June 16th. Such a wonnnderful time to sleep in
this morning! :D I woke up around 10 and took a (lukewarm) shower. Then, I got
some cereal and tea and was joined by the other Americans at the table. I began
to try to catch up on my blogging from the past two days in the lounge for a
while. Everyone was just kinda relaxing and sleeping all day, which was sooo
nice. For a while, Justine, Judith, Jamie, and I just sat in the sun by the
porch and chilled. It was so nice to have a day to just be lazy, cause our days
are sooo busy here. Especially the past few days! We all did our laundry and
data entry for the week, and just relaxed, Jamie and I went to turn on the
David Attenborough Africa documentary series around noon, and the French girls
and John joined us to watch it while the Americans packed. We watched a really
cool episode about the savannah! After that, we were supposed to clean the vehicles.
When John and I went out to help, they told us they had it under control and it
was almost done, so we got off the hook, woot. We all chilled a bit more, and
caught up on other work. We had a drive at 3, so we all made our own lunch and
whatnot beforehand. I was supposed to go on Toko’s drive, but Kayla decided to
go with Jamie, and told me to come with them too. Since the Americans were
leaving tomorrow, I decided to go with them and Jamie. We headed out, without
any set-in-stone plan. We did some Ferrari safari driving, which was super fun.
We drove alone the river, looking for leopard, and did some lessons on trees
native to the area. We headed east, looking for tracks, and found some tracks
of what we think were brown hyena. That was really cool, because it’s much less
common to see a brown hyena then a spotted hyena. We heard a lion sighting
called in nearby, so we wanted to respond to it. But there were already
multiple vehicles that wanted to respond as well. So, we drove around a bit to
kill some time, and collected firewood. The brakes in the Cruiser don’t work
well at all, so you have to pump them to get any braking power. Incidentally,
we swung around a corner and met a Makalali truck, so Jamie had to take us
partially into a bush to avoid them since she couldn’t slam on the brakes. That
was a fun time. When the traffic died down, we went to the lion sighting. It
was at a crossing called Washeshe, which is on a sandy beach. Unfortunately, we
were in the Cruiser, and Jamie didn’t realize that, unlike the Landie, you have
to physically turn on the diff lock on the front wheels. So, we got stuck in
the sand right as we crossed the river. Luckily, the other trucks had left the
sighting, except one, which was on its way out. Toko was there, so he helped us
get out. We weren’t actually stuck, cause once we had the diff lock in, we were
good to go. We maneuvered ourselves over to the sighting, and stopped to get
pictures of the lions. It was Desiree and Lady Balfour, and they were laying
along a river bank, relaxing. I was glad to see Desiree again, because when we
saw her last week, she had a pretty nasty wound on the inside of her right back
leg. After a while, she began to roll around and lick her paws. Then, she
abruptly stood up, and began to walk through the bush. Lady Balfour popped up
from her nap and followed her out. I got a good view of her leg, which looked
like it was healing well! Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a picture of her leg,
but I did see it well through my binos. We crossed the river and went to follow
the females, but we lost them in the bush. We couldn’t get a visual, so we just
headed down the road in the direction they headed. Around a corner, we saw two
trucks stopped into the road, so Jamie stopped as well. One of the lionesses
was sitting right smack in the middle of the road. We watched her for a few
minutes, and then she moved into the block. Both lions looked like they were
hunting, so we were ready to follow and see what happened. But the two trucks
that were there were Lufafa, which contained the children and friends of some
of the landowners. There were all drinking, including the drivers, and then
proceeded to drive up and invite us to their party tonight. No thank you. They
were being super loud and annoying, while we were just trying to watch some
lions hunt. We saw a zebra cross through the bush, and I could hear Desiree in
the bush really nearby. I was expecting them to go for it, but I think all the
noise from the drunk people were distracting their hunt. We were hoping they
would leave when the lions disappeared into the bush, and we were going to
follow the sisters more. But the Lufafa trucks decided to drive into the
drainage line, off the road, toward the hunting and irritated lionesses.
Honestly, I wish the lions would have charged the trucks to scare them
straight. It’s so aggravating to have a great sighting and research opportunity
ruined. We looked around a bit, but couldn’t find the lions in the bush nearby.
Nor could we hear them with our engines off, because of all the noise from the
Lufafa trucks that were now parked in the bush. We decided just to call it, and
left the sighting. We headed off to see what else we could find in the night.
We had a very interesting drive, because every time we wanted to stop to look
at something in the bush, we had a rolling stop, and had to reverse back to it.
Poor Jamie had to deal with the dang truck. But we did see a bushbaby in a
tree, which was really cute! It hopped around the tree, and then out onto a
bare limb, so we had a great visual! As we were stopped to record it, we heard
a distant hyena. Since we are all pro at hyena noises after the sleepout, a
couple of the girls and I started to make hyena calls. We moved ahead a bit,
but then Jamie stopped to get a good look at the map to figure out where she
wanted to go. Just then, a lone hyena came strolling up the road to us. That
was super unexpected, but apparently our hyena calls were quality! :D It was a
really awesome sighting, as the hyena was completely calm and just ambled past
the truck at about 5 meters. After he was gone, we moved on again. We also got
to see a genet, which was cool! I saw his small slender body slipping into the
bush, with a long striped tail. It looked like a mix between a cat and a
mongoose. Definitely a unique sighting! By then, it was past 6:30, so we headed
home. It had gotten pretty cold out, so we were all snuggled up. We got home
past 7, and we all just relaxed in the lounge for a while before dinner. We all
snuggled up in the lounge and watched a movie as we waited for dinner to be
ready. I skyped my dad and grandfather to say Happy Father’s Day, and then
dinner was ready. We had borewors, mashed potatoes, and peas around the fire.
Everyone was pretty pooped, so most of them went to bed early. Lukas, Courtney
and I relaxed in the lounge for a bit and watched Inception before bed. We have
an early departure for town tomorrow, 8 instead of 9 or so like usual, because
we are dropping off the American girls to catch their bus. Then, we are getting
two new guys I believe. So ends a week of crazyness, but so much fun!
A pretty crossing over the Makhutswi,
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