April 1, 2010: Up rainy and early for my first ever game drive at the Pilansberg Game Reserve. They gave us raincoats but failed to mention that the tarp over our jeep was meant to protect riders from sun, not water. While trying (but failing) to keep my clothes dry we got all paparazzi-ish on the animal sightings, and w/ some of the quality of our pictures. Rain rain go away...A few beasts braved the rain, if not our cameras. Zebras and gnus literally turned their backsides to us. The impalas leaped away. The giraffe wouldn't take time out of eating his leafy breakfast for a decent picture. The lioness stared creepily in the way that I half-expected her to come after us if we used flash photography. And did I mention we were getting wet from the rain?
Funnily enough, after drying ourselves off from the wet safari (and me taking some Immodium) we had breakfast and headed for The Valley of Waves, the Palace's water-themed amusement park. With it's prerequisite artificial beach and wave-generator, water slides, giant inner tubes and lazy river ride, it's a variation of Splash Island, w/ the added bonus of a trampoline ride and a giant pool for actual swimming.
Some of us got tired of waiting for big fake waves to hit us, so we first tried the Temple of Courage, where I slid 17m down and the force of the water landing pushed up my boxer trunks, turning into a T-thong. Moving on to tube and body water-slides, both had open-air and closed versions. The closed tubes limit movement and have u slide down in complete darkness, while the open ones may look safer but actually can turn you around while sliding.
As an endcap to my fun I got in one of those giant inflatable plastic balls, after which they moved me into a shallow pool and I my best hamster impression. Inside the bubble you can't hear anything other than your own voice and the sound your body makes slamming on the plastic as you attempt to stand up straight. They only give you 5 minutes inside the ball, w/c is reasonable because you probably use up that much oxygen laughing while inside it. Whoo, great workout.
We had to rush our lunch a little bit because of scheduled activities afterwards, including archery and clay shooting. Because it was drizzling our instructor, Shadow, handed out plastic raincoats, or as I like to call 'em: sandwich bags.
After managing to give my left arm a couple of welts from releasing the bowstring incorrectly, my aim improved in time and I even managed to get a bullseye 3x in one round (out of seven). As for the clay target shooting, well, let's just say for a gunman I make an excellent archer. Not only did I manage to bruise my right shoulder from the recoil, but sometimes I missed because w/ the protective earmuffs on I also couldn't hear Shadow's commands to shoot. After all of us (except for Carol, who acquired a fear of gunfire alla sudden) got to shoot about 25 rounds well into the late afternoon, the weather only got worse and we had to cancel (but got refunded on) our ATV riding trip.
After some Chinese ('natch) at the Orchid, we were treated to an after-dinner program (or cabaret) at the Sun City Theater: Dancing Queen. If you thought it was a tribute to ABBA (or as Carol thought, a stage version of Mamma Mia!) you'd be half right. Full points if you said "Abba and Queen tribute." (Title was too clever for its own good. Dancing Radio Gaga, perhaps.) Anyhoo it was fairly entertaining, and that almost made up losing at the roulette table twice.
When I got back at the hotel room I soaked in the hot tub, hoping to staving off impeding aching upper body tomorrow.
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