Drip drip drip

Hello readers!

After a lengthy uneventful journey, I have finally arrived in South Africa! Hurrah!

I arrived super early so whilst waiting for the i-to-i guy to collect me I managed to get a coffee and a sim card for my phone so I can bombard you all with plenty of posts!

Mike was my contact and I found him along with a few other volunteers. 6 of us in total, all packed into the car and on our way to our first nights stop in Pretoria.

The other volunteers are all going of on a different project but we are all to spend the first night as a group for our orientation and briefing.

A few of us took a walk to the Union Building, at which point I provided the girls with much laughter by not ducking down enough when walking under a sign post.  The crack of my head against metal was pretty loud... Ouch!

The buildings were stunning, in beautiful gardens, and towering above them looking down over Pretoria is a new statue of the late Nelson Mandela.

A quick stop at woolworths for supplies and we headed back to the hostel.  3 more were added to the group, we're now 9 made up of 3 Aussies , 1 Italian and the rest English. We all immediately bonded over several beers. Lots of laughter and stories bring told. 7 of the group are heading to the lion cub project, specifically working just with lions, another is heading to work with the primates, and I'm heading to my project which primarily involves working with cheetah cubs but also leopards and lions.
Dinner was a basic but delicious BBQ chicken and various sides, enough to feed a small village, apparently I won't be going hungry whilst I'm here!

The place we're staying is a Backpackers hostel, basic but clean and very friendly. 5 of us were put into the cottage, the 3 girls sleeping upstairs and myself and Hayden were downstairs.  I'm not sure what happened with check in but the manager at first thought I was travelling with my girlfriend... Then he realised the person he had me listed with was a guy, so then decided he must be my boyfriend. 
Hayden was first introduced to me as "meet Chris,  he's your boyfriend" poor lad looked petrified!

Anyway, after dinner we all retired to the cottage and enjoyed a few more beers before deciding to call it a night.  I had an early start, 6.15 pickup.

I didn't get much sleep due to a very annoying and constant drip drip drip from a random shower head in the kitchen...I know, why would you even have a shower there in the first place! That and the buzz of mosquitos flying at me and other random creaks in the cottage made for a sleepless night.

Now I'm on the coach, a long 6.5 hour journey south west to the city of Bloemfontein where I will be collected and taken to the project, this is where the fun begins...