Day 25!!

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June 5^th. Today, we left on our monitoring drive at 6:15. It wasn’t as super freezing out as I expected, but it was cloudy. We got smart and started bringing blankets to put on our laps now. :) We headed out to Garonga, like we had tried last night. After stopping for some general game, we set up the telemetry to find the elephant herds. Lukas was driving, and Jamie was navigating. Kelsie and I were in the second row operating the telemetry together. We would take turns listening to the box and operating the poles. We set it up around 7, and we drove around according to the signal for about 2 hours and thought we were completely losing them! But we still had strong signals coming! I was pretty sure the ellies were just messing with us now, running all around. We finally cornered them down to a huge block in Makalali East. We circled the block, confirming that the signals from both Dracula’s herd and Holey Ear’s herd were coming from within. We had no visual from the road, but we had some audio at a few spots. Low rumbling, trees breakings, etc. Lukas walked in to get a visual, but the bush was so thick, and they were so far back, that he didn’t get anything. Then we drove into the bush a bit, and tried to use the telemetry from there, but we didn’t get anything stronger than we had earlier. The drive in and out of that area of bush was literally like mowing down trees with the car. I tried to take a video, but my camera memory was full! So sad. We were bouncing/flying out because of the rocky terrain and basically diving under the seats to avoid getting attacked by all the branches we passed. Always a good time, when we offroad in the Landie! At that point, we called it, because it was 10am and we weren’t going to be able to get a visual at this point. Along the road, though, we did locate fairly fresh rhino tracks, which we think may be from a pregnant female that we haven’t seen lately. We also got leopard tracks along the road, which I recorded for some recent movements. The sun never broke through the clouds, so we never warmed up. I’m actually pretty sure it got COLDER as we went. I was very happy for the lap blankets! We returned home around 10:30-10:45. We didn’t do maintenance yesterday, so they switched it to today. Luckily, it was still cold. We started a little after 11, and began shoveling up the grass from the area we had cleared for the volleyball court. Stewart was a pro shovel-user, whipping up the grass like a champ. The other shovels were in use, so Andrew told me to pick up the chunks of grass so they didn’t just get left right on the edge of the bush, which would just be a fire hazard if a fire broke out. He also told me to pick up the ellie crap that was sitting near to the volleyball court from Riff Raff’s visit the other night, because, when it finished drying out, it would burn really well to start the fire. I looked around for a shovel at first, then I realized, this is Africa, and the rangers always dig through herbivore poo. Andrew told me that he and his friends used to play a game called “Who Flung Dung?”, in which you basically chuck poo at each other. Of course, he embellished this explanation by chucking ellie dung at me, which broke all down my shirt. This developed into a rousing game of dodgeball with dung, and I chased him down across the yard to fling it back to him! It was one of the strangest things I have ever done, lol! Then, after I pelted him nicely with dung, we got back to work. I was collecting all the chunks of grass in the wheelbarrow to dry them out so we can use them to burn later on. The girls and Stewart and Tom were shoveling all the grass up and clearing the whole area for the court. Then, since it was still early and cool out, Andrew decided we should start bringing loads of sand from the river to fill the court with. We attached the small luggage trailer to the Nissan to go down there. Poor trailer. It was not built for these roads! We only filled it halfway, cause we knew it would be too heavy and would scrape on the way home. I was afraid it wouldn’t make it through the river crossing! We did two loads of sand, and unloaded them on the court. It’s definitely making progress! That area has changed a lot in the past few weeks since I have been here! We all started cleaning up around 1:30, because the afternoon drive was at 3. Everyone took showers, so that meant everyone took COLD showers! Brrr. At least it was invigorating, right? Everyone tidied up and had some lunch. I decided to stay back from the buffalo drive to work on my project. They left at 3ish and I actually got a lot done. I also got to talk to Mike about my project and what he wanted to see done, which was awesome! I really needed to make sure we were on the same level with the project, and that was awesome to catch him tonight, because he is leaving tomorrow for Europe!! I worked a bit more, and then helped Lukas start the fire. The gang got home around 7. They had found the buffalo, but not the new male. They did have a really exciting sighting of an African wildcat though! They are really small and look like housecats, so it’s pretty uncommon to see on in the bush clearly! I worked some more, until dinner. Now I have a lot of work cut out for me, after talking to Mike. Dinner was chicken, potato, and veggie curry, and it was superb. Much better than my curry two weeks ago! Haha. Dinner wasn’t ready until past 8, so we didn’t leave the fire til ten, and then I offered to clean up the kitchen. Late night, but we get to sleep in tomorrow, not leaving until 7:30 for road clearing!

Baby buffalo that I didn't see today. I stole Stewart's pics.

 This is an African Wildcat, thanks to Stewart's camera :)

Day 24.

June 4^th. This morning, I had opted not to go on the rhino walk, because I needed some time to work uninterrupted. I slept in, so wonderful, until 715, and then got up and got ready. I took in my washing from the line, then later on, realized it was wet from dew, so I hung it back out again. Fail. Then, I made myself some delicious oatmeal, on the stovetop of course, cause we don’t have microwaves here. I had never made stovetop oatmeal, so it was definitely going to be an adventure. I put some muesli, cinnamon, and sugar in it, and it was really fantastic! I also made a cup of vanilla tea. Then, in my own special way, I proceeded to drop my wonderful oatmeal as I tried to open the door to the data room with the oatmeal and tea in my hands. Fail again. So depressing. Luckily, oatmeal is very stiff, so 2/3 of it stayed in the bowl. And I still ate it. No shame :) Of course, it had gotten cold after I cleaned up my mess…. Sad times. Oh well. I spent the morning in the data room, with Cara and Jamie in the living room next to me, working on my research. They were doing paperwork, and we would chat off and on, which was nice. I got all the lions done, and the two most recent data sets for cheetahs, leopards, and hyaena. I was able to work for a few hours, which I really needed. The gang got home around 12, after walking in on a group of 3 rhino! So cool for them, too bad this was the week I skipped. Lol, oh well. We had some yummy corn fritters for lunch and green salad. I helped clean up, and since we had lunch so late, we canceled maintenance for the day. Ooops. ;P We all showered up and prepped for the drive. We left with Lukas at 330. What was fun was that Cara was driving and Jamie was navigating. They got a chance to lead the drive, which was very cool. We originally headed out to find ellies. But we kept getting stopped by lots of general game. Then, we saw a lone rhino. After getting close and taking some pics, we left to head on our way. But the rhino got very agitated and decided to chase us. And trust me, a huge adult rhino chasing down your vehicle is a sight to behold! We had to stop the car and wait for her to calm down, so she didn’t decide to charge the vehicle or try to chase us off. It was definitely intense. She walked in a large circle around the vehicle and wouldn’t take her eyes off us. Eventually, she moved down the road. Of course, she went in the direction we needed to take! So we drove slowly that way, hoping she had moved off into the bush. We had to stop again, as she came back out to watch us. A Makalali car approached and stopped for its guests to see the rhino. Just then, a large bull ellie begins lumbering up from directly behind the Makalali truck. The rhino finally left into the bush, and the ellie calmly lumbered past. We got moving again, and just a few roads down, there was another lone male elephant! Silly boys. By this time, it was already starting to get late, and the sun was setting. We moved to a nearby picturesque lookout spot and watch the sun set there. Then, we went to Kwatile Dam, where a female lion with cubs was sighted. It was Bella and her three one-year olds! We haven’t seen them since I have been here, so it was a great sighting. We watched them interact and drink and rest from a distance, and as it got darker, it got harder to take pics. We were about to leave, when we realized they were coming right towards us. We stayed, and turned on the spotlight, and the cubs moved within 5 meters of the vehicle! It was so cute to watch them play! Bella was super calm and was very playful with them as well. They eventually all passed by the car, through a thicket of bush, and moved up the road. We turned our vehicle and began following them. We trailed them up the road. It was so cute to see one of the cubs who would keep lying down, then would have to run down the road to catch up with the others. The other two cubs kept spontaneously jumping on each other and on Mom as they traveled. Sooo cute to watch! Very calm and playful, and it was great to see that they are thriving even though they are not with the big pride. We followed them until they disappeared into the bush, finally leaving the road. We had an interesting drive back, letting the new rangers drive and get a little confused about our location in the dark. But they figured it out, and we got home successfully around 7. I helped cook dinner, and we made baked macaroni cheese and peas. The guys built a fire for the first time since Friday night, so that was nice. Even though it was surprisingly warm tonight, it was nice to all sit around as a group. We all turned in around 9, and headed off to bed. It got really windy once I got to my room, and apparently its supposed to be a cold front rolling in. We will see how it feels tomorrow morning!

Agitated rhino peeking past the bush,

 One of the cubs, laying near Mama.

 Getting brave, this cub moved to within 5 meters of the truck!

 Lovely sunset from the lookout point!

Day 23.

June 4th.

Sleep out was a success! Kelsie had gotten a migraine and gone to bed before we went to go out to the deck, but Emily and Molly and I still went. We got up there around 10, and got settled into our sleeping bags with our blankets. We talked for a while, and looked at stars in silence, and listened to animals. We heard jackals, hyenas, impalas, and a few lions! It was so cool! The stars were absolutely gorgeous, and it was just so peaceful to sleep out there under God’s ceiling. We fell asleep around 11 or 1130, and it wasn’t too cold. I woke up around 4 and stretched out from the ball I was curled up in. Unfortunately, the bottom of my sleeping bag was now cold and wet with dew. I laid on my stomach and shone a torch around the grassy clearing that was beyond our heads, but I didn’t see anything. Next thing I know, Emily and Molly are waking me up because its 5:20. We clambered downstairs, and I put the kettle on for some hot drinks to warm us up. Everything was cold and wet, so we left it all up there to dry during the day. We got ourselves all ready, and left at 6:15 for the drive. We thought to grab blankets from the deck to put over our laps, which was a great idea because it was FREEZING. The morning was moist and cloudy, and there was a lot of mist to drive through. We had a set route, which took us through H26 and H90, two smaller properties on the west side of the reserve. It was a pretty quiet morning at first, because it was so cold! But, eventually, it warmed enough and we started seeing some game to record. But the clouds never broke, and I don’t think anyone took a layer of warmth off! We saw a herd of zebra drinking at a dam, which was really interesting. The zebra were very cautious to approach the water and took their time getting there. Then, one would lead and one would look out for predators. They have a very cool system of behavior in their herds! We also saw a really cute baby giraffe, and it was actually with its herd/family, a herd of wildebeests, and a herd of zebra. It was cool to see all three grazing amongst each other. Another interesting sighting was a male impala, who was rutting. That’s what the males do to call the females. We heard him first, then found him through the trees. Andrew said the way he was calling, sounded like he was about to mate. A minute or two later, we saw him and a female impala making their way through the trees. If you ask me, there may have been a little hanky-panky going on in those bushes there! Later on, we heard some impala alarm-calling a lot. We  went to investigate, as we had seen leopard tracks running up and down that road. The impala were concerned about something behind them in the bush, but we couldn’t see anything. Andrew walked in to try for a visual or a trail, but to no avail. We know she was there because of the tracks, but if a leopard doesn’t want to be seen, she’s gone! We looked for her for a little before giving up for the day. We had a really nice drive, and got back around 11. Then, the girls and I unloaded all of our stuff from the deck and cleaned it all up. We then made lunch, which was a yummy fry-up of eggs, bacon, veggies, and toast, with bolognaise/mince sauce leftover. So good! By 1, I was in the data room working on my stuff for a bit, after trying to help Lukas do something with the new data sheets to record sightings on. I had some time to work before the 330 drive. Lukas took us, along with the two new rangers, Cara and Jamie. Cara is from America, and Jamie is South African. They are starting to learn how Siyafunda works! We headed out to see rhino, but when we got near the sighting, there was a lion sighting in the block ahead of us. Naturally, we headed in for the lions. We had  to drive through some pretty thick bush, trampling trees and breaking branches as we went. Lukas walked in to see if he could get a visual of the lions. All the sudden, we heard a fierce growl, and everyone just about peed themselves. It was a very tense few minutes as we waited to hear if Lukas would return. Good news, he did. The lioness was not happy with him though! We continued through the bush to a clearing. There, we had the most amazing lion sighting ever. It was part of the Makhutswi pride, one adult female, two one-year-old subadult cubs, and three younger cubs. There were also four rhinos! We watched them for probably 1.5 hours. The adult female had an open wound on her leg, so she went and laid down away from the group. But the SAM/SAF were the best part. They were so curious about the rhino! The rhino herd was having their own problems, as it was a female and a female with her young male calf. But, additionally, that mother’s previous calf, who was now getting fairly large, had been kicked out of their group a few months ago, but was now with them again! There were a few power struggles between the rhino, which were interrupted by the sub-adult lions sneaking in to investigate. We got some really great visuals of the cubs, one male of which had a swollen paw that he limped on. We saw him a few weeks ago, and he had the injury then, as well. After watching them for a while, we noticed that the SA’s kept sneaking towards the rhinos and getting chased off. They were actually hunting! They had assumed the hunting posture and crept along to the rhino group. They continuously got close to the group and got chased off. Eventually, the rhinos moved away, but the lions didn’t pursue. They turned and walked right past the vehicle, giving some soft “maos”, as they turned to walk up to where the cubs were waiting. It was definitely an amazing sighting. After that, we headed out to look for any hyena or leopards we could find. We weren’t so lucky, but we did see a genet, a small nocturnal mammal that is similar to a weasel. I had been wanting to see one, but unfortunately, I didn’t get a good visual. It ran into the bush too fast. A little bit later, we saw a small group of eland moving across the street. They are one of the larger antelope species here. I had just mentioned how I hadn’t see them yet, and there they were! We continued on a bit, and it got really cold. We headed home, looking along the way for any hunting mammals. We did see a black-jackal, but that was about it. When we got home, we had a little downtime before dinner. I wasn’t feeling good after the bumpy ride home, so I laid down for a bit. I went and ate a little and watched part of a DVD on African predators in the TV room with everyone, then headed to bed early. I’m putting on Crazy Stupid Love and snuggling up in my blankets ;) And the lions are calling outside my door. Even though I don’t feel the best, Africa is still the bomb.

Zebras taking a lil refreshment break.

Handsome little boys :)

This face melted me.

Young lions stalking a rhino. Probably NOT the best idea for them!

Sunset with a young male lion :)

Day 22!

June 3^rd. Today, we had to say good-bye to Gail, Peter, Kira, and Wolfgang! We left camp around 930 and headed to Hoedspruit. We got there around 1030 and Lukas dropped us off at the Pick-N-Pay and then took the others straight to the airport. We did our shopping there and looked around the other stores for a little bit. Then, we headed to Sleepers to meet for lunch. I got filter coffee, YUM! It was a French press with some real coffee! For lunch, I had a biltong and butternut salad. It was weird, but good! Biltong is dried, thinly sliced meat, like beef jerky, only much thinner. It’s very traditional for South Africa. You can get different kinds of game as biltong, but this was beef, which is most common. There also cubes of roasted butternut and feta cheese, over a really fresh and good salad. SOOO delicious. :) Then, Molly, Emily, and I walked to the tourist center that is like 10-15 minutes away. We looked at the curios on the side of the road, and then walked across and spent some time in MJ’s, which is a really well-stocked shop for souvenirs. The three of us got really cool bracelets made of elephant hair! Unfortunately, the exchange bureau was closed today, so I ran out of Rand far too quickly. We hung out there until Lukas, Stewart, Kelsie, and Tom came to pick us up, after doing their own errands in town. We dropped by the B&B for Molly to get something she had seen earlier, then headed home. When we got here, Mike, the owner, was back. Two new girls, Kara and Jamie, arrived from Bushwise to begin their internship. We unpacked and settled in, and I helped Kelsie move into her new bedroom for the next week. We all relaxed for a while before dinner. I did some work on my research and chatted with everyone in the living room. Tonight, Kelsie, Emily, Molly, and I are sleeping on the observation deck, so I am really stoked. We will probably go out there at 10 or so, and we have to get up at 5 for our set route drive at 6. We took cushions to sleep on, as well as tons of blankets and our sleeping bags. It’s not really cold out tonight, so I’m not too concerned about that. I have been walking around all night in a t-shirt, and we didn’t even have a fire. So it should be awesome. We have our flashlights and head torches, and received all the instructions on what to do should we see/hear any certain animals! I’m really excited to go to sleep with the beautiful moon and stars as the only thing above my head. And apparently, there’s a leopard that likes to walk up the road past our camp at night, so I may get to see her! Here it goes, hopefully I will be back to tell you all about it tomorrow night! :D

 My Australian parents for the past three weeks :)

 My German daddy! ahaha

 Really yummy biltong and butternut salad!

Day 21.

June 2^nd. Today was our day off again. And as we weren’t able to do our tour of Khamai last Sunday, we rescheduled it for today. We left camp around 9am and got to Khamai at 10. We began with an information slideshow that taught us all about snakes, the way they operate, their venoms, and a little about spiders and scorpions. Then, we were allowed to hold a python and get pictures, should we so desire. We then looked around at all the snakes they had in their enclosures, including green and black mambas, vipers, cobras, and whatnot. After that, we got a feeding demonstration, of some large scaled lizards, chameleons, bearded dragons, iguanas, and a cobra. We got to feed the chameleon, who I of course dubbed “Pascal”, and the guide told us to put the mealworm on our lips. So of course, a few brave souls and I did just that. It was so weird to feel his little tongue come snatch the worm right off your lip with a soft and moist little tongue! Then, after watching the snake swallow the rat whole, super cool, we had a short time for a break, which meant the American girls got peanuts and played with the squirrel monkeys! They were kinda shy today, compared to last week. Then, the demonstration of snake handling started. The man who runs/owns the place brought out to show us, and teach us about, three of the coolest snakes. The most venomous (Boomslang), the most dangerous (puff adder), and the one that people think is the scariest (cobra). We got to see them all up close and watch him handle them. Stewart, Kelsie, and I even got to “handle” the puff adder, aka, we learned how to catch them using the snake-handling hook and safely contain them. Pretty cool, when the highly dangerous snake is hissing/puffing away at you, just a meter from your feet. We definitely learned a lot about snakes, in particular, venomous snakes in South Africa. Definitely a cool outing, and the Center is really great for education and conservation. Then, we headed to the Blue Cottages B&B for lunch. I had a yummy salad with chicken salad on it that was made with some special curry sauce, yummm! We didn’t get back to camp today until 5pm, because our tour at Khamai took 4 hours, until 2pm. So my day of “rest and research” was cut VERY short. We all kinda hung out and relaxed a bit, having some quiet time to read, shower, do some washing for the week. Then, somehow a huge picture sharing time began, and I helped facilitate picture swapping through my computer. Luckily, that meant I got to steal Gail’s, Kira’s, Tom’s, and Stewart’s pictures, which gave me a lot of great shots! I didn’t get Wolfgang’s but I am hoping to get them tomorrow morning! The whole picture shebang took much longer than I had wanted, but it was cool to look through everyone’s photos and talk about them. The girls made borewors and mashed potatoes for dinner, and since we had all had a late lunch at the B&B, no one was very hungry. We didn’t even make a fire. I grabbed a little bit of food and returned to the lounge to work on my research, and gradually, everyone joined me. We ended all (minus the rangers) sitting in a circle of couches, eating our dinner and chatting. It had gotten cold outside, and with no fire, no one was going to eat at the table! Everyone was pretty much ready to go to bed early, and slipped off every once in a while. I settled in to work on my mapping, which was great, because I actually had a little bit of time to focus. It was definitely a really quiet night, which was nice after the busy day. But also, today marks the end of my third full week. That means my trip is halfway over! And that freaks the bejeebers out of me. I can’t go back to the US already, in just three weeks. That’s much too soon. I’m already starting to plan my next trip. I’m trying to think of ways that I can come to this country for 6 months or so! It can work, right? I know of some other great reserves I would like to look into, as well as some training programs and places I could potentially work! Lukas told me during my first or second week here, “Once you touch the red sand, you either come back, or stay.” Now, I completely understand! 

A beautiful Gaboon viper!

 Ron handling a boomslang, the most highly venomous snake in Africa.

 Snouted cobra, trying to warn off predators.

 Holding a little golden brown baboon spider, who wanted to crawl up my arms.

Day 20.

I can't believe its June already!! We started the day off with some good old bush clearing. We were set to leave at 7:15, and for some reason, I woke up at 6:54, luckily! I rushed to ready myself and get out to the kitchen area. We worked in the same area as we have the past few weeks, and since there are so many of us, we are running out of tools. I prefer the clippers, cause they take the least skill. But since last week, I have mixed it up a bit. Yesterday, I became a pro with the hand-saw, but today, I got stuck with either a machete or a panga. The machetes don’t do much good against some of these trees, but pangas kinda intimidate me. Those things are beastly. So Lukas gave me a quick panga-operation lesson, and I set out to conquer the forest! I started getting the hang of it, and now I feel pretty hardcore. :D We worked until a little before 10, and then we called it a day. We returned home, but then Lukas announced that he was going to go see some lions, and we could join if we wanted. Um, duh. So most of us piled into the truck AGAIN to go find some pretty ingala. It was the Tembe sister, laying lazily on the side of the road. We sat with them for an hour and just watched them sleep. They occasionally would hear or smell something, and lift their pretty heads to check it out, but they were very calm and didn’t feel any threats nearby. A couple time, Nkosikasi would look straight at the car with her piercing, yet gorgeous, yellowish-tan eyes, and as she was within 2 meters of the vehicle, it was a little intimidating. We watched the sisters for about an hour in almost silence, just soaking them in and enjoying them. Then, when we got home again, it was not even 11, and we still had a nice long afternoon ahead of us. The girls and Stewart and I swept and washed the Nissan (remember its pronounce NISS-san) and the older people made lunch for us. We had leftover macaroni bol and some French toast. Lunches are usually a hodge-podge of leftovers and new food. Then, I did my data entry for predators for the week, as well as the weekly report for the week, and then showered up and cleaned up a little. Ahh, felt like a real human again, with shorts and flip flops and my hair down and mascara. It’s the little pleasures, really. :) Then I spent the rest of the afternoon working on my research. The bush camp gang is moving back into Twines for tonight and tomorrow night, which means Kelsie is going to be my roomie for a few days! :) She and I relaxed in the lounge for a while, working on our own research. Then, we left around 330 for our afternoon drive. Andrew took the Twines group to go look for some leopard and hyena, and although we found fresh tracks for a male leopard, the dang thing keeps evading us. We saw some general game, birds, and mammals as we went along. We did, however, get to see some rhinos. There were two large adult females and a small male who was probably a year old. We hung out with them for a while and watched them dine on some delectable grasses. I IDed one of the females, and we just watched them interact and chatted about the poaching problem they face. Then, on the way home, we took some roads that were near the river to look for leopard. We did see a civet in the grass at dusk, which is a cool black and white, cat-like, omnivorous small mammal. It got really cold all the sudden when the sun went down, and I’m pretty sure my face went numb while we were driving around! We got home about 6:15 and had 30 minutes to clean ourselves up before leaving for dinner. Since there were 7 of us from Twines, 3 from bush camp, and 2 rangers, we got to take the BUS! Instead of the bush vehicles. It was such a luxury to get to take a closed and WARM vehicle down to dinner. It was really busy inside, as it was a going away party for a few well-known people who are finishing their time there. It was pretty fun, and it was definitely nice to have the other American girls to hang out with! We left around 10 because everyone was starting to get tired. We get to sleep in tomorrow, which is always a plus! 

Gorgeous Nkosikasi <3

 Rhino cuties. Mature female and her year old calf.

 Sunset on the drive :)

Day 19.

May 31st. 

This morning, we had road clearing. We left at 7:30 to head to the spot, and worked until around 10. It got hot pretty fast, but it was really fun with Kelsie, Emily, and Molly. We mostly worked together, tag-teaming trees and using the two-person saw and whatnot. And I became an expert in the use of the personal handsaw, because there are only a few clippers and machetes, so I wasn’t fast enough to grab one. I sawed trees like a champ, quality lumberjack style :) Then we left, and were home a little after ten. I took a lovely shower and relaxed a bit before Gail and I made lunch. We were supposed to make potato and egg salad sandwiches, but we were feeling very potatoed-out. So instead, we made a lovely fry up! Scrambled eggs, with sautéed mushrooms, peppers, onions, tomatoes, and shredded cheese. We toasted some bread and fried up the poitjie leftovers, and let everyone make up their own little scrambled egg concoctions! It was delish! It took us an hour to make everything, having only a few pots and burners we could use, but it was delish and well worth it! After lunch, we had a little downtime, so I did another year of lion data. Then, we had a talk on Snakes, Spiders, and Scorpions by Claudia. She had also made banana bread muffins, so we had fresh muffins delivered to us during the talk. Yummm! We left on our afternoon drive at 330. We headed out to an area called Harmony 90, which forms the southern part of the Western border to our reserve. I’ve never been that far southwest on the reserve, so it was really cool. Our first stop at a dam, where we were all going to get out of the truck and look at tracks in the soft sand, we were greeted by a good-sized Crocodile. Needless to say, we decided against that plan. We were in that area looking for cheetah, leopard, and hyena! We didn’t see any fresh hyena tracks, which is annoying cause we still have yet to locate active dens. In one area, along the fenceline, we saw a set of fresh cheetah tracks. It was exciting because we don’t know of any cheetahs that usually hang out in that pat of the reserve. We do have some indications that cheetahs like to hang out on fencelines to aid in their hunting, so it will be interesting (especially for my predator project) to see if we can get current data on which cheetah is/are frequenting that area. We spent a while tooling around through the roads there, getting slightly lost, and enjoying the new scenery. There were a lot of really lovely areas for leopards to hang out, but no such luck. We saw some general game, but it was a relatively quiet drive. One thing we did see, in the neighbouring farm, was a beautiful male buck sable. He was very handsome, with long straight horns. Apparently, sable are extremely expensive, especially for a good blood line. One other thing that was a highlight was a male giraffe loping down the road ahead of us! He was so graceful and quiet as he ran, almost in slow motion, down the road, and it was so cool to see! We returned home with no solid sightings of the predators, but with hopes to return and pinpoint their locations. Claudia told me yesterday that I can/should tell the rangers exactly what kind of drives I need to do to gather my information, and they will try to set it up.  I think I would like to spend a lot of my drive time in the next three weeks just hunting down the leopards, cheetahs, and hyenas and trying to get accurate territory locations, as well as some number estimation of current population. That is very important to look at with lion pride size, to evaluate their intra-species competition. We got home from drive around 6, and went about straight to making dinner. It was supposed to be macaroni bolognaise. Again. Gail and I decided we would spice things up a bit and make it a bit differently than the recipe, just to get a little variation. I also decided I would make a nice green salad because we had two full heads of lettuce, but we rarely use it, except for sandwiches at lunch. So, Gail went about preparing the bolognaise, and I chopped fresh lettuce, peppers, carrots, tomatoes, and cucumbers and grated cheese for the salad. Gail showed me how to make a lovely salad dressing with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and a little sugar. And we had some leftover chopped cabbage from the other night, so Stewart made some delicious coleslaw with apples, peppers, a little onion, and I don’t know what else. He just kinda began throwing things together! I was so excited about the green salad, I just made myself a big plate of salad with a little coleslaw, and I didn’t even make it to the macaroni bol! I think that might have been the best green salad I have ever eaten. Really, what I wouldn’t give for a nice tilapia filet with some sautéed squash and zucchini right now. Or a fresh salad with fruit and grilled chicken! Dinner was ready at 730, and I ate quickly around the fire with everyone, and then went into the lounge to make a phone call. I had planned with Mom to surprise Grandmother with a phone call on her birthday. So what we did was I called Mom on Skype and she dropped by at the office for a surprise visit around 2pm local time. Mom handed Grandmother the phone, saying, “I received a call, but it’s for you!” And there I was, to sing her “Happy Birthday!” :D I was so pleased that we pulled it off successfully! Then I returned to the fire to sit and talk. I came at a strange time, and the topic of conversation was racism and apartheid and all sorts of things. Eventually, the conversation turned to the politics in Europe and the pros/cons of their monarchies and whatnot. The American girls and I tried to keep up, and mostly just listened. Then it eventually turned a little to the American government and how that all is going, including healthcare systems and whatnot. Whew, it got pretty hairy pretty fast, so I tried to kill that convo! It ended up turning back to South Africa, and the problems its government is facing right now, which is much better. And then, somehow to drug use in the Netherlands. Hahaa. The girls and I all went to bed relatively early, and left the “old folks” to discuss all their politics and government and other grim topics of the day. We have bush clearing again tm morning, for which we are all now paranoid about finding snakes after that talk today. That will be fun! Haha.

 Little crocodile friend.

 I love the way light shines here :)

 A beautiful male sable.