and so we were rushed into the trucks and started driving. The driver had a spotlight. I recognized this activity as something we used to do with my dad as kids. It's called "shining", whereby you drive around at night, throwing light into the woods, hoping to find animals. It's illegal. But in Africa, totally fine. However, I was SO crabby and couldn't really get into it. And there were electric fences everywhere, and so I really figured I had just spent from 4:30am to 8:00pm travelling in uncomfortable circumstances to basically drive around a zoo and look at bored animals. Which made me even crabbier.

And all we saw was a bunch of antelope, kudu (huge deer), and some zebras. BORING. I was just irritated as all get out. We got back to the lodge and they had dinner ready and fire going but because I couldn't keep my big mouth shut, it was back onto the bus for me and over to the Treehouse Lodge, which was another 40 MINUTES AWAY. By this time, the 4 Spanish ladies had had enough of the CD that the driver had on. He basically repeated the same two songs, number 6 and number 8 over and over and over and over again for the 12 hour bus ride. So the Spanish ladies figured, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. They started singing and clapping and snapping their fingers and the funniest thing is that the words were in Xhosa (remember click-osa) and they knew all of them. That's how many times this guy played the song. I was too crabby. I wouldn't play their reindeer game -- even though secretly I wanted to.