Swadini

After Imbumbala we traveled 7 hours in the bus to get to Swadini. We went to Moholoholo, a wildlife rehab center. We had a lecture on how the habitat is dwindling for the wildlife, the impact of poaching, and how Kruger national park is getting too small to hold all of the animals. This was a depressing but eye opening lecture for us. Then we had a tour of the facility, we saw a baby rhino and a baby elephant, both were rescued from mud bogs as their mother abandoned them.
We also saw a honey badger with a broken jaw who had a baby while in the hospital. We learned that they can take down even lions and are very aggressive. We also saw cheetahs, lions, wild dogs, hyenas, servals, leopards, and birds of prey. We got to feed the vultures, they are very heavy on your arm! We felt that the rehab center was doing a good job with conservation and education however we also felt that some of the animals in captivity should not have been saved.

After lunch we went to the Reptile park for the afternoon. We learned a lot from Matthew, the curator of the park. He taught us about snakes and why you shouldn't be so afraid of them. We performed a snake necropsy on a hooded cobra, we concluded that he died of cardiac trauma from being hit by a car. We had a demonstration on how to handle dangerous snakes, scorpions and spiders. Melanie held a scorpion and a giant baboon spider, which Alysha was not present for due to her fear of spiders.
We went for pizza at one of the local restaurants and gained a whole new appreciation for milk tart. Milk tart is a South African dessert which we are addicted to.