Everyone everywhere is always trying to tell you how to survive plane trips – the problem is, many times those people are not giving you advice you can actually use, telling you things you already know, or pushing products they got for free (and haven’t actually tried them out over and over. Everything can be great once).
So, after logging in thousands of miles, sometimes days in a row on a plane, I’ve decided to do my own basic list… and I can tell you this: don’t get on a flight longer than seven hours without a sleeping pill, drink lots of water (duh), and these six items will change your life if you have to hop on a long, cylindrical metal tube hurtling through the air. Note: I found, bought and paid for all of these on my own and have tried them out on countless trips.
Forget curling up with a cat, the most amazing thing in the world is cuddling an orphaned baby rhino. (Photo: Khululu Care for the Wild)
There is almost nothing more heartbreaking in South Africa’s war against rhino poaching than seeing a baby pachyderm standing watch over its dead mother, mourning. Many times the babies, too young to survive on their own, are also doomed; others are rescued — their fate unknown. But now, there is a facility in the north of the country where these babies are, fed, cared for, and ultimately released to the wild — and it’s guests (who pay for the volunteer experience) who are doing it.
It’s the new hands-on wildlife experience.
At Khulula Care for the Wild, situated on the banks of the Vreek, Noord-Kaap, and Queens rivers, in Mpumulanga, South Africa, you can actually cuddle, nurse, wean, and play with orphaned rhino babies whose mothers have been slaughtered by poachers.
According to Ellen Sziede, the marketing manager for African Conservation Experience, which runs Khululu, “there are an estimated 20,000 white rhino and 5,000 black rhino left in Africa. South Africa has by far the biggest population of all African countries, being home to almost 90 percent of all African white rhino. So the current estimated population for South Africa is about 18,000 white rhino and just under 2,000 black rhino.”
Viktor Barkas, who runs the Rhino Protrack team, which patrols for poachers on privately owned land outside of Kruger, in Hoedspruit, South Africa, told me last year that in the small area he patrols there are 2,000 rhinos — 126 of which were slaughtered in the first half of last year, leaving many rhino offspring orphaned.
“it is not a war on rhino,” Barkas said. “It is a genocide.”
The unlucky orphans (from all over the country, not just Barkas’s area) end up at Khululu, where the rhinos are raised and eventually released back into the wild in a program reminiscent of the wildly successful David Sheldrick elephant orphanage, in Kenya.
Volunteers are asked to stay for a minimum of two weeks — although exceptions are made — and during this time they rotate in and out of three teams.
The baby rhinos love feeding time.
Baby Olive loves her bottle. (Photo: Khululu Care for the Wild)
The first team, the Baby Team, looks after the youngest rhinos, which are still fed by bottle. “Travelers in this team spend a lot of time preparing the special milk formula and doing the bottle feeds, mothering the smallest rhinos, as they sometimes need people to stay with them at night when they are very small, and also helping with the veterinary care for new arrivals,” Sziede said.
The babies love a cuddle at nap time.
(Photo: Khululu Wild Care)
After working with the smallest rhinos, guests move on to Team Rhino, which takes care of the weaned animals, including recording feeding behavior and preparing mud baths for the little guys.
And then there’s Team Other — which isn’t as bad as it sounds.
“Care for the Wild looks after a lot of other species as well, not just the rhinos,” Sziede explained. “They currently have two hippos, three lions, several birds of prey, various antelope, a baby vervet monkey, and mongoose. All of these animals need feeding, enclosure maintenance, and enrichment — from playing with the monkey and mongoose to taking the hippos for a swim.”
Look who made a new friend… (Photo: Khululu Care for the Wild)
Sziede added that “This is hard work: Volunteers wake up at around 6 a.m. and go to bed at around 7 p.m … unless they are on the midnight feeding slot.” But the work is worth it.
And while there seem to be a lot of babies around, “There actually should be more babies (rescued),” Barkas said. “The poachers will kill the mother for the horn, and if the baby isn’t scared off, they will often kill it too just to silence it.”
The orphans will take all the hugs they can get.
Costs to volunteer (which include include pick-up/drop-off from Johannesburg Airport, accommodations, meals, and funding) are:
Two weeks: US$3,150Three weeks: US$4,050Four weeks: US$4,800
There is almost nothing more terrifying yet magical than being out in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Hawaii’s Big Island, with 18-foot-wide, alien-looking beings swimming backward loops just millimeters from your face.
One of the most fascinating things to experience in Hawaii is to take a night swim with giant manta rays. Although fierce looking — with triangular fins, horn-shaped cephalic fins, gaping maws, and long, sharp tails — they are not to be confused with some of their fiercer cousins (think sharks or Steve Irwin and his unfortunate demise).
“They are harmless — unless you dangle your feet and they accidentally hit you as they glide by,” Bob, my guide from Jack’s Diving Locker, said. “The largest of them can get up to 23 feet long and weigh 3,600 pounds, so it would be like getting hit by a Mac truck. But don’t worry,” he assured me, “that hasn’t happened — yet.”
A manta ray gracefully swims past a group of divers on a night dive in Kona. (Photo: Getty Images)
For someone who has a healthy respect for (read: fear of) the ocean, this wasn’t as reassuring as when Bob claimed sharks wouldn’t be present.
“Of course, sharks are in the ocean, but they usually stay away from the diving spots,” he said. “They usually feed at different times, and, well, no one’s been attacked on a dive — yet.”
Despite all the “yets,” I suited up — there was, after all, a 5-year-old boy on the boat, and I was not going to be outdone by a kindergartner.
The boats leave at sunset and cluster around the Sheraton outside of Kona.
“The night diving and snorkeling started when the Sheraton opened,” our guide said. “The lights from the hotel attracted the plankton, which brought the mantas.”
Divers and surface swimmers coordinate lights to attract the plankton that the manta rays feed on. (Photo: Jack’s Diving Locker/Facebook)
These days there are even more night lights. The divers bring beams of light with them and coordinate with the surface swimmers (that’d be me), clinging onto surfboards specially outfitted with more lights to create a column of light in the black darkness of the night ocean.
And then the giants come. At first there are one or two manta rays, gliding through the illuminated column, and suddenly you’re surrounded by the seemingly hollow beasts who, when they open their mouths, reveal the ocean through their two-foot-long gills.
A group of manta rays feeding at night. When they open their mouths, they seem magically hollow. (Photo: Getty Images)
It’s a silent ballet of creatures not even Cirque du Soleil could have thought up. The surreal experience is like watching aliens glide through the darkness, appearing from nowhere and disappearing, mystically, minutes later.
Afterwards, the snorkelers with me sat silent for a minute before looking around the boat in awe at the black ocean, hiding its marvels.
If you ever find yourself on the Big Island of Hawaii — go. It’s the experience of a lifetime.
I’m a huge fan of getting up close and personal with the locals… especially if those locals just happen to be 2 feet long, furry, and endangered. So, when I heard I had the chance to cuddle with a group of baby cheetahs, my first thought was: “Oh hell yes! We must do this immediately.”
The Cheetah Outreach center on the edge of Cape Town, South Africa, is “an education and community-based program created to raise awareness of the plight of the cheetah and to campaign for its survival,” according to its website. Their motto is “See it. Sense it. Save it,” and for a mere $12, you can go and pet baby cheetahs. For the same amount, you can get your picture taken with an adult cheetah (hence, the rise of Tinder cheetah pics in South Africa). Sadly, I arrived too late for the adults — but not the babies!
