Day 42 :(

June 23^rd. Today was my last full day here! Soooo sad! I woke up around 8 and got some breakfast. I annoyed Lukas for a while as he packed, and worked on transferring some pictures to each other’s computers from the trip. We all hung out for a while and relaxed until Lukas had to leave at 11. Toko took him to the boom gate to catch a bus. We all said goodbye, but then the Nissan wouldn’t start. Typical. So, Leon, Jamie, and Andrew had to push start it! What a great way to go! After he left, it was time for us to clean the Cruiser. Everyone felt like having just a lazy day, but we had to do work. So we washed and swept the car, did data entry, cleaned up the kitchen well from the week, and some other small chores. Then, we all sat around and ate lunch on the picnic table outside the kitchen. We just kinda sat there, with our tea or coffee, and vegged for a few hours. We were talking about future plans, which was sad for me, because I finally realized that I had to go pack! I tried to avoid it for hours, but at some point, I was going to have to face it. Phil was at the hide on Xikankanka Clearing, and we wanted to go check on him. I had asked Jamie to teach me to drive the Cruiser, because Lukas didn’t have a chance to in the past week while he was still here. So we convinced Andrew to let us go. Jon, Lauren, Daniel, and Anna and I went with her, and we headed to the airstrip. I got to drive first, and since I have never driven a manual, I was prepared for some struggles. But I did surprisingly well! Jamie told me that I was quite good at it! I didn’t stall out once! I had some nice sightings on my first official drive, including about 5 warthog, some zebra, and a herd of wildebeest. At one point, I was about to shift into 3^rd for the first time, when a wildebeest got a little too close to the airstrip. Jamie told me to pump the brakes (the only way to slow down because the brakes don’t work properly), which I did. I came to a complete stop right as the wildebeest decided to run across the road. He was followed by a handful of zebra and about 30 more wildebeests, babies and all! My first drive in the African bush, and I get a whole wildebeest stampede! Of course, Jon had just turned off the camera that he was taping my driving with, so I didn’t get a video of it! But how great is that, an awesome wildebeest sighting on my first drive :) I’m pretty sure I achieved honorary ranger status with that! The driving was awesome, and we all had fun. The Europeans were so good at it, because they all drive manuals anyway! The boys put the vehicle into 5^th gear even, and I didn’t even know our 5^th gear still worked! After we all had a chance to drive a while, Jamie took us to go check on Phil. We did a Ferrari safari down the road through Lufafa because we didn’t want to be out too late. She thought she was on a certain road, then all the sudden we passed a dam, and she was like, “When did that dam get there? This is odd.” All the sudden, we hit the southern fence line, and she realized she was not where she thought! After taking a short detour through Lufafa, we made it to Xikankanka Clearing. It was actually quite nice to go the long way around, because it was like getting an afternoon game drive! I was kinda bummed that I wouldn’t get a drive on my last day, so it was really cool! I also jacked the front seat, which is my favorite place to be in the vehicles. :) We saw giraffe and impala on the way, and a zebra with a little tiny baby. We only spent about 5 minutes at the hide, to check on Phil and give him some food. Then we headed home, stopping for firewood. Last firewood collection for my last fire! :( Bittersweet! When we got home, I took a quick shower, and then went to enjoy my last sunset on the observation deck. It wasn’t the best sunset I have seen, but it was pretty awesome because I just sat there and listened to the bush for over an hour. I could hear and see some waterbuck grazing to my left. I also heard something walking around and rooting beneath the deck, which was probably the resident warthogs. I’m pretty sure I heard the ellies down by the river, breaking branches off trees for their dinner. I was just gazing at the scenery and trying to absorb it all. The trees, the smell of the breeze, the sound of all the birds, and the colours of the sky. I could actually identify most of the bird calls I heard, which was so cool to me! Just sitting there, enjoying the most amazing country and wildlife I have ever seen, for the last time in who knows how long, and I actually teared up a bit. I don’t know when I’m coming back, but I know it won’t be soon enough. I left the deck and went down to see about packing. I made Judith come sit in my room and talk to me as I packed, so I wouldn’t be so lonely. She entertained me by talking about lions the whole time, which was fine by me! I actually had a surprising amount of room and weight available, after I took out the 3 kilos of batteries my parents sent me. I also took out all the extra granola bars and snacks and made room for all my souvenir purchases :D It took me a while to pack, and luckily, when I checked about dinner, Phil had it all under control and told me to continue packing. I did almost everything, except my last minute stuff, and managed to get everything in and all my breakables wrapped in clothes. Dinner was ready in just a little bit after that, so I joined the gang around the fire for my last dinner and last fire! We were eating some concoction that Anna made up, basically mince with peas, baby marrows, onions, mushrooms, and spices, over rice. I had sautéed some butternut squash, yumm! And, as they taught me here, I put some sweet chili sauce over the meat and rice, yum! We enjoyed the fire and sat and hung out, reflecting over the time there. At some point, it came up that I had WAY too much luggage, and Andrew pointed out that my luggage weighed more than me! Oops. I guess they don’t understand that my parents sent me with a grocery store and a pharmacy in my bags! Everyone got tired pretty early, and began trickling off to bed. Most of the gang went to bed, and Jon, the French girls, Leon, and I stayed up talking for a while. A bit later, Jon and I went to go watch an episode of Africa. While I was getting ready, they found the civet in the yard again. I came out to watch him and follow him around, and we lovingly named him Frank. He was digging in the trashcan by the fire and pulled out someone’s beer can! Oops! We got to get pretty close to him and have a really awesome view. Then, we followed him around the corner of the staff house, and as we did, Andrew jumped out through his back door and scared the living bejeebies out of us! Apparently he had been waiting them for quite some time! We went and settled in to watch Africa with David Attenborough on the beanbags, but I was so tired, I ended up sleeping through quite a bit of it. I decided to call it a night a little bit before 11. I knew I had a lot of work to do still in the morning, so I needed to sleep.

Driving like a champ!!

  Black face Impala!

 The little path to the observation deck :)

 Cute waterbuck face! :D