Relaxing in the Woods

Like I said earlier, safari is exhausting.  And you don't realize how exhausted you are until you leave to go somewhere else.  So when we had a two hour drive to Cybele Forest Lodge and Health Spa from Lion Sands, I passed out within forty five minutes.

Cybele is a beautiful retreat situated in the woods.  As you come down the main drive, there are massive oak trees that line the lane.  It feels like something out of a fairytale.

Upon our arrival, we were told that we had been upgraded from a cottage to a suite.  No complaints here.  The suite was absolutely beautiful.  It had two massive rooms, one of which was our bedroom and the other one was a living room with a loft that had two single beds.  There were also two bathrooms, a patio, and a swimming pool.  And the view was killer.

We were feeling lazy when we got there, so we got room service for lunch.  That actually worked out because after we were done eating, we were flipping channels and found a rerun of the Red Sox game, so Mike got to watch it since he missed it.  Needless to say, that made him pretty happy.

That night at dinner, the entire lodge lost power due to a storm.  Mike and I were pretty sure that it didn't rain all that much, but the winds were fiercely blowing and there was no shortage of thunder and lightening.  When we got back, we lit as many candles as we could find and it made our suite look beautiful.  At a quarter after one, we got power back.

The next day, we decided to go on a river walk that the lodge had set up.   We decided we needed some physical activity since pretty much all we've been doing is sleeping, eating, and sitting around.  It was a 4k walk, but I'm pretty sure we made it into a 5k.

We got very confused as to which path to take when we started out, so we ended up walking the entire perimeter of the property, and then back.  We were so confused as to where we could have missed our turn.  Of course, I found it when we got back after our hike.

The hike was beautiful.   The scenery was great and the waterfall at the end was gorgeous.  I'm glad that we got out to walk some, but boy are we out of shape.  There was a hill at the end that should not have given us any trouble to climb, but it did.  We are definitely hitting the gym when we get home.

It was nice having our own pool at the suite.  After our hike, we just got right in because we were so hot, gross, and sweaty.  It was a wonderful way to cool off.  But once we got inside, we had some trouble.

Apparently during the lightening storm, something happened (I'm still not quite sure what) but all the faucet handles in our suite ended up with an electric charge to them.  When I first touched the shower faucet, I didn't quite understand what was going on.  My fingers felt all tingly like they had fallen asleep and it wasn't until Mike yelled "I've been electrocuted" from the other room that I realized what was happening.  So no shower for me.

We ended up moving to the cottage where we were originally supposed to spend our time, which was fine by us.  The onsite maintenance guys couldn't figure out how to fix what was going on and they couldn't get an electrician in that day.  We decided to play it safe by moving.  Luckily none of the faucets in the cottage had an electrical charge to them.

After two nights at Cybele, we were off again to the beach!  We flew from Nelspruit (the second smallest airport I've ever been to) to Durban.  And that's where I'll pick up on my next post.