My African Adventure: Day 3!

May 15^th. Got up at 5:30, and had some coffee and cereal with cold milk J Then I got ready for our Rhino walk, which started a little after 6:30am. I was the navigator today, which means I used the maps to help guide us through all the twisting roads of the reserve. I was to keep track of our GPS coordinates and give them to each person as they record their data whenever we make animal sightings. We drove out to Pidwa North, a property at the very north edge of the reserve. There we followed some rhino tracks til we located where they entered the bush. We set off on foot around 7:45 and walked through the bush with Andrews, armed with a rifle. We tracked the rhinos for a long while, but eventually got off on a bull elephant trail that kept crossing his path. After wandering through the dense undergrowth for over an hour, we finally broke out onto the road, with no rhino to speak of. We had seen some zebra a ways off, but that was it. We trekked back to the truck and arrived around 9:15, a little tired, but no worse for the wear. We drove around a bit more, and came upon some beautiful lion on the road. One male with one female. They walked around our truck and sniffed around us, then strolled off into the bush, completely casually. So amazing to see them so close! We drive around a bit more to track the rhino, but didn’t get any more positive leads, so we headed back home. We got home around 12, ready for lunch. Toko (Andrews) and I were on cooking duty today. The set menus had us baking potatoes and preparing fillings for everyone to make their own, but apparently the oven went out last week. On the way home from the drive, we decided we would improvise with omelettes, but Andrew had already put the potatoes on the fire to bake for us! We heated beans, corn, and braii relish, which is some type of SA’can mixture of tomatoes and onion. We grated some cheese and called it lunch. Funny how you can make anything into a meal when you have to improvise. It actually turned out quite well. After lunch, it was time for some maintenance work. We worked on improving the volleyball court, by removing brush near by and widening the sand court. I cut small trees down and removed branches with pokey thorns that like to pop balls. After that, Andrew and I sat down to finally have our “Welcome to Siyafunda” talk that usually occurs with all the new people on Tuesday, but since I was the only new one, and we were busy, we moved it around. We talked a lot about my research, which was awesome! Our afternoon drive started at 3:30 and we were on the hunt for predators. We followed some female leopard tracks near the river, but couldn’t find her. We also hunted for some lion, after hearing the impala give their alarm call nearby and seeing fresh male lion tracks in the region, but to no avail. We cruised around to some different areas, and did a little exploring. We found a really cool clearing with a tree that had to be hundreds of years old. On the way back from that, we found a male rhino, just chilling on the side of the road. He had to have been there when we passed not 20 minutes before, but must have been out of visual. We spent some time observing him as the sun went down. We cruised around, still determined to find some predators at night, when they were hunting. Besides some kudu, bushbuck, and impala, we weren’t finding anything of note. Then, we ran across a porcupine, which was really cool! A few minutes later, we crossed paths with two more! It was cool to see the little nocturnal mammals scurrying about with such long quills! We were on a little run-around for a male lion that was seen crossing the Makhutswi River, but couldn’t find him emerging. We headed home, noticing that we weren’t as freezing as last night. For dinner, we were supposed to oven bake a chicken, with no oven. Andrew popped it over some coals in the fire pit, as Gail and I worked on veggies. With no oven, we improvised some potatoes and butternut squash, boiling them to soften, then sautéing them in some oil and spices. We also made some fresh carrots with peas. I was a little concerned, but everything ended up tasting great. I’m officially obsessed with butternut squash, and will be making it again like that! We ate around the fire pit, as usual, and talked and enjoyed ourselves. I brought out the banana bread that my grandmother had sent me, and we all enjoyed that as a sweet treat to end the day. Of course, we stayed up too late talking again around the fire, almost 10pm, so 530am will come much too earlier!

Trekking back to the car, on the road.