Saturday, 9.3.19

Since it's the weekend again, I slept in a bit today. After getting up, I thought about what I could do today. Since the weather was still bad, I unfortunately couldn't go to the beach. So my options were either spend the whole day wasting time in the city or go on a tourist trip. I actually wanted to wait for another volunteer to do these tourist activities, but since there was no one else in sight, I had to do them alone. I decided to visit Monkeyland and Birds of Eden. These two animal parks belong to the Jukani Wildlife Sanctuary, where I was in my first week. Monkeyland is a sanctuary for monkeys that were previously kept as pets. Birds of Eden is a huge bird park that serves as a bird sanctuary. I started with Monkeyland. You walk in a group with a guide through the forest and see many different monkeys along the way. There are feeding stations throughout the forest, near the path, so you can observe the monkeys up close. The monkeys here, like in Jukani, are kept in a wild state. That means they are not touched and they can move freely. The tour took about 45 minutes. Birds of Eden is right next to Monkeyland and you can easily visit the two parks one after the other. In Birds of Eden, you can walk through on your own and don't have to take a guided tour, which I liked. The Birds of Eden park is a huge forest with a net covering it, allowing the birds to fly freely but not escape. It's similar to the Masoala Hall at the Zurich Zoo but much bigger. There is a wooden walkway throughout the forest with feeding bowls every 50 meters. This allows you to observe the birds up close. You can also see many other birds sitting or flying around in the forest. A beautiful excursion!
Towards the end of the park, a small parrot attacked me! As more and more parrots and flamingos gathered around me, I quickly moved on :-)
In the evening, we went to Susanne's place again and had a barbecue (braai). It was very delicious and cozy. We talked a lot about wine and for dessert, we had a local liqueur. I also tried some small pink berries that grow on bushes. I have seen them before while walking, but I never dared to try them. But they are very tasty!