Yesterday I got to spend the afternoon with Elsa and her daughter-in-law, Marionette, at the Lesedi Cultural Village. Elsa is so much fun to be with and she's a talented photographer. Again, if you haven't done so, please take a few minutes and have a look at her photos. All of the photos on her site are hers! She's just amazing with what she can do with a camera! http://www.elsasdesigns.com/photography.html
http://www.lesedi.com/video-tour.htm
I found this link on line for the Lesedi Cultural Village and the video there isn't great quality but it will give you a great overview of the village! They have built 5 tradition homesteads, representing the Pedi, Sotho, Xhosa, Zulu and Ndebele people, showing how each of the tribes lived. It was fascinating to see how the villages were constructed and why they were built as they were. For example, the doors are very short and the reason for that is an enemy would have to stoop very low to get in the door, giving the occupants of the hut time to stop him. A very simple explanation that makes a lot of sense! Women always sit on the right side of the hut because when the door is opened, it protects them from an enemy!
http://www.krugerpark.co.za/africa_pedi.html This is a very informative link for the Pedi people.
http://www.kruger2canyons.com/learningcentre/kruger_people_sotho.php A very good link for the Sotho people.
http://www.slrk.info/profiles/xhosa.html A link for the Xhosa people.
http://www.mthwakazifoundation.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=50 I am not entirely happy with this link, but it is a place to start for further research.
http://africanadrenalin.co.za/IsibindiAfrica/zulu_history.htm A brief history of the Zulu people.
I found it interesting to see the evolutionary patterns between the African tribes and the Native American Indians. Just as the Native Americans drew resources from the land around them, so did the African tribes. There are striking similarities between the Native American artwork and that of the African tribes, with each using natural paints and colors and even into the intricate beading that they do. Each culture evolved with very unique traditions that they cherish and share even today. I really do want to do more research on the traditions and cultures when I return home.
And yes, even though the Lesedi Cultural Village is a tourist attraction, I did learn a lot about them while I was there. Most of the "employees" there were younger and seemed to be having a good time while at work! They were very open and friendly while inviting questions.
This was a marked contrast to the Shangaan Cultural Village that I saw a few weeks ago. I did reserve my comments there, but I still believe that the Shangaan people were "encouraged" to share their history and culture due to economic issues. So many of the younger ones are leaving for the cities and they will never return "home" after seeing what is outside of the village. Don't misunderstand, the Shangaan people were very wonderful people, but it wasn't like the Lesedi Cultural Village. There was never a doubt that the Lesedi Village was a tourist attraction, where for me, there will always be that question in my mind about the Shangaan Village...
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Kruger National Park
Thursday was a "homebody" day. I spent most of the day getting the Trunk Show photos ready for release. I have a few more hours to do on it and it will be ready to go. The final touches and editing are about done. Then I need photos of the newest projects that Santi is taking to the states! Since I leave here on Thursday, there is a lot to be done before then. This Saturday is Declan's Christining and then a few days after that, Santi and Peter leave for their working holiday in Holland! Peter was born in Holland and this will be his first trip back since he was very young. They will also be getting some site seeing while they are there.
Friday morning we were getting ready to go back to Kurger Park to spend the weekend there! Last weekend we did do a quick 3 hours there while we were in the area, but this weekend was 2 days on a photo safari. It's going to take me a few days to get through all 600+ photos for the weekend but I'm excited to start on it!
The quick list of animals and birds would be: Maibu Stork, a large herd of giraffes, baboons, hippos, Crested Barbet, Cape Glossy Starling, lions, White Fronted Bee Eaters, elephants, elephants and more elephants, crocadiles, duika, wart hogs, rhinos, cheeta, kudu, impala and a rock monitor, but that's not the entire list! And as I get into the blog later, I'll tell you what one of the more intersting things we saw were!
Friday morning it was beginning to rain. Summer rains here are like summer rains in the South at home. They can range from a drizzle to thunderstorms in a short time! We were supposed to leave at 1:30pm but the rain started to pour about noon. Liese and Cara decided that leaving a bit earlier might be a wise idea. So, we packed up the Kombi and started to pick up the rest of the "tourists" for the weekend trip. 5 of us went for the weekend, Liese, Cara and Stefan, Poppi (a family friend) and me. It was a good thing that we did leave a little early after all, we had to drive to Mari's to pick up the Kombi (it's parked there when not in use because Mari has room for it) and drop off Cara's car on the other side of town, pick up Poppi and Stefan who live near Cara and then hit the road. We left town about 2pm which is when the girls wanted to be on the road! It is about a 3 1/2 drive from Middleburg to the park entrance and we needed to be at the gate by 6pm. We thought we had enough time, but then there was road construction, horrible traffic and a little longer gas stop than anticipated.
We arrived at the gate at 6:01pm and they will not allow you to drive unescorted in the park after 6pm! They are pretty serious about that as you see. We had to wait for an escort to take us to the campsite at Skukuza. Then there is the part about having to wait for the rest of the tardy "tourists" until about 7pm. It was still drizzling while we waited and there was concern about rain over the weekend! So just as the escort arrived, the staff started to hand out keys for the challets and of course there was confusion about our groups keys! By the time everything was sorted out, we got to our rooms about 8pm and still had dinner to deal with. Santi had made some food to bring along with us, so we broke out the food and had dinner.
When everyone had gone to bed, I sat outside the room and listened to the night in the park. The insect life at night sings with the different sounds that the critters make. I did a little personal writing as I sat out there battling the moth from hell! This moth was close to the size of a humming bird and it decided to make bombing runs at me while I was writing! Moths are harmless I know, but when you're sitting out in the middle of the Savannah (jungles are farther north from South Africa) anything can and does startle you! The clouds from the rain obstructed the view of the sky which made the sky seem eearliy dark. I finally crawled into my bed and the next thing I knew my finely handcrafed alarms, Cara and Liese were telling me it was morning!
Friday was long day and Saturday promised to be even longer. Our day started at 5am. For safety, the gates in and out of the campsites are closed and locked through the night. The gates are opened at 6am and we wanted to be out and about as early as we could be. The best viewing time for the animals are early when it's cool and later in the afternoon after the weather started to cool as well. During the hotter part of the day, the most animals find shade to wait out the heat.
And we were off! We drove for a while without seeing much other than birds. The Kombi's occupants were getting a little itchy to find some wildlife out there and I think we were up before the animals myself! Finally they came out of hiding here and there. Stefan is getting into bird watching so when we couldn't find animals we were looking for birds along the way. South Africa has an amazing assortment of bird life in the park. Santi had gotten me a tourist book of the park and it gave information on most popular animals, birds, reptiles and trees in the park. That was helpful in identifying birds but there were many that weren't in that book so Cara and Stefan would look through Stefan's bird book that he brought along for the ride. I thought it was funny, kind of like looking words up in the dictionary, you have to come pretty close to the proper spelling to know where to look! But Cara and Stefan did a good job of identifying some of the birds that we got a good look at.
Some of the roads through the park were paved and others were dirt roads leading off into loops around the main roads. We took a lot of those dirt roads and got off of the paved road and it paid off in the long run. Early in the morning we really didn't catch a lot of animals, but once they started to come out of hiding we found a lot!
Many of the animals were a distance from the road so we were using binoculars for a closer view. I have no idea how these "kids" spotted so many that I couldn't see even with instructions LOL. "See that tree over there and the stand of trees behind it? OK look a little up and to the right and you'll see it." Oh yeah right! You would think it would be pretty easy to find a giraffe wouldn't you? I'll be uploading photos of the animals using the zoom lens and then photos of actual size. In these photos you'll see why I was amazed at the spotting talent of the "kids" in the Kombi!
We started off with Cara and Liese on both sides of the Kombi. Poppi and I had similar experience as spotters and of course There was Stefan... He was pretty good but between you and me, the girls were better :) It didn't take long before I was checking animals off left and right! We did very good in finding 4 out of the 5 "Big 5" this weekend!
For the record, the "Big 5" are the leopard (MIA this weekend), the elephant, the lion, the buffalo (with big curled horns) and the rhino. Liese told me why they were the "Big 5". I kind of thought cause they were the biggest kids on the block but Liese told me that it is because they are the 5 most dangerous when they are injured!
Before I close this, I want to add what, in my opinion, was the best parts of the weekend, other than the company of course... Remember the weekend before this, where we did the "Elephant Day" and the "Birds of the Dead" days? It was that weekend that made this trip to Kruger most interesting. Yes, we saw a bunch of animals, up close and personal, in their natural habitats and those are memories I'll never forget to be sure. But it was the lessons learned that weekend at the Elephant Sanctuary and the Moholoholo Rehabilitation Center were really put into persepctive this weekend.
First, there was a dead impala in the bush. We're not sure what it died from but we spotted first the circling vultures and found our way to where they were circling. There were many vultures of all types circling or waiting for the "big guy" to come and open the carcus. They circled, if you recall, to "call" the big guy (I think it was a variety of "Griffons") because he has the sharp beek to open the carcus. Once they too their turn it was time for the White Headed Vultured to come in and eat their fill. And then the smaller kids finish off the meat on the bones...
When we got there, as I said, there we many vultures waiting. There were other people who were looknig at them and wondering why they weren't just feeding! Of course Cara, Stefan and I knew very well and we shared what we had learned with Liese and Poppi. We waited for a while, but remember, there are few of the big guys (now don't I wish I had paid more attention to the lecture at the time???) and it can take them a while to show up at the party. We stayed there as long as we could but we had the time issue to worry about as well. We went to a picnic area about 2 k's up the road. We had a quick lunch and Liese suggested that we go back for a last look to see what was happening with the vultures.
We were suprised in that scant hour we were gone, the big boys had come and gone and the White Headed vultures were having their turn. Luckily we didn't have exactly front row seats, but we saw the vultures squabbling over the impala and they were making it a quick lunch as well! We watched for a while and although it seems cruel, it was interesting to watch them in action. I think we all found it more facinating because of our trip to the Rehab center the week before!
We had to move on before the little guys would get their turn, but keep in mind that we had been gone for less than an hour and the carcus was getting clean! We were told at the Rehab Center that it would take vultures less than 3 hours to clean a large animal and the impala was far from a large animal! Of the famiy here, no one had ever seen the vultures at work. They have a very important job in the life cycle of the Savannah.
We were tired and on our way out of the park when we came across a gathering of cars. We couldn't immediately see what the attraction was, but we did see that it was elephants within a few seconds. There was a tourist bus sitting in front of the elephants on the right side of the road. You could see all of the toursits in the bus had crowded onto the right side of the bus (too funny). There was a small red import car behind the bus. On the left side of the road, there was line waiting to see the elephants as well. All of the sudden we could hear trumpeting coming from the bush on the right side and then we saw a head pop out and she was shaking her head and trumpeting and she wasn't happy! Of course the tourist bus sat there, letting the tourists in his car happily snapping photos of the very unhappy elephants! She warned everyone with the trumpeting, shaking her head and flapping her ears! Any idiot could see a problem was coming. Cara had already suggested rather loudly that the Kombi should be in reverse just in case. She could barely get it out of her mouth before Mama as storming out of the bush! She began to charge the bus. Cara was hanging out the window trying to get the car behind us to back up! We're not sure, but we think that he couldn't see beyond the Kombi that Mama was charging! Cara finally convinced him to back up and the bus (who was making Mama unhappy in the first place) began to creep SLOWLY ahead. Remember, there was a red import between the elephant and the bus! We were a little concerned for him as the elephant was still moving closer. Now, the bus driver, who was definately an idiot passed us and we could see that he was looking back in his side mirror laughing! His tourists were being amused but I'm not sure if they even knew what kind of danger they may have been in!
The elephant calmed down as the bus moved away and out of the bush came 2 babies and another Mama. The 2nd female was herding the kids across the road, honestly, there may have been another adult but we were busy watching the first female. She was standing in the middle of the road daring anyone to come close to the babies! As the others crossed the road, we watched as she back up to the left side of the road and then looked both ways to check traffic and went into the bush herself...
I found that very cool (but remember, I had to be told to come out of tornado weather in TN a few years ago :) I wasn't the driver so there wasn't much I could have done and there was a car or 2 in front of us. When the red import finally came up close to us, Stefan asked, "So, how was it?" The driver was laughing and said, "exhaurerating!!!" I can believe that! I knew how we felt in our fairly safe place! Again, it was the visit to the Elephant Sanctuary and the information that we had been given there, gave me a very good idea, without explaination, as to what was going on.
What we saw after we passed where the elephants had crossed, was that they were heading down to a river. By the time we could see well, we saw that there were other elephants already down by the rivers edge and more were moving in that direction. We tried to get over to see them but we got a very limited view of them.
So, although we had already seen most of the animals on Saturday, we got a better view of several of them on Sunday on our wandering way out of the park and on the way home! Where Saturday I would call "eye candy", the education did come on Sunday!
We arrived home about 6:30pm on Sunday, tired yet still excited about what we had seen over the weekend! Now, I have to go through about 600 or so photos and decide which are going into the Picasa albums! I'm not sure that I'll get them all posted for a while though. I may have to wait until I get home to get them all up :) And let's not forget my trip to the Lesedi Cultural today with Elsa from Elsasdesigns.com....
Friday morning we were getting ready to go back to Kurger Park to spend the weekend there! Last weekend we did do a quick 3 hours there while we were in the area, but this weekend was 2 days on a photo safari. It's going to take me a few days to get through all 600+ photos for the weekend but I'm excited to start on it!
The quick list of animals and birds would be: Maibu Stork, a large herd of giraffes, baboons, hippos, Crested Barbet, Cape Glossy Starling, lions, White Fronted Bee Eaters, elephants, elephants and more elephants, crocadiles, duika, wart hogs, rhinos, cheeta, kudu, impala and a rock monitor, but that's not the entire list! And as I get into the blog later, I'll tell you what one of the more intersting things we saw were!
Friday morning it was beginning to rain. Summer rains here are like summer rains in the South at home. They can range from a drizzle to thunderstorms in a short time! We were supposed to leave at 1:30pm but the rain started to pour about noon. Liese and Cara decided that leaving a bit earlier might be a wise idea. So, we packed up the Kombi and started to pick up the rest of the "tourists" for the weekend trip. 5 of us went for the weekend, Liese, Cara and Stefan, Poppi (a family friend) and me. It was a good thing that we did leave a little early after all, we had to drive to Mari's to pick up the Kombi (it's parked there when not in use because Mari has room for it) and drop off Cara's car on the other side of town, pick up Poppi and Stefan who live near Cara and then hit the road. We left town about 2pm which is when the girls wanted to be on the road! It is about a 3 1/2 drive from Middleburg to the park entrance and we needed to be at the gate by 6pm. We thought we had enough time, but then there was road construction, horrible traffic and a little longer gas stop than anticipated.
We arrived at the gate at 6:01pm and they will not allow you to drive unescorted in the park after 6pm! They are pretty serious about that as you see. We had to wait for an escort to take us to the campsite at Skukuza. Then there is the part about having to wait for the rest of the tardy "tourists" until about 7pm. It was still drizzling while we waited and there was concern about rain over the weekend! So just as the escort arrived, the staff started to hand out keys for the challets and of course there was confusion about our groups keys! By the time everything was sorted out, we got to our rooms about 8pm and still had dinner to deal with. Santi had made some food to bring along with us, so we broke out the food and had dinner.
When everyone had gone to bed, I sat outside the room and listened to the night in the park. The insect life at night sings with the different sounds that the critters make. I did a little personal writing as I sat out there battling the moth from hell! This moth was close to the size of a humming bird and it decided to make bombing runs at me while I was writing! Moths are harmless I know, but when you're sitting out in the middle of the Savannah (jungles are farther north from South Africa) anything can and does startle you! The clouds from the rain obstructed the view of the sky which made the sky seem eearliy dark. I finally crawled into my bed and the next thing I knew my finely handcrafed alarms, Cara and Liese were telling me it was morning!
Friday was long day and Saturday promised to be even longer. Our day started at 5am. For safety, the gates in and out of the campsites are closed and locked through the night. The gates are opened at 6am and we wanted to be out and about as early as we could be. The best viewing time for the animals are early when it's cool and later in the afternoon after the weather started to cool as well. During the hotter part of the day, the most animals find shade to wait out the heat.
And we were off! We drove for a while without seeing much other than birds. The Kombi's occupants were getting a little itchy to find some wildlife out there and I think we were up before the animals myself! Finally they came out of hiding here and there. Stefan is getting into bird watching so when we couldn't find animals we were looking for birds along the way. South Africa has an amazing assortment of bird life in the park. Santi had gotten me a tourist book of the park and it gave information on most popular animals, birds, reptiles and trees in the park. That was helpful in identifying birds but there were many that weren't in that book so Cara and Stefan would look through Stefan's bird book that he brought along for the ride. I thought it was funny, kind of like looking words up in the dictionary, you have to come pretty close to the proper spelling to know where to look! But Cara and Stefan did a good job of identifying some of the birds that we got a good look at.
Some of the roads through the park were paved and others were dirt roads leading off into loops around the main roads. We took a lot of those dirt roads and got off of the paved road and it paid off in the long run. Early in the morning we really didn't catch a lot of animals, but once they started to come out of hiding we found a lot!
Many of the animals were a distance from the road so we were using binoculars for a closer view. I have no idea how these "kids" spotted so many that I couldn't see even with instructions LOL. "See that tree over there and the stand of trees behind it? OK look a little up and to the right and you'll see it." Oh yeah right! You would think it would be pretty easy to find a giraffe wouldn't you? I'll be uploading photos of the animals using the zoom lens and then photos of actual size. In these photos you'll see why I was amazed at the spotting talent of the "kids" in the Kombi!
We started off with Cara and Liese on both sides of the Kombi. Poppi and I had similar experience as spotters and of course There was Stefan... He was pretty good but between you and me, the girls were better :) It didn't take long before I was checking animals off left and right! We did very good in finding 4 out of the 5 "Big 5" this weekend!
For the record, the "Big 5" are the leopard (MIA this weekend), the elephant, the lion, the buffalo (with big curled horns) and the rhino. Liese told me why they were the "Big 5". I kind of thought cause they were the biggest kids on the block but Liese told me that it is because they are the 5 most dangerous when they are injured!
Before I close this, I want to add what, in my opinion, was the best parts of the weekend, other than the company of course... Remember the weekend before this, where we did the "Elephant Day" and the "Birds of the Dead" days? It was that weekend that made this trip to Kruger most interesting. Yes, we saw a bunch of animals, up close and personal, in their natural habitats and those are memories I'll never forget to be sure. But it was the lessons learned that weekend at the Elephant Sanctuary and the Moholoholo Rehabilitation Center were really put into persepctive this weekend.
First, there was a dead impala in the bush. We're not sure what it died from but we spotted first the circling vultures and found our way to where they were circling. There were many vultures of all types circling or waiting for the "big guy" to come and open the carcus. They circled, if you recall, to "call" the big guy (I think it was a variety of "Griffons") because he has the sharp beek to open the carcus. Once they too their turn it was time for the White Headed Vultured to come in and eat their fill. And then the smaller kids finish off the meat on the bones...
When we got there, as I said, there we many vultures waiting. There were other people who were looknig at them and wondering why they weren't just feeding! Of course Cara, Stefan and I knew very well and we shared what we had learned with Liese and Poppi. We waited for a while, but remember, there are few of the big guys (now don't I wish I had paid more attention to the lecture at the time???) and it can take them a while to show up at the party. We stayed there as long as we could but we had the time issue to worry about as well. We went to a picnic area about 2 k's up the road. We had a quick lunch and Liese suggested that we go back for a last look to see what was happening with the vultures.
We were suprised in that scant hour we were gone, the big boys had come and gone and the White Headed vultures were having their turn. Luckily we didn't have exactly front row seats, but we saw the vultures squabbling over the impala and they were making it a quick lunch as well! We watched for a while and although it seems cruel, it was interesting to watch them in action. I think we all found it more facinating because of our trip to the Rehab center the week before!
We had to move on before the little guys would get their turn, but keep in mind that we had been gone for less than an hour and the carcus was getting clean! We were told at the Rehab Center that it would take vultures less than 3 hours to clean a large animal and the impala was far from a large animal! Of the famiy here, no one had ever seen the vultures at work. They have a very important job in the life cycle of the Savannah.
We were tired and on our way out of the park when we came across a gathering of cars. We couldn't immediately see what the attraction was, but we did see that it was elephants within a few seconds. There was a tourist bus sitting in front of the elephants on the right side of the road. You could see all of the toursits in the bus had crowded onto the right side of the bus (too funny). There was a small red import car behind the bus. On the left side of the road, there was line waiting to see the elephants as well. All of the sudden we could hear trumpeting coming from the bush on the right side and then we saw a head pop out and she was shaking her head and trumpeting and she wasn't happy! Of course the tourist bus sat there, letting the tourists in his car happily snapping photos of the very unhappy elephants! She warned everyone with the trumpeting, shaking her head and flapping her ears! Any idiot could see a problem was coming. Cara had already suggested rather loudly that the Kombi should be in reverse just in case. She could barely get it out of her mouth before Mama as storming out of the bush! She began to charge the bus. Cara was hanging out the window trying to get the car behind us to back up! We're not sure, but we think that he couldn't see beyond the Kombi that Mama was charging! Cara finally convinced him to back up and the bus (who was making Mama unhappy in the first place) began to creep SLOWLY ahead. Remember, there was a red import between the elephant and the bus! We were a little concerned for him as the elephant was still moving closer. Now, the bus driver, who was definately an idiot passed us and we could see that he was looking back in his side mirror laughing! His tourists were being amused but I'm not sure if they even knew what kind of danger they may have been in!
The elephant calmed down as the bus moved away and out of the bush came 2 babies and another Mama. The 2nd female was herding the kids across the road, honestly, there may have been another adult but we were busy watching the first female. She was standing in the middle of the road daring anyone to come close to the babies! As the others crossed the road, we watched as she back up to the left side of the road and then looked both ways to check traffic and went into the bush herself...
I found that very cool (but remember, I had to be told to come out of tornado weather in TN a few years ago :) I wasn't the driver so there wasn't much I could have done and there was a car or 2 in front of us. When the red import finally came up close to us, Stefan asked, "So, how was it?" The driver was laughing and said, "exhaurerating!!!" I can believe that! I knew how we felt in our fairly safe place! Again, it was the visit to the Elephant Sanctuary and the information that we had been given there, gave me a very good idea, without explaination, as to what was going on.
What we saw after we passed where the elephants had crossed, was that they were heading down to a river. By the time we could see well, we saw that there were other elephants already down by the rivers edge and more were moving in that direction. We tried to get over to see them but we got a very limited view of them.
So, although we had already seen most of the animals on Saturday, we got a better view of several of them on Sunday on our wandering way out of the park and on the way home! Where Saturday I would call "eye candy", the education did come on Sunday!
We arrived home about 6:30pm on Sunday, tired yet still excited about what we had seen over the weekend! Now, I have to go through about 600 or so photos and decide which are going into the Picasa albums! I'm not sure that I'll get them all posted for a while though. I may have to wait until I get home to get them all up :) And let's not forget my trip to the Lesedi Cultural today with Elsa from Elsasdesigns.com....
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Dinner Out With Friends
Today was a pretty quiet day. Santi sat working on her new design set (that's almost finished by the way) and I piddled with the Trunk Show CD. She looked over at me this afternoon and asked me what was wrong, I was being so quiet. If you know me, you know this doesn't happen often! I turned and looked at her and said, "you're working and you're on a roll and I'm not going to bother you!" The phones and visitors were very quiet today and the muse was sitting on her shoulder whispering to her. I didn't want to scare the muse away! She's at a point where she is doing some very intricate fine tuning on her set and distractions right now can cause her to lose track of where she is and what she has done so far and that is extremely frustrating to anyone who is that focused on a project!
Tonight we had dinner plans with friends of Peter, Estelle and Frank. You know how it is when you first meet someone, you're not sure exactly how formal or informal you should be. But, being Peter's friends, I kind of expected them to be down to Earth and they were! They are such a fun couple, we sat around the table talking and laughing until about half an hour after the restaurant closed (ooops)! No one knew the place closes at 10pm, they thought it was 11pm! And the staff said NOTHING and continued to bring coffee and drinks after business hours! We finally noticed that the staff was doing their closing work and we decided we should be nice and let them go home.
They told stories about Peter and I told stories about traveling with Santi and I think we were laughing so loud we may have encouraged a few other diners to leave a little early? We talked about the differences between South Africa and the States for a while but it didn't take long before we were off topic (like the list gets at times :) and back to laughing and joking around. I really did enjoy the evening, I felt like I had known Estelle and Frank for years! Estelle and Santi sipped their wine but I guess they had been together often enough to know that although the boys drove us, the girls would be driving home! I did threaten Peter that I would be driving and not Santi, she really doesn't like driving at night. OK keep in mind that this was not long after Santi told on me for almost getting run over in the street not long after I arrived! These people drive not only on the wrong side of the road but on the wrong side of the car! Every time they turn I'm thinking they are turning into on coming traffic! It can be quite disorientating really. You are sitting there, letting your mind wander and soak in the view and all of the sudden you hear the van kind of lag a bit and you start going for the clutch to down shift!
I USED to laugh when we were traveling and Santi would head out to the van and walk up the (our) drivers door! I would hold out the keys and tell her, "oh, you decided to drive for a while?" I'll never do that again! I find myself doing the same thing. I keep telling myself "passenger, passenger, passenger" cause with or without Santi, I'm usually the driver. OK so "passenger" here is on the drivers side of the car! I'm getting better about walking to the car thinking, "driver, driver, driver" now. 9 out of 10 times I do find the right car door but at the same time I'm wondering where my keys are and who stole my steering wheel!
So we get Peter home and he's still feeling pretty good with a smile on his face even though we picked on his most of the night. Peter can take a joke! Frank asked how long I had been here and before I could say "3 weeks" he popped up with 3 months. I told him it just seemed like 3 months cause he was having too much fun! They have a good family friend Pam and quite often they'll say Pam instead of Pat, or Pam Pat LOL Tonight when Peter would call me Pam I told him Pam couldn't hear him did he want the cell phone? So can you get an idea of how much fun this evening was?
By the time we left it was drizzling outside, but it wasn't cold. Peter is pushing me out into the rain as we continue to talk and laugh and again I threaten him with me driving home on the wrong side of the road! He just had to guess who's "wrong side" I was talking about! We finally said our good byes and headed out to the car. Peter was probably OK to drive after wine with his dinner but Santi took the keys and showed him where the back seat of her 2 door 4 wheel drive (this isn't like Cara's 4 wheel drive mind you, it's a real one). Being "company" I get the passenger seat :) Now, before you get the wrong idea here, Peter really doesn't drink that much. He may have a glass of wine with dinner, but that's about it. Tonight was an exception. He and Santi hadn't seen Estelle and Frank for some time and you know how the boys get when you let them out to play!
Unfortunately for Peter, Santi and I were in a playful mood... so things didn't get any better for him once we got back home ;) Let's see, Santi locked the security door and told Peter HE had the keys to it. We had him wandering around to find where he had "dropped" his key chain (it had slipped his mind that Santi had his keys because she drove him home). Once he "found" the keys it didn't stop then, we just kept on him until he finally gave up and went to bed! Of course Santi and I continued to laugh about how he kept looking for the keys until she finally gave up and went to bed. Poor thing was so tired, not only has she had me for 3 weeks Monday was Mari's birthday (Happy Birthday Mari!) and Santi and Mari hadn't had much "sister time" since before I got here, while I was at Cara's for dinner last night she and Mari spent some quiet time together. Like sisters do, they were up late talking, so Santi was worn out tonight.
I'm heading off to bed myself now. My Social Directors may have told me if I have plans for tomorrow, but if they did that information flew out the window at some point! I am sorry to say that I didn't take my camera with me tonight but Frank and Estelle want to get together again before I leave and I promise to take the camera with me when we go! I've had requests for more "people" pictures and after reviewing the photos, I see I have been slacking off on that part of my "job" here. I will do much better and stock you up on photos of the family and extended family before I leave, I promise!
Tonight we had dinner plans with friends of Peter, Estelle and Frank. You know how it is when you first meet someone, you're not sure exactly how formal or informal you should be. But, being Peter's friends, I kind of expected them to be down to Earth and they were! They are such a fun couple, we sat around the table talking and laughing until about half an hour after the restaurant closed (ooops)! No one knew the place closes at 10pm, they thought it was 11pm! And the staff said NOTHING and continued to bring coffee and drinks after business hours! We finally noticed that the staff was doing their closing work and we decided we should be nice and let them go home.
They told stories about Peter and I told stories about traveling with Santi and I think we were laughing so loud we may have encouraged a few other diners to leave a little early? We talked about the differences between South Africa and the States for a while but it didn't take long before we were off topic (like the list gets at times :) and back to laughing and joking around. I really did enjoy the evening, I felt like I had known Estelle and Frank for years! Estelle and Santi sipped their wine but I guess they had been together often enough to know that although the boys drove us, the girls would be driving home! I did threaten Peter that I would be driving and not Santi, she really doesn't like driving at night. OK keep in mind that this was not long after Santi told on me for almost getting run over in the street not long after I arrived! These people drive not only on the wrong side of the road but on the wrong side of the car! Every time they turn I'm thinking they are turning into on coming traffic! It can be quite disorientating really. You are sitting there, letting your mind wander and soak in the view and all of the sudden you hear the van kind of lag a bit and you start going for the clutch to down shift!
I USED to laugh when we were traveling and Santi would head out to the van and walk up the (our) drivers door! I would hold out the keys and tell her, "oh, you decided to drive for a while?" I'll never do that again! I find myself doing the same thing. I keep telling myself "passenger, passenger, passenger" cause with or without Santi, I'm usually the driver. OK so "passenger" here is on the drivers side of the car! I'm getting better about walking to the car thinking, "driver, driver, driver" now. 9 out of 10 times I do find the right car door but at the same time I'm wondering where my keys are and who stole my steering wheel!
So we get Peter home and he's still feeling pretty good with a smile on his face even though we picked on his most of the night. Peter can take a joke! Frank asked how long I had been here and before I could say "3 weeks" he popped up with 3 months. I told him it just seemed like 3 months cause he was having too much fun! They have a good family friend Pam and quite often they'll say Pam instead of Pat, or Pam Pat LOL Tonight when Peter would call me Pam I told him Pam couldn't hear him did he want the cell phone? So can you get an idea of how much fun this evening was?
By the time we left it was drizzling outside, but it wasn't cold. Peter is pushing me out into the rain as we continue to talk and laugh and again I threaten him with me driving home on the wrong side of the road! He just had to guess who's "wrong side" I was talking about! We finally said our good byes and headed out to the car. Peter was probably OK to drive after wine with his dinner but Santi took the keys and showed him where the back seat of her 2 door 4 wheel drive (this isn't like Cara's 4 wheel drive mind you, it's a real one). Being "company" I get the passenger seat :) Now, before you get the wrong idea here, Peter really doesn't drink that much. He may have a glass of wine with dinner, but that's about it. Tonight was an exception. He and Santi hadn't seen Estelle and Frank for some time and you know how the boys get when you let them out to play!
Unfortunately for Peter, Santi and I were in a playful mood... so things didn't get any better for him once we got back home ;) Let's see, Santi locked the security door and told Peter HE had the keys to it. We had him wandering around to find where he had "dropped" his key chain (it had slipped his mind that Santi had his keys because she drove him home). Once he "found" the keys it didn't stop then, we just kept on him until he finally gave up and went to bed! Of course Santi and I continued to laugh about how he kept looking for the keys until she finally gave up and went to bed. Poor thing was so tired, not only has she had me for 3 weeks Monday was Mari's birthday (Happy Birthday Mari!) and Santi and Mari hadn't had much "sister time" since before I got here, while I was at Cara's for dinner last night she and Mari spent some quiet time together. Like sisters do, they were up late talking, so Santi was worn out tonight.
I'm heading off to bed myself now. My Social Directors may have told me if I have plans for tomorrow, but if they did that information flew out the window at some point! I am sorry to say that I didn't take my camera with me tonight but Frank and Estelle want to get together again before I leave and I promise to take the camera with me when we go! I've had requests for more "people" pictures and after reviewing the photos, I see I have been slacking off on that part of my "job" here. I will do much better and stock you up on photos of the family and extended family before I leave, I promise!
Sudwala Caves - Inside the caves
I have been informed that I did omit some information about being inside of the caves. That was an ooopsie on my part. Just as we entered the caves, where the reception desk is, we could immediately feel the cool breeze, which was nice after climbing up from the car. Even from the reception area, we could see that the walls had small streams of water here and there that still flow to this day. Our guide arrived and we began to explore a very small part of the caves that go on for who knows how far. He explained that the walls of the caves were dolomite and continued to explain how the stalagmites and stalactites were formed. The water that seeps into the caves have high concentrations of minerals in it, as the water drips from the top, mineral deposits begin to form on the stalagmites at the top and as the water drips down stalacites begin to build up from the bottom up. Over the course of several million years (and in this case, many more millions of years to come) they will eventually meet to form a column. There were several columns that had already formed as we went deeper into the caves.
Here is the interesting part, as we moved into the first demonstration area, he turned the lights on. I'm assuming that these lights run off of a generator since I seriously doubt there are power lines running up this mountain! The first area was an old camp site from a tribe who was at war with his brother's tribe (please don't ask for names, they are in the link which is going to be posted at the end of this blog again). One of the brothers brought his people into the caves for shelter. The site wasn't too far into the caves but remember, they are still mapping all of the caves in the mountain. There was a stalacite hanging from the roof and because of how sound travels, the look outs would bang on this hollow stalacite and the alarm would be carried throughout the system.
Our guide used a rubber mallet to bang on the stalactite and we could hear the noise it made. I don't want to use the word echo here, because it wasn't an echo, just the pure sound of the banging. It's difficult to explain, but for the record, back in the 70's an amphitheater was built a little farther into the caves and a world renowned tenor from Italy came to test it. He said that the sound quality in the caves was as good as or better than any he had performed in. Now, if this was an echo I think that it would begin to sound garbled within seconds...
At this camp site, which was probably a forward look out as I think about it, there was a fire ring set up. They used the branches from a nearby tree and pounded them until the pulp had been mashed into a torch. The torches were used to light the caves. Now, keep in mind here that although man had mastered fire at this point, it was best if the camp fires kept burning. They could produce fire (oh and not with matches at the time) by twirling a stick inside of a hollowed out rock, with kindling at the bottom. This was a great method (and one I believe the Boy Scouts teach this technique to this day) but the problem was that it could take hours for the friction to produce a small fire inside of the rock. There was also a rock and stone "rolling pin" to grind corn into meal which then could be cooked for dinner along with whatever the hunters found for dinner.
At this point in the cave, there was still some light coming from the entrance so it wasn't too bad. As we moved from that area into the next area, our guide flicked on the lights for the new area and switched off the light from the previous area. Cara and I could clearly hear the sounds made by the switch just as clearly as if we had been standing right next to him!
So now there is only the lighting that came from those lights, they were bright but I could no longer see any light coming from the entrance. It was kind of eerie to stand there. It's not like I lost my orientation, but then, I wasn't eager to go far from the illumination either.
The next couple of stops we made along the way were fascinating rock formations. I believe that I did get a few photos of some of them. They were amazing. More colorful that I had imagined even though I had looked at the link below. Now, as we moved farther into the caves, the roof as it was, got taller and taller. The light no longer penetrated the darkness as it had earlier. I was hesitant about looking straight up because I got a little dizzy. My feeling of orientation was getting even shakier. Remember, as we moved into these different areas, our guide for the day, was flicking lights on and off. They were concealed very well so he would be out of our sight and we could only see the flashlight that he carried.
It's getting a little spooky in there at this point when the guide decided it would be fun activity to turn OFF the lights so we could see how dark it was in there! At this point, I barely knew where up was, although I knew I was standing on my feet! There was no sounds anywhere in the caves at this point and it was probably the most dark and senorsy deprivation place I've ever been IN MY LIFE! But at least there were no bats flying around.
Did I say bats? Yeah, there were a few hundred roosting in the caves and when our guide, who some may feel has a sense of humor, but I would not agree, decided it would be a fun thing to flash his light into the crowd and wake a few of them up! They were smallish (catch the "ish" part) fruit bats that were were not into biting you on the neck... and only a few few and a few more fluttered their wings.
The amphitheater I mentioned early was amazing. There were stone benches for the opera lovers to sit on while the stage had been built a little higher than the seats but not so high as you couldn't watch the performance. Our guide gave us a short but lovely, demonstration of sound within the amphitheater area as well. It's amazing how the voice resonated but didn't echo. Also, interestingly enough Cara and I did notice that as we moved farther into the caves, the temperature didn't change but the humidity did rise.
There was one more area that we were given the opportunity to see. You had to hunch over and almost on hands and knees crawl into another cavern. Cara took him up on it (being so young and all) but I choose to wait kind of patiently for them to return. Cara whispered that I hadn't missed much but a little back strain because it was very similar to what we had already seen. I would have been disappointed I didn't go if she said there was a diamond mine on the other side of that crawl space!
We had seen and been educated on the caves and it was time to be guided out of the caves (with lights going off and on again as we went along) but our gait was a bit faster on the way out. Then it was time to crawl back down the steps to the car and move along on our adventure for the day.
Here is the interesting part, as we moved into the first demonstration area, he turned the lights on. I'm assuming that these lights run off of a generator since I seriously doubt there are power lines running up this mountain! The first area was an old camp site from a tribe who was at war with his brother's tribe (please don't ask for names, they are in the link which is going to be posted at the end of this blog again). One of the brothers brought his people into the caves for shelter. The site wasn't too far into the caves but remember, they are still mapping all of the caves in the mountain. There was a stalacite hanging from the roof and because of how sound travels, the look outs would bang on this hollow stalacite and the alarm would be carried throughout the system.
Our guide used a rubber mallet to bang on the stalactite and we could hear the noise it made. I don't want to use the word echo here, because it wasn't an echo, just the pure sound of the banging. It's difficult to explain, but for the record, back in the 70's an amphitheater was built a little farther into the caves and a world renowned tenor from Italy came to test it. He said that the sound quality in the caves was as good as or better than any he had performed in. Now, if this was an echo I think that it would begin to sound garbled within seconds...
At this camp site, which was probably a forward look out as I think about it, there was a fire ring set up. They used the branches from a nearby tree and pounded them until the pulp had been mashed into a torch. The torches were used to light the caves. Now, keep in mind here that although man had mastered fire at this point, it was best if the camp fires kept burning. They could produce fire (oh and not with matches at the time) by twirling a stick inside of a hollowed out rock, with kindling at the bottom. This was a great method (and one I believe the Boy Scouts teach this technique to this day) but the problem was that it could take hours for the friction to produce a small fire inside of the rock. There was also a rock and stone "rolling pin" to grind corn into meal which then could be cooked for dinner along with whatever the hunters found for dinner.
At this point in the cave, there was still some light coming from the entrance so it wasn't too bad. As we moved from that area into the next area, our guide flicked on the lights for the new area and switched off the light from the previous area. Cara and I could clearly hear the sounds made by the switch just as clearly as if we had been standing right next to him!
So now there is only the lighting that came from those lights, they were bright but I could no longer see any light coming from the entrance. It was kind of eerie to stand there. It's not like I lost my orientation, but then, I wasn't eager to go far from the illumination either.
The next couple of stops we made along the way were fascinating rock formations. I believe that I did get a few photos of some of them. They were amazing. More colorful that I had imagined even though I had looked at the link below. Now, as we moved farther into the caves, the roof as it was, got taller and taller. The light no longer penetrated the darkness as it had earlier. I was hesitant about looking straight up because I got a little dizzy. My feeling of orientation was getting even shakier. Remember, as we moved into these different areas, our guide for the day, was flicking lights on and off. They were concealed very well so he would be out of our sight and we could only see the flashlight that he carried.
It's getting a little spooky in there at this point when the guide decided it would be fun activity to turn OFF the lights so we could see how dark it was in there! At this point, I barely knew where up was, although I knew I was standing on my feet! There was no sounds anywhere in the caves at this point and it was probably the most dark and senorsy deprivation place I've ever been IN MY LIFE! But at least there were no bats flying around.
Did I say bats? Yeah, there were a few hundred roosting in the caves and when our guide, who some may feel has a sense of humor, but I would not agree, decided it would be a fun thing to flash his light into the crowd and wake a few of them up! They were smallish (catch the "ish" part) fruit bats that were were not into biting you on the neck... and only a few few and a few more fluttered their wings.
The amphitheater I mentioned early was amazing. There were stone benches for the opera lovers to sit on while the stage had been built a little higher than the seats but not so high as you couldn't watch the performance. Our guide gave us a short but lovely, demonstration of sound within the amphitheater area as well. It's amazing how the voice resonated but didn't echo. Also, interestingly enough Cara and I did notice that as we moved farther into the caves, the temperature didn't change but the humidity did rise.
There was one more area that we were given the opportunity to see. You had to hunch over and almost on hands and knees crawl into another cavern. Cara took him up on it (being so young and all) but I choose to wait kind of patiently for them to return. Cara whispered that I hadn't missed much but a little back strain because it was very similar to what we had already seen. I would have been disappointed I didn't go if she said there was a diamond mine on the other side of that crawl space!
We had seen and been educated on the caves and it was time to be guided out of the caves (with lights going off and on again as we went along) but our gait was a bit faster on the way out. Then it was time to crawl back down the steps to the car and move along on our adventure for the day.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The Scenic Route - Saturday March 14th
After we left the Rehabilitation Center, before we took a scenic tour of some of the attractions in the area, we stopped along the road for a picnic. We had packed up leftovers from our braai the night before along with lunch meat, some very tasty bread and assorted snacks to go with it. We stopped near a very large tree that I cannot for the life of me remember what it's called! Of course there is no one here to ask right now! I'll tag the photo as soon as I can grab one of my Tour Directors to remind me. I'm telling you, I'm so senile at this point that I'm good if I remember my name! So many new things to see, experiences coming...
I am not going to try to describe what I saw on that drive. I'm going to let the photos speak for themselves for a change :) I am still in awe at the things I saw on that little cruise down the "South African Super Highway". It's kind of a joke between us. The farther out of the cities you get the more potholes in the roads. I don't mention this to pick on the roads here, heaven knows we have the same problems in the States! I tell you this because one on the vistas on our route on Saturday is called, "The Potholes". Santi didn't bother to tell me this was a natural wonder in the area! I was thinking, "oh goodie, more potholes!" So not true! Again, I will let the photos speak for the view. Links will be added to the end of this blog if you want more information on "The Potholes" and the "3 Rondovels".
The only downside of the day was the low clouds did minimize the views to some degree. Cara reminded me that the town we were staying in was called "Hazyview" and I guess we know why that is, now don't we? Being higher in the mountains of course the clouds seem lower! I think in a few of the photos you can see that rain was threatening at different times during the afternoon.
To keep us entertained on the drive between destinations, we had Cara and her friend, Stefan, in the center seat of the Combi doing their best impressions of 7 years olds on a cross country summer vacation! Oh how I remember those days, "he's on my side of the seat!" and the "she's touching me!" I kept telling the "kids" that I was going to have "Dad" pull over to the side of the road and put them out of the car if they didn't behave! They did keep us entertained during the long drive! I did miss Liese this weekend and wished time and time again she had been able to join us...
Stefan is a good guy and fits right in with the family. He has a great sense of humor and he's great at working that grill for the braais! He's also good for carrying luggage around and hauling the supplies as well ;) He has been to the University but I think he majored in stand up comedy! I'm just kidding Stefan, if I didn't like you I wouldn't pick on you the way I do.
I will add that they are taking their turns at trying to kill me! First it was Cara and the caves and the elephant ride (my bum still remembers that one well!). Then it was Santi's turn. Before we got to the 3 Rondavals, Mom made it perfectly clear that I was going to walk DOWN to see the view. I know Santi well enough to know when there is no point in arguing with her. This was one of those times... The photos will give you some idea of the path we followed to see this miracle of nature! It was another one of those sites that was more than worth the effort to get there but Mom, PLEASE! LOL It was absolutely breath taking down there (again I use the word DOWN). Again, this is one of those times where I'll let the photos do my talking :) Then there was the crawling back up part... Yes, I admit, I WHINED and Peter just laughed at me! Of course this is the marathon runner I'm talking about. Ppppffffftttttt!
When we got back up the "kids" saw an ice cream stand and of course there were the screams of , "I scream, you scream, we all want ice cream". I'm going to tell on Santi now, don't tell her I told you this but remember those DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS signs I talked about earlier? A monkey appeared while we were having refreshments and Mom fed the monkey! And if that wasn't bad enough, Peter was teasing the monkey! It was getting harder and harder to tell the kids from the grown ups at that point! This little boy (ask me how I know he was a boy... photos again), wasn't afraid of people by any means, I guess he stayed close to the refreshment stand. Now, she said she did it for me... because I am still not used to seeing them running around in the more rural areas (no, like the lions and elephants, they have pretty much fled the urban areas).
We left for Hazyview for dinner and a good nights sleep for the ride home. Dinner was out on the patio of the restaurant and the breeze felt so gooooood! I think we've been pretty lucky in our travels, this is the end of summer here and it's still a bit toasty at times but there is usually a nice breeze to cool you off :)
Sunday on the ride home, there wasn't as much conversation. I think we were all ready to get out of the Combi and back into our own beds!
As far as Monday and Tuesday this week? So far, it's been pretty much spent on editing the photos for the albums. I did have dinner with Cara and Stefan this evening. Cara is a great cook by the way :)
( I think I've hit an all time record for the fewest type-o's [for sure not spelling errors] in quite some time! Yeppie for me! )
I am not going to try to describe what I saw on that drive. I'm going to let the photos speak for themselves for a change :) I am still in awe at the things I saw on that little cruise down the "South African Super Highway". It's kind of a joke between us. The farther out of the cities you get the more potholes in the roads. I don't mention this to pick on the roads here, heaven knows we have the same problems in the States! I tell you this because one on the vistas on our route on Saturday is called, "The Potholes". Santi didn't bother to tell me this was a natural wonder in the area! I was thinking, "oh goodie, more potholes!" So not true! Again, I will let the photos speak for the view. Links will be added to the end of this blog if you want more information on "The Potholes" and the "3 Rondovels".
The only downside of the day was the low clouds did minimize the views to some degree. Cara reminded me that the town we were staying in was called "Hazyview" and I guess we know why that is, now don't we? Being higher in the mountains of course the clouds seem lower! I think in a few of the photos you can see that rain was threatening at different times during the afternoon.
To keep us entertained on the drive between destinations, we had Cara and her friend, Stefan, in the center seat of the Combi doing their best impressions of 7 years olds on a cross country summer vacation! Oh how I remember those days, "he's on my side of the seat!" and the "she's touching me!" I kept telling the "kids" that I was going to have "Dad" pull over to the side of the road and put them out of the car if they didn't behave! They did keep us entertained during the long drive! I did miss Liese this weekend and wished time and time again she had been able to join us...
Stefan is a good guy and fits right in with the family. He has a great sense of humor and he's great at working that grill for the braais! He's also good for carrying luggage around and hauling the supplies as well ;) He has been to the University but I think he majored in stand up comedy! I'm just kidding Stefan, if I didn't like you I wouldn't pick on you the way I do.
I will add that they are taking their turns at trying to kill me! First it was Cara and the caves and the elephant ride (my bum still remembers that one well!). Then it was Santi's turn. Before we got to the 3 Rondavals, Mom made it perfectly clear that I was going to walk DOWN to see the view. I know Santi well enough to know when there is no point in arguing with her. This was one of those times... The photos will give you some idea of the path we followed to see this miracle of nature! It was another one of those sites that was more than worth the effort to get there but Mom, PLEASE! LOL It was absolutely breath taking down there (again I use the word DOWN). Again, this is one of those times where I'll let the photos do my talking :) Then there was the crawling back up part... Yes, I admit, I WHINED and Peter just laughed at me! Of course this is the marathon runner I'm talking about. Ppppffffftttttt!
When we got back up the "kids" saw an ice cream stand and of course there were the screams of , "I scream, you scream, we all want ice cream". I'm going to tell on Santi now, don't tell her I told you this but remember those DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS signs I talked about earlier? A monkey appeared while we were having refreshments and Mom fed the monkey! And if that wasn't bad enough, Peter was teasing the monkey! It was getting harder and harder to tell the kids from the grown ups at that point! This little boy (ask me how I know he was a boy... photos again), wasn't afraid of people by any means, I guess he stayed close to the refreshment stand. Now, she said she did it for me... because I am still not used to seeing them running around in the more rural areas (no, like the lions and elephants, they have pretty much fled the urban areas).
We left for Hazyview for dinner and a good nights sleep for the ride home. Dinner was out on the patio of the restaurant and the breeze felt so gooooood! I think we've been pretty lucky in our travels, this is the end of summer here and it's still a bit toasty at times but there is usually a nice breeze to cool you off :)
Sunday on the ride home, there wasn't as much conversation. I think we were all ready to get out of the Combi and back into our own beds!
As far as Monday and Tuesday this week? So far, it's been pretty much spent on editing the photos for the albums. I did have dinner with Cara and Stefan this evening. Cara is a great cook by the way :)
( I think I've hit an all time record for the fewest type-o's [for sure not spelling errors] in quite some time! Yeppie for me! )
Birds of the Dead - Moholoholo Rehabilitation Center
Moholoholo Rehabilitation Center is a haven for sick and injured animals in the Lowveld region. It is also a very sad place as well. I invite you to check out the link below and make sure you click on "Overview". The overview section is where they update their own journals or blogs about the animals they have taken in.
Moholoholo Rehabilitation Center's mission is, first to the wildlife and then to education. Brian Jones, one of our guides for the morning, was very quick to point out that, sad as it is, the Center and Kruger National Park (close by) are zoos of sorts. They are a non-profit organization that relies on donations from the outside. They opened their gates to visitors to educate them and for the resources it brings to them. Their own resources make the decisions on how much they can do.
Brian was an excellent speaker as he explained the life cycle of the Lowveld. Every creature depends on the other to exist, it's as simple as that. The monkeys and baboons sit high in the trees and strip off leaves, fruits and nuts from the trees (damaging to the farmers) and what they drop off of the trees is then eaten by the grazers of the field. The monkeys and baboons have sentries to watch for predators and when they see one, they send out the alarm. The alarm is also picked up by the grazers who also flee the area! The predator picks out the prey and attacks and if he's lucky, he has a meal. Once he's finished then other pack animals move in for the left overs and from there come the insects.
You thought I left out the vultures didn't you? Yes, the vultures are the Birds of the Dead, but they are selective as to their "diet". The predators and scavengers feed off of the fresh kills but not the vultures! The vultures have an immunity to the diseases of the mammals. Let's use anthrax for example. When an animal dies due to anthrax or other diseases, the vultures swoop in. Each variety with his own job to do. You've all seen National Geographic photos of circling vultures right? They circle for a reason, they are calling in the rest of the "family" for dinner. First comes the larger birds with the razor sharp beaks to open the soft skin of the animal. He eats his fill and moves on. Then come the more medium size vultures with their hooked bills. They are equipped to open those holes even further and eat their fill and once they are done they move on. Then the smaller birds move in for the smaller pieces of meat still on the bone. In a matter of 3 hours they vultures can clean a carcass! That's kind of interesting but what's the hurry? The hurry is that these animals died from a disease and if those bones aren't cleaned in a hurry a fly can move in and carry the disease to an entire herd of animals, killing them all, because of 1 small fly! A fly is used as an example here, but small pack of scavengers would do the same job in a lot less time.
Amazing to think about it isn't it? The vultures are natures way of controlling disease within a population. Not that they are very pretty birds by any means, in my humble opinion, but their task given by nature, is one of beauty! Vultures fly (or I should say soar) high in the sky and have very keen eye site. They watch the sky as they soar looking for "invitations" to dinner. When they see another vulture beyond what you or I could see, they flock to the area and wait their turn at dinner! No one is in a hurry, everyone knows that they will have their fill before the bones are picked clean! Their seating arrangement for dinner is bases on the shape of their bills! It's really amazing if you stop and think about it. The smaller hook billed vultures can't open the flesh of an animal, so they wait for the big boy to show up and "carve" dinner as it were. They "show" the larger birds the way by circling in the sky, marking the spot. As the others see the circling they join in and continue to circle until everyone is there and it's time to begin.
OK so vultures are not the most "romantic" of the animals, I agree, but there isn't much of a chance for the larger herds to continue to thrive without them! So maybe in nature it isn't all about how you look, but about how you do your job! I'm not going to pretend to remember the names of all of the birds or what their job is, I'm sure that there is information on the Internet that gives specific information and I'm sure one day, when there is time, I'll go back and investigate it further. It is interesting to scroll through the photos in the album and note the differences in the beaks of the birds. The orange faced vulture has a face only a mother could love, but look close at his eyes and see his eyelashes! I think it was Elsa who got me hooked on the eyes of the animals, at her website photo gallery! Thank you Elsa!
In the last set of vulture photos at Picasa, you'll see an enclosure that the public is invited into. Our guide explained that we would be very safe as long as we stayed alive! I felt pretty chipper so I ventured into the enclosure to get a closer look at these guys. They stand with their wings open to cool off by the way and if that doesn't work, then it's off to the bath for a proper washing and cooling at the same time :) I also thought it was cute that while one was in the water it seemed as though there was a line forming in back of him!
It in this set of photos that you'll find Stefan who got very brave and dawned the leather glove to feed the vultures a snack. The demonstration was to actually feel how heavy these boys get! I've had a macaw before, so knowing the weight of him and seeing the size difference, I had a pretty good idea as to how heavy he was, so I passed on the opportunity to feed them myself! Stefan even kind of dropped his arm a bit when the bird hopped onto his arm, so again, I got a pretty good clue as to his weight!
The DO NOT signs... yes, we've all seen them, Do Not Touch the Animals, Do Not Feed the Animals etc. First, I have to wonder why someone would have to be told not to stick their fingers inside of a lion enclosure but then I hope I'm smarter than the average monkey! What I find most aggravating are the "tourists" in these tourist traps! LOL Yeah, I know how that sounds, but you all know what I'm talking about! Everyone wants to get up close and see the animals and take pictures of the animals and then there are the ones who think that they are the only ones allowed to see... grrrrrrr!
Take the father with his $1000 (or more) Nikon camera with all of the fancy lenses and his approximately 7 year old son. Most of us would be fussing at our kids and watching them closely in an area that has a DO NOT sign posted, wouldn't we? Oh no! This dad is actually ENCOURAGING his son to touch the leopard! OK so the leopard at the time was laying against the fence with his back to us, does that make it any safer? Those big cats are fast, they have to be to survive in their world! Personally I was rooting for the leopard to have a little mid morning snack! Seriously, has this father been watching too many cartoons or what?????? Do you know why I could never be a guide at one of those kinds of places? Seeing the father encouraging his son, I'd invite the kid and his father inside the gate to play with the big kitty cat! Pppffffttttt! LOL
OK I'm done with that little ranting session! Granted, our guide through the Center has done this job for several years now (was asked) and so he goes through the same description over and over and over again, watching his visitors "do" when they should be "Do Not"ing (is that a word? It is now.) I'm not sure how many times he repeated that these animals cannot be released into the wild again. Every animal we visited he would repeat the sentence. OK I got it after the first few times, not to mention that Brian had explained in detail why most would never be able to be released, their exposure to man and his interference with nature. So the guide says, "these animals cannot be returned to the wild" and the next question he gets is???? The problem children of the day were a bus load of tourists from I don't know where but I was so happy when they had to leave with Tours Inc.! I really don't think anyone was sad to see them go, they were the pushy ones... So remember tourists, when you travel, be considerate to those with you or you may be thrown into the lion enclosure by the person next to you!
OK so I'm not done yet, sorry. One "tourist" asked if the animals "liked being here." Hummmm, I could see the wheels turning in the guides head as to how he WANTS to answer this question, but he shows more restraint than I would have with his non-committal reply. Most of the animals at Moholoholo were predators (outside of the birds of the dead), they weren't like the elephants that Cara and I spent time with the day before. Elephants are grazers not predators. These kids were clearly less happy to be there than the elephants at the Elephant Sanctuary were. The leopard paced most of the time we saw him, now part of that was that when he saw the guide he knew it was time for his snack from the guide but you could also kind of see the restlessness in their eyes.
I don't know, maybe it was part of the sadness of this wonderful place that I found most annoying. I saw the lion and lioness in their enclosure and my heart went out to them. The lion is a beautiful animal who is much bigger and muscular than I ever imagined. Again, yes, I've seen his cousin in a zoo, but not this close up! His size was surprising as was the beauty of his gait. You really wanted to go hug the big kitties, but again, they are called WILD for a reason.
If you wander through the Birds of the Dead album at Picasa, take note of the size of the guides hand as compared to the lion's or the leopard's head and mouth. Note also how he keeps his fingers AWAY from the cats? Look at the size of the claws on those kitties! They are most impressive in stature, so regal and so ....????
Again, the wild dogs were not what I had expected them to be either really. I'm not sure what I expected, but these were big dogs, highly alert and watching the visitors as they filed by. Do you remember what I said before about the amount of range that these animals need to survive? Each species has it's own needs and it can share some of it's range with other species but it still needs what it needs to survive. These wild dog packs can run and run and run, they exhaust their prey and still have the energy to attack and bring it down. Amazing when you think about it. I know my Pugs at home can barely get off of the couch and attack their food dish!
Before we get to the baby rhinos at the Center, there are 2 cheetahs who reside there and have been there for a very long time. They put these 2 kids on leashes and take them to educate the nearby farmers. They did lay out in the shade while we were there and kind of waved a paw at us from time to time, just to be social and say hello ;) There is always a problem between the predators and the farmers. The farmers say that the predators eat their cows and sheep. The Center will come and get them to move them to a safer place for everyone when the farmers call. Most times the farmers just poison the predators and call it fair. The farmers say the vultures kill their livestock so they poison a goat and leave it for the vultures. They come, they eat and they die! Sometimes by the hundreds. What the farmers don't understand is the interdependence of all of the life in the area. Now when a diseased goat, cow or sheep dies, the vultures aren't there to clean up that little mess and the disease is passed along to the rest of the herd! Sad isn't it? So the Center is very keen on educating the local farmers and they use the 2 cheetahs to help teach them.
So now we can move on to the baby rhinos. The center received a call from Kruger National Park, they had been rejected by it's mother. The center was called because the white rhinos are on the endangered species list. Once they are old enough they will be moved to a preserve that specializes in breeding and from what I understand they are in need of males at this types of preserves. So, let's hope that this does them some good and we don't lose the rhinos! They are incredible animals, but then, aren't they all? The babies are adorable, they are very sweet and love the visitors almost as much as they like feeding time! They are playful and seem happy. Both came to the Center just after birth and about a week apart so they are being raised as brothers. You can see how much they bonded to each other by the way they play and romp around. One of them was quite insistent on getting into Betsi's purse! Once the other tourists left (you remember them I'm sure), the rest of us were able to take a few photos and pet them :)
I've always heard the expression, "tough as a rhinos hide", well, I can better appreciate that expression now! You cannot see movement between the shoulders and the hips when they walk! It feels almost like a tanned leather and it's very thick. You can see on their sides, scuff marks made by the other rhino as they played! They do seem to play a little rough with each other, but then, their hide can handle it! We were there when they got part of their 15 liters of rhino formula! For our metrically impaired, that would be 7 1/2 2 liter sodas, per day... each! And yes, I'm one of those metrically impaired thank you! To grasp the amount of formula they get I had to visualize all those soda bottles lined up in a row! Once they have lapped it up from the bowl, the staff comes and wipes their faces off to stop any bacteria from growing. Like any child who has just eaten, they really didn't appreciate getting their faces cleaned though. The kids have been bottle fed since birth and they are quite comfortable with human contact, I think they thrive on it. I never did realize or appreciate how social most of these animals are... it's very heart warming to see that.
Some of you may want to quit reading at this point. The topic is Conservation and it's a very emotional subject in many parts of the world right now. If you choose to continue reading, please understand that what you are reading is only MY thoughts and mine alone.
Moholoholo Rehabilitation Center's mission is, first to the wildlife and then to education. Brian Jones, one of our guides for the morning, was very quick to point out that, sad as it is, the Center and Kruger National Park (close by) are zoos of sorts. They are a non-profit organization that relies on donations from the outside. They opened their gates to visitors to educate them and for the resources it brings to them. Their own resources make the decisions on how much they can do.
Brian was an excellent speaker as he explained the life cycle of the Lowveld. Every creature depends on the other to exist, it's as simple as that. The monkeys and baboons sit high in the trees and strip off leaves, fruits and nuts from the trees (damaging to the farmers) and what they drop off of the trees is then eaten by the grazers of the field. The monkeys and baboons have sentries to watch for predators and when they see one, they send out the alarm. The alarm is also picked up by the grazers who also flee the area! The predator picks out the prey and attacks and if he's lucky, he has a meal. Once he's finished then other pack animals move in for the left overs and from there come the insects.
You thought I left out the vultures didn't you? Yes, the vultures are the Birds of the Dead, but they are selective as to their "diet". The predators and scavengers feed off of the fresh kills but not the vultures! The vultures have an immunity to the diseases of the mammals. Let's use anthrax for example. When an animal dies due to anthrax or other diseases, the vultures swoop in. Each variety with his own job to do. You've all seen National Geographic photos of circling vultures right? They circle for a reason, they are calling in the rest of the "family" for dinner. First comes the larger birds with the razor sharp beaks to open the soft skin of the animal. He eats his fill and moves on. Then come the more medium size vultures with their hooked bills. They are equipped to open those holes even further and eat their fill and once they are done they move on. Then the smaller birds move in for the smaller pieces of meat still on the bone. In a matter of 3 hours they vultures can clean a carcass! That's kind of interesting but what's the hurry? The hurry is that these animals died from a disease and if those bones aren't cleaned in a hurry a fly can move in and carry the disease to an entire herd of animals, killing them all, because of 1 small fly! A fly is used as an example here, but small pack of scavengers would do the same job in a lot less time.
Amazing to think about it isn't it? The vultures are natures way of controlling disease within a population. Not that they are very pretty birds by any means, in my humble opinion, but their task given by nature, is one of beauty! Vultures fly (or I should say soar) high in the sky and have very keen eye site. They watch the sky as they soar looking for "invitations" to dinner. When they see another vulture beyond what you or I could see, they flock to the area and wait their turn at dinner! No one is in a hurry, everyone knows that they will have their fill before the bones are picked clean! Their seating arrangement for dinner is bases on the shape of their bills! It's really amazing if you stop and think about it. The smaller hook billed vultures can't open the flesh of an animal, so they wait for the big boy to show up and "carve" dinner as it were. They "show" the larger birds the way by circling in the sky, marking the spot. As the others see the circling they join in and continue to circle until everyone is there and it's time to begin.
OK so vultures are not the most "romantic" of the animals, I agree, but there isn't much of a chance for the larger herds to continue to thrive without them! So maybe in nature it isn't all about how you look, but about how you do your job! I'm not going to pretend to remember the names of all of the birds or what their job is, I'm sure that there is information on the Internet that gives specific information and I'm sure one day, when there is time, I'll go back and investigate it further. It is interesting to scroll through the photos in the album and note the differences in the beaks of the birds. The orange faced vulture has a face only a mother could love, but look close at his eyes and see his eyelashes! I think it was Elsa who got me hooked on the eyes of the animals, at her website photo gallery! Thank you Elsa!
In the last set of vulture photos at Picasa, you'll see an enclosure that the public is invited into. Our guide explained that we would be very safe as long as we stayed alive! I felt pretty chipper so I ventured into the enclosure to get a closer look at these guys. They stand with their wings open to cool off by the way and if that doesn't work, then it's off to the bath for a proper washing and cooling at the same time :) I also thought it was cute that while one was in the water it seemed as though there was a line forming in back of him!
It in this set of photos that you'll find Stefan who got very brave and dawned the leather glove to feed the vultures a snack. The demonstration was to actually feel how heavy these boys get! I've had a macaw before, so knowing the weight of him and seeing the size difference, I had a pretty good idea as to how heavy he was, so I passed on the opportunity to feed them myself! Stefan even kind of dropped his arm a bit when the bird hopped onto his arm, so again, I got a pretty good clue as to his weight!
The DO NOT signs... yes, we've all seen them, Do Not Touch the Animals, Do Not Feed the Animals etc. First, I have to wonder why someone would have to be told not to stick their fingers inside of a lion enclosure but then I hope I'm smarter than the average monkey! What I find most aggravating are the "tourists" in these tourist traps! LOL Yeah, I know how that sounds, but you all know what I'm talking about! Everyone wants to get up close and see the animals and take pictures of the animals and then there are the ones who think that they are the only ones allowed to see... grrrrrrr!
Take the father with his $1000 (or more) Nikon camera with all of the fancy lenses and his approximately 7 year old son. Most of us would be fussing at our kids and watching them closely in an area that has a DO NOT sign posted, wouldn't we? Oh no! This dad is actually ENCOURAGING his son to touch the leopard! OK so the leopard at the time was laying against the fence with his back to us, does that make it any safer? Those big cats are fast, they have to be to survive in their world! Personally I was rooting for the leopard to have a little mid morning snack! Seriously, has this father been watching too many cartoons or what?????? Do you know why I could never be a guide at one of those kinds of places? Seeing the father encouraging his son, I'd invite the kid and his father inside the gate to play with the big kitty cat! Pppffffttttt! LOL
OK I'm done with that little ranting session! Granted, our guide through the Center has done this job for several years now (was asked) and so he goes through the same description over and over and over again, watching his visitors "do" when they should be "Do Not"ing (is that a word? It is now.) I'm not sure how many times he repeated that these animals cannot be released into the wild again. Every animal we visited he would repeat the sentence. OK I got it after the first few times, not to mention that Brian had explained in detail why most would never be able to be released, their exposure to man and his interference with nature. So the guide says, "these animals cannot be returned to the wild" and the next question he gets is???? The problem children of the day were a bus load of tourists from I don't know where but I was so happy when they had to leave with Tours Inc.! I really don't think anyone was sad to see them go, they were the pushy ones... So remember tourists, when you travel, be considerate to those with you or you may be thrown into the lion enclosure by the person next to you!
OK so I'm not done yet, sorry. One "tourist" asked if the animals "liked being here." Hummmm, I could see the wheels turning in the guides head as to how he WANTS to answer this question, but he shows more restraint than I would have with his non-committal reply. Most of the animals at Moholoholo were predators (outside of the birds of the dead), they weren't like the elephants that Cara and I spent time with the day before. Elephants are grazers not predators. These kids were clearly less happy to be there than the elephants at the Elephant Sanctuary were. The leopard paced most of the time we saw him, now part of that was that when he saw the guide he knew it was time for his snack from the guide but you could also kind of see the restlessness in their eyes.
I don't know, maybe it was part of the sadness of this wonderful place that I found most annoying. I saw the lion and lioness in their enclosure and my heart went out to them. The lion is a beautiful animal who is much bigger and muscular than I ever imagined. Again, yes, I've seen his cousin in a zoo, but not this close up! His size was surprising as was the beauty of his gait. You really wanted to go hug the big kitties, but again, they are called WILD for a reason.
If you wander through the Birds of the Dead album at Picasa, take note of the size of the guides hand as compared to the lion's or the leopard's head and mouth. Note also how he keeps his fingers AWAY from the cats? Look at the size of the claws on those kitties! They are most impressive in stature, so regal and so ....????
Again, the wild dogs were not what I had expected them to be either really. I'm not sure what I expected, but these were big dogs, highly alert and watching the visitors as they filed by. Do you remember what I said before about the amount of range that these animals need to survive? Each species has it's own needs and it can share some of it's range with other species but it still needs what it needs to survive. These wild dog packs can run and run and run, they exhaust their prey and still have the energy to attack and bring it down. Amazing when you think about it. I know my Pugs at home can barely get off of the couch and attack their food dish!
Before we get to the baby rhinos at the Center, there are 2 cheetahs who reside there and have been there for a very long time. They put these 2 kids on leashes and take them to educate the nearby farmers. They did lay out in the shade while we were there and kind of waved a paw at us from time to time, just to be social and say hello ;) There is always a problem between the predators and the farmers. The farmers say that the predators eat their cows and sheep. The Center will come and get them to move them to a safer place for everyone when the farmers call. Most times the farmers just poison the predators and call it fair. The farmers say the vultures kill their livestock so they poison a goat and leave it for the vultures. They come, they eat and they die! Sometimes by the hundreds. What the farmers don't understand is the interdependence of all of the life in the area. Now when a diseased goat, cow or sheep dies, the vultures aren't there to clean up that little mess and the disease is passed along to the rest of the herd! Sad isn't it? So the Center is very keen on educating the local farmers and they use the 2 cheetahs to help teach them.
So now we can move on to the baby rhinos. The center received a call from Kruger National Park, they had been rejected by it's mother. The center was called because the white rhinos are on the endangered species list. Once they are old enough they will be moved to a preserve that specializes in breeding and from what I understand they are in need of males at this types of preserves. So, let's hope that this does them some good and we don't lose the rhinos! They are incredible animals, but then, aren't they all? The babies are adorable, they are very sweet and love the visitors almost as much as they like feeding time! They are playful and seem happy. Both came to the Center just after birth and about a week apart so they are being raised as brothers. You can see how much they bonded to each other by the way they play and romp around. One of them was quite insistent on getting into Betsi's purse! Once the other tourists left (you remember them I'm sure), the rest of us were able to take a few photos and pet them :)
I've always heard the expression, "tough as a rhinos hide", well, I can better appreciate that expression now! You cannot see movement between the shoulders and the hips when they walk! It feels almost like a tanned leather and it's very thick. You can see on their sides, scuff marks made by the other rhino as they played! They do seem to play a little rough with each other, but then, their hide can handle it! We were there when they got part of their 15 liters of rhino formula! For our metrically impaired, that would be 7 1/2 2 liter sodas, per day... each! And yes, I'm one of those metrically impaired thank you! To grasp the amount of formula they get I had to visualize all those soda bottles lined up in a row! Once they have lapped it up from the bowl, the staff comes and wipes their faces off to stop any bacteria from growing. Like any child who has just eaten, they really didn't appreciate getting their faces cleaned though. The kids have been bottle fed since birth and they are quite comfortable with human contact, I think they thrive on it. I never did realize or appreciate how social most of these animals are... it's very heart warming to see that.
Some of you may want to quit reading at this point. The topic is Conservation and it's a very emotional subject in many parts of the world right now. If you choose to continue reading, please understand that what you are reading is only MY thoughts and mine alone.
Karen, you and I have had the "tree hugger" conversation before and I know that you read this blog. My thoughts are changing and I think I'm leaning towards the tree huggers side of the fence right now. I don't know where the middle ground is on the subject of man's needs versus wild life needs, I don't even know if there is any kind of workable solution. What I do know is that this trip has been a very eye opening experience for me. In some ways I think I was happier being ignorant... I know I've repeated myself on this part about the amount of range that each species needs for survival and the truth is that they are running out of space. Right now in Kruger Park there are too many elephants. The elephants are using up the grazing area for so many other species.
I don't know the exact number of elephants that there are in Kruger Park but they are 200+ over what the land can support. The sad truth of the situation is that they need to cull that 200+ in order for not only the other elephants to survive but so many other species. Kasper and Kitso ended up at the Elephant Sanctuary during other periods where they needed to cull the elephants. At that time the culled the adults and spared the calves. What they now know is that elephants are more emotional animals than they ever realized. They have a family social structure that is so close to humans, that they will have to cull entire herds of elephants to ensure survival of the others.
I think you, above all others, know how this news hit me. Of course there are the political debates over the subject right now and they are very similar to our own when man needs the land to expand on so I'm not even going to go there. I think Mr. Spock put it in perspective when he said in one of the Star Trek movies that, "the needs of the many out weight the needs of the few".
Anyway, I'm going to close with that thought for tonight. If you want more information on the Moholoholo Rehabilitation Center, you can click on the link below.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Elephant Day - Friday Part 3
As you can tell by now, Friday was just jammed packed with adventure! Cara and I had left Thursday afternoon and only 24 hours had elapsed when the rest of the "crew" arrived on Friday afternoon! The rest of the "crew" consisted of Peter and Santi, Mari, Betsi and Cara's friend Stefan. After Cara and I left the Shangaan Village, we met them at a local restaurant. We sat around the table for a while talking about the Elephant Sanctuary (no one had been there yet except for Cara and myself!) and all we learned there and then we talked about the Shangaan Village. After consulting around the table, it was decided that we would take a quick spin through Kruger National Park!
The park was not on the itinerary for this weekend but we were "so close" and the crew does love a drive through the park! Me? I go where the tour bus goes! So we drove out to the park but we only had a few hours to play there. Kruger National Park is NOT "Lion Country Safari" by any means. We headed out to our new lodging for the next 2 nights and checked in, dropped Cara's 4 wheel drive off and all piled into the VW Combi. Very nice for touring the countryside and our driver, Peter, always makes sure he hits as few pot holes as he can! It was no time before we were back on the road again, headed for Kruger National Park! It only took about 30 or 40 minutes of driving before we arrived.
I really have to laugh here because the family has been so very good to me and taken me so many places to see animals in the wild. I think they are more concerned with me seeing them than I am! So far, I'm thrilled at what I have seen and learned! As tour directors, Mari and Cara have been wonderful! Mari is astonishing with all that she knows about the area. I have to admit that she knows more about this area then I know of the area I live in at home! I know cat, dog, horse, squirrel, rat, mouse, cow and deer! (OK at this point there may be a few more that I'm forgetting.) And remember, it's a rare chance that I ever see a deer in the wild, which really isn't in the wild as it were, it just hangs out near the side of the road that I'm driving on!
To give you an idea of how large Kurger National Park is, Peter said it is about 180 miles long and 80 miles wide! Check out the link below for more details and if you look on the right side menu there is a WebCam that you can watch as well! They have cams set up all through the park so you can see what's going on. Just remember the time difference between the US and South Africa. I'm not sure what you would see at night... I just looked at one of the webcams and it's pointed at a watering hole and there does appear to be some light there!
http://www.sanparks.org/parks/kruger/tourism/map.php
We entered the park and before long we had the crew calling the animals... "here giraffeeeeee, here lion, here elephant"! The view of the country was outstanding and the varieties of birds with all of their bright colors kept me quite amused as it was. I guess maybe I just didn't want to get my hopes up but then too, I had just hugged an elephant! How much better could it get?
I have to upload the photos to Picasa first, because they go up there by photo number order. If it wasn't for this I'd be at a loss to keep it all straight in my head! Funny thing is that when I was tagging the photos of Part 3, I had to put in tags that said "Kruger National Park Scenery". Not so much for you, but for myself. I think that on Elephant Day I took close to 500 photos and we were laughing about having to go through the pictures later and say to myself, "why did I take this?". It is true though, at times things are hidden in the photo that you can't see very well. I shoot on the highest resolution that my camera can do so that later, I can go back in and zoom and crop if I need to.
As we entered the park, all eyes were on the bush. We would pass a little stream and Peter would slow down as we followed it as far as we could see it with our eyes. When we found nothing we would move along. At some point someone said "there's an elephant!". So I turn to look and I look and I look, but I don't see an elephant! They would point and say, "look do, you see that tree back there, next to the other tree? See how it's moving?" Ah, no. More pointing and directing but still I see no elephant. They decided that he was really too far from the road and we kind of moved on. Now, here is the tourist, sitting in the front seat of the Combi, high off the ground (it was like mounting a horse to get in the Combi by the way) and she can't see an elephant! What is wrong with this picture! I was beginning to think that this was going to be quiet embarrassing for someone and that someone would probably be me! We found lots of hornbills in the trees, smallish little birds hiding in the branches but I saw that!
Up ahead we saw something on the road, it was a tortoise racing down the road! For a little guy with short little legs, he was doing a fair clip down the road! Luckily for us, he was in the other lane of traffic, it would have taken him a while to cross the road and you are not allowed to endanger the wild life in any way, shape or form! The speed limit in the park is a sizzling 30 miles an hour, they have speed cameras in place not to mention a phone number/email address to report speeders etc! We waved good bye to our little friend and continued down the road. From time to time someone would shout out for Peter to stop because they thought they had seen something but it was only a rock or a tree! I got really good at spotting trees! Ha! That's really funny but what happens is that the tall brush moves with the breeze and it would make stationery objects appear to move!
We came across a few lakes, streams and creeks and took a close look for wild life having a cool drink in the sun but no luck there! Finally, someone from the back seat said to stop and there hidden by the brush in a little meadow there was an elephant! He really wasn't that easy to spot behind the bush among dead trees! Ah, so, the day did get better! As awesome as it was to be up close and personal earlier in the morning with Kasper and Kitso, seeing the baby in the wild was just beyond belief! Wow! He wasn't that close to the road but we could see him and watch him as he sauntered through the bush at a very slow pace. I think the tortoise we had met was making better time! The elephant appeared to have to place to be anytime soon. It's hard to pull away from him and move down the road, but there were 7 smiling faces in that Combi (van) when we did!
Moving down the road slowly we came across an Impala buck with his nose stuck in a bush having lunch. He was a beautiful animal! His antlers tilted slightly towards his back (I can see why Chevrolet named a car after him!). He's sleek and built for speed, his eyes are constantly moving to keep an eye on his surrounds and he's always read to dart off should he feel threatened. Sitting on his back was a Yellow Billed Oxpecker. The Oxpecker stays near these herds and feeds off of the ticks that attach themselves to the Impala's body. The Impala doesn't even realize he is there because that's where nature intended him to be. As we scan the surrounding area we find several more bucks grazing near the side of the road, they look towards us and find no danger so they go back to their grazing. Interestingly enough, with all of the Impala we saw that day all were bucks (males) and no does (females).
We ride on for a while and then on the right side of the Combi we see another elephant. He is well camouflaged by the dead branches of near by trees, but we do see him... no, there are 2 there! Wait a minute, is that 2 babies we see with them? We're up to 4 now! But look, over there, there is another one! 5! WOW! What a sight to see! Those babies are sooo small compared to the adults standing with them! I have no idea how old they are but they are already using (or trying) to use their trunks to pick up grass and find their mouth with it! They seem so small and helpless out there, even with the adults around them! The adults are very aware of their surroundings and they will defend those babies with their lives. Lions will rarely attack an adult elephant, they tend to go after the babies in the herd. Although the elephant has his tusks to defend himself, his size is his greatest defense he has. The 2 adults nearest them keep the babies between them and they seem to be constantly moving and herding the babies to keep them safe and near them. There was a little ravine near the road where we could see and bushes moving but we never really got a good view of the elephant(s) that were down there.
Creeping down the road again, there was a bird in the tree, I'm not sure what kind of bird he was, we just called him "Birdie"! Cara's friend Stefan had a bird book but he was busy watching the bird! Honestly, I'm sure someone told me what kind of bird he was but remember that senility issue! On the other side of the road we spotted yet another elephant! Since we hadn't gone too far from the "family" sighting, he was probably from the same herd. Now, without an up close and personal visit with the elephants it's hard to tell the boys from the girls! Both sexes have tusks (surprised me too!), so for my purposes they were all male but I tend to doubt that and would never swear to it! We stayed in that area for a while to watch the elephants there. If they were aware of our presence, they never showed it.
Moving along we saw more Impala and other antelope type varieties and finally we saw a Kudu. He is a unique kid. He is larger than the Impala and he has an interesting hump on his front shoulders. He moves with a gait very similar to the camel and he lumbers along, almost as if it takes him a great bit of energy to move and get those legs working together. But I have no doubt that he can move when he needs to. These deer/antelope type of animals are prime prey for the lions, leopards and cheetahs. They have to be fast or they would not survive in this world.
Finally, the tourist gets to show her animal spotting skills! A giraffe on the left side of the Combi! It was my turn to tell Peter to stop and back up! (Yeppie! 1 for the tourist!) He was only a short distance from the road and he lumbered on his course that took him across the road to the other side. Following after him were 4 zebras! They seemed to be traveling together as a group. I don't know why I found this so surprising really but I did. They wandered across the road; at a medium pace, not slow and not fast, just a leisurely gait across the road. The giraffe nibbled on the leaves of a throne tree while the zebras grazed on the grasses growing on the ground. Our little giraffe friend had a large scar at the bottom of his neck, near the shoulders from where he had been injured at some time in his life.
It's hard to leave these animals once you've spotted them. They are so beautiful and regal... Albeit that their rat race is quite different from ours, they are still in a race for their lives every day. We worry when we are in the inner cities (New York, Los Angeles or Chicago for example) that we are going to get robbed or worse, where these animals live is much more deadly for them. The lions major predator is man, he has no equal in the wild. Though he does take his life in his own hands when he attacks say an elephant herd, he doesn't fear walking through his neighborhood. If it were simply man against lion there would be little doubt who would win that contest, man takes a major advantage when he has a weapon to use against the mighty lion!
There are several places within the park that you are allowed to get out (at your own risk mind you) to look out over the bush. We stopped at one and everyone is getting out of the Combi. The tourist is one of the last ones who decides to crawl out, asking the ever popular question, "is it safe here?" I loved the answer, "yes, unless you get chowed..." It's as safe as it's going to get in the wild, the stop was located on a rocky hill. Lions and elephants don't get up in those areas and the animals who can get there either won't hurt you or they are more afraid of you than you are of them. Snakes don't count here... Since there are so many poisonous snakes, not only in the country of South Africa but on the continent in general, you're always on the look out for those critters! I decided to stay away from the sides and just steer a dead ahead course for the area that over looks the park!
You can see for miles from there and as far as the eye can see, it is all a part of the Kurger National Park! While we were out there enjoying the view and the breeze that came with it, you could see the birds high in the sky, soaring on the wind currents. Cara saw movement in the trees and got the binoculars and found a giraffe in the bush but it had to be at least a mile away! On the album, number 50 of 51 you can see 2 trees clearly in the mid ground of the photo, but you can't see any detail to show you what we saw! But he was there, I promise!
Exit time at the park is 6:30pm. Every guest is counted and accounted for at the end of the day. You sign into and out of the park. Those who are tardy leaving the park end up with a very large fine! I can't say as I blame them for that really, you don't want to get stuck out there after dark! I saw lodging inside of the park, but I think that's a little toooooo far out for me!
As we headed out of the park, one of the last photos I shot was of the vultures in a long dead tree against a fading blue skyline. How fitting was that? There were 5 vultures sitting in this tree alone, different varieties who all have their different jobs in life! We'll get more into that in the next blog, "Birds of Death". But if you think this day was over, just because the sun was going down, you're mistaken! The "braai" (BBQ) was the final adventure of the day.
We had planned a picnic under the stars for Friday night but there was still a stop at the grocery store on the way. Santi, Cara and Stefan (Cara's friend) went into the store while Mari, Peter, Betsi and I stayed outside and talked about the day and the area. Once the shopping was done, we headed back to Onsplek to braai and end the day.
It was a clear night and Santi showed me the Southern Cross in the sky. I hadn't thought about it before but being a half a world away and at the "bottom" of the world, the sky does look different! Onsplek (our lodging) was out away from city lights so there was a beautiful view of the night sky in all of it's splendor! Dinner was a community affair as all braais I've been to are. Stefan and Peter handled the grill work while the ladies prepared the veggies and salad. It was such a wonderful dinner, but I think by the end of the day we could have been eating zebra and would have loved it! Our evening ended and we headed out to bed.
Of note here, there is a river that runs along side of the lodging. There are many sounds of the night creatures clearly heard in the distance. It is so relaxing to sit there and listen to the sounds of night and the river flowing by. Before I headed off to bed, Cara and Stefan were doing a final check of the braai area to make sure we had tidied up nicely and the night secruity man told them that there had been a hippo who wandered onto the grounds on the back side of the sleeping room! The hippo lives down near the river somewhere and does come out to visit from time to time. Hippos can be a little cranky around humans, espeically at night when they are feeding, so I'm not all that disappointed that I didn't get to see him that night! But a little later, I did hear something chowing outside of my window, I'm not sure what it was, I was so tired and didn't have the energy to even go look out the window! LOL
And there ends, "Elephant Day"...
The park was not on the itinerary for this weekend but we were "so close" and the crew does love a drive through the park! Me? I go where the tour bus goes! So we drove out to the park but we only had a few hours to play there. Kruger National Park is NOT "Lion Country Safari" by any means. We headed out to our new lodging for the next 2 nights and checked in, dropped Cara's 4 wheel drive off and all piled into the VW Combi. Very nice for touring the countryside and our driver, Peter, always makes sure he hits as few pot holes as he can! It was no time before we were back on the road again, headed for Kruger National Park! It only took about 30 or 40 minutes of driving before we arrived.
I really have to laugh here because the family has been so very good to me and taken me so many places to see animals in the wild. I think they are more concerned with me seeing them than I am! So far, I'm thrilled at what I have seen and learned! As tour directors, Mari and Cara have been wonderful! Mari is astonishing with all that she knows about the area. I have to admit that she knows more about this area then I know of the area I live in at home! I know cat, dog, horse, squirrel, rat, mouse, cow and deer! (OK at this point there may be a few more that I'm forgetting.) And remember, it's a rare chance that I ever see a deer in the wild, which really isn't in the wild as it were, it just hangs out near the side of the road that I'm driving on!
To give you an idea of how large Kurger National Park is, Peter said it is about 180 miles long and 80 miles wide! Check out the link below for more details and if you look on the right side menu there is a WebCam that you can watch as well! They have cams set up all through the park so you can see what's going on. Just remember the time difference between the US and South Africa. I'm not sure what you would see at night... I just looked at one of the webcams and it's pointed at a watering hole and there does appear to be some light there!
http://www.sanparks.org/parks/kruger/tourism/map.php
We entered the park and before long we had the crew calling the animals... "here giraffeeeeee, here lion, here elephant"! The view of the country was outstanding and the varieties of birds with all of their bright colors kept me quite amused as it was. I guess maybe I just didn't want to get my hopes up but then too, I had just hugged an elephant! How much better could it get?
I have to upload the photos to Picasa first, because they go up there by photo number order. If it wasn't for this I'd be at a loss to keep it all straight in my head! Funny thing is that when I was tagging the photos of Part 3, I had to put in tags that said "Kruger National Park Scenery". Not so much for you, but for myself. I think that on Elephant Day I took close to 500 photos and we were laughing about having to go through the pictures later and say to myself, "why did I take this?". It is true though, at times things are hidden in the photo that you can't see very well. I shoot on the highest resolution that my camera can do so that later, I can go back in and zoom and crop if I need to.
As we entered the park, all eyes were on the bush. We would pass a little stream and Peter would slow down as we followed it as far as we could see it with our eyes. When we found nothing we would move along. At some point someone said "there's an elephant!". So I turn to look and I look and I look, but I don't see an elephant! They would point and say, "look do, you see that tree back there, next to the other tree? See how it's moving?" Ah, no. More pointing and directing but still I see no elephant. They decided that he was really too far from the road and we kind of moved on. Now, here is the tourist, sitting in the front seat of the Combi, high off the ground (it was like mounting a horse to get in the Combi by the way) and she can't see an elephant! What is wrong with this picture! I was beginning to think that this was going to be quiet embarrassing for someone and that someone would probably be me! We found lots of hornbills in the trees, smallish little birds hiding in the branches but I saw that!
Up ahead we saw something on the road, it was a tortoise racing down the road! For a little guy with short little legs, he was doing a fair clip down the road! Luckily for us, he was in the other lane of traffic, it would have taken him a while to cross the road and you are not allowed to endanger the wild life in any way, shape or form! The speed limit in the park is a sizzling 30 miles an hour, they have speed cameras in place not to mention a phone number/email address to report speeders etc! We waved good bye to our little friend and continued down the road. From time to time someone would shout out for Peter to stop because they thought they had seen something but it was only a rock or a tree! I got really good at spotting trees! Ha! That's really funny but what happens is that the tall brush moves with the breeze and it would make stationery objects appear to move!
We came across a few lakes, streams and creeks and took a close look for wild life having a cool drink in the sun but no luck there! Finally, someone from the back seat said to stop and there hidden by the brush in a little meadow there was an elephant! He really wasn't that easy to spot behind the bush among dead trees! Ah, so, the day did get better! As awesome as it was to be up close and personal earlier in the morning with Kasper and Kitso, seeing the baby in the wild was just beyond belief! Wow! He wasn't that close to the road but we could see him and watch him as he sauntered through the bush at a very slow pace. I think the tortoise we had met was making better time! The elephant appeared to have to place to be anytime soon. It's hard to pull away from him and move down the road, but there were 7 smiling faces in that Combi (van) when we did!
Moving down the road slowly we came across an Impala buck with his nose stuck in a bush having lunch. He was a beautiful animal! His antlers tilted slightly towards his back (I can see why Chevrolet named a car after him!). He's sleek and built for speed, his eyes are constantly moving to keep an eye on his surrounds and he's always read to dart off should he feel threatened. Sitting on his back was a Yellow Billed Oxpecker. The Oxpecker stays near these herds and feeds off of the ticks that attach themselves to the Impala's body. The Impala doesn't even realize he is there because that's where nature intended him to be. As we scan the surrounding area we find several more bucks grazing near the side of the road, they look towards us and find no danger so they go back to their grazing. Interestingly enough, with all of the Impala we saw that day all were bucks (males) and no does (females).
We ride on for a while and then on the right side of the Combi we see another elephant. He is well camouflaged by the dead branches of near by trees, but we do see him... no, there are 2 there! Wait a minute, is that 2 babies we see with them? We're up to 4 now! But look, over there, there is another one! 5! WOW! What a sight to see! Those babies are sooo small compared to the adults standing with them! I have no idea how old they are but they are already using (or trying) to use their trunks to pick up grass and find their mouth with it! They seem so small and helpless out there, even with the adults around them! The adults are very aware of their surroundings and they will defend those babies with their lives. Lions will rarely attack an adult elephant, they tend to go after the babies in the herd. Although the elephant has his tusks to defend himself, his size is his greatest defense he has. The 2 adults nearest them keep the babies between them and they seem to be constantly moving and herding the babies to keep them safe and near them. There was a little ravine near the road where we could see and bushes moving but we never really got a good view of the elephant(s) that were down there.
Creeping down the road again, there was a bird in the tree, I'm not sure what kind of bird he was, we just called him "Birdie"! Cara's friend Stefan had a bird book but he was busy watching the bird! Honestly, I'm sure someone told me what kind of bird he was but remember that senility issue! On the other side of the road we spotted yet another elephant! Since we hadn't gone too far from the "family" sighting, he was probably from the same herd. Now, without an up close and personal visit with the elephants it's hard to tell the boys from the girls! Both sexes have tusks (surprised me too!), so for my purposes they were all male but I tend to doubt that and would never swear to it! We stayed in that area for a while to watch the elephants there. If they were aware of our presence, they never showed it.
Moving along we saw more Impala and other antelope type varieties and finally we saw a Kudu. He is a unique kid. He is larger than the Impala and he has an interesting hump on his front shoulders. He moves with a gait very similar to the camel and he lumbers along, almost as if it takes him a great bit of energy to move and get those legs working together. But I have no doubt that he can move when he needs to. These deer/antelope type of animals are prime prey for the lions, leopards and cheetahs. They have to be fast or they would not survive in this world.
Finally, the tourist gets to show her animal spotting skills! A giraffe on the left side of the Combi! It was my turn to tell Peter to stop and back up! (Yeppie! 1 for the tourist!) He was only a short distance from the road and he lumbered on his course that took him across the road to the other side. Following after him were 4 zebras! They seemed to be traveling together as a group. I don't know why I found this so surprising really but I did. They wandered across the road; at a medium pace, not slow and not fast, just a leisurely gait across the road. The giraffe nibbled on the leaves of a throne tree while the zebras grazed on the grasses growing on the ground. Our little giraffe friend had a large scar at the bottom of his neck, near the shoulders from where he had been injured at some time in his life.
It's hard to leave these animals once you've spotted them. They are so beautiful and regal... Albeit that their rat race is quite different from ours, they are still in a race for their lives every day. We worry when we are in the inner cities (New York, Los Angeles or Chicago for example) that we are going to get robbed or worse, where these animals live is much more deadly for them. The lions major predator is man, he has no equal in the wild. Though he does take his life in his own hands when he attacks say an elephant herd, he doesn't fear walking through his neighborhood. If it were simply man against lion there would be little doubt who would win that contest, man takes a major advantage when he has a weapon to use against the mighty lion!
There are several places within the park that you are allowed to get out (at your own risk mind you) to look out over the bush. We stopped at one and everyone is getting out of the Combi. The tourist is one of the last ones who decides to crawl out, asking the ever popular question, "is it safe here?" I loved the answer, "yes, unless you get chowed..." It's as safe as it's going to get in the wild, the stop was located on a rocky hill. Lions and elephants don't get up in those areas and the animals who can get there either won't hurt you or they are more afraid of you than you are of them. Snakes don't count here... Since there are so many poisonous snakes, not only in the country of South Africa but on the continent in general, you're always on the look out for those critters! I decided to stay away from the sides and just steer a dead ahead course for the area that over looks the park!
You can see for miles from there and as far as the eye can see, it is all a part of the Kurger National Park! While we were out there enjoying the view and the breeze that came with it, you could see the birds high in the sky, soaring on the wind currents. Cara saw movement in the trees and got the binoculars and found a giraffe in the bush but it had to be at least a mile away! On the album, number 50 of 51 you can see 2 trees clearly in the mid ground of the photo, but you can't see any detail to show you what we saw! But he was there, I promise!
Exit time at the park is 6:30pm. Every guest is counted and accounted for at the end of the day. You sign into and out of the park. Those who are tardy leaving the park end up with a very large fine! I can't say as I blame them for that really, you don't want to get stuck out there after dark! I saw lodging inside of the park, but I think that's a little toooooo far out for me!
As we headed out of the park, one of the last photos I shot was of the vultures in a long dead tree against a fading blue skyline. How fitting was that? There were 5 vultures sitting in this tree alone, different varieties who all have their different jobs in life! We'll get more into that in the next blog, "Birds of Death". But if you think this day was over, just because the sun was going down, you're mistaken! The "braai" (BBQ) was the final adventure of the day.
We had planned a picnic under the stars for Friday night but there was still a stop at the grocery store on the way. Santi, Cara and Stefan (Cara's friend) went into the store while Mari, Peter, Betsi and I stayed outside and talked about the day and the area. Once the shopping was done, we headed back to Onsplek to braai and end the day.
It was a clear night and Santi showed me the Southern Cross in the sky. I hadn't thought about it before but being a half a world away and at the "bottom" of the world, the sky does look different! Onsplek (our lodging) was out away from city lights so there was a beautiful view of the night sky in all of it's splendor! Dinner was a community affair as all braais I've been to are. Stefan and Peter handled the grill work while the ladies prepared the veggies and salad. It was such a wonderful dinner, but I think by the end of the day we could have been eating zebra and would have loved it! Our evening ended and we headed out to bed.
Of note here, there is a river that runs along side of the lodging. There are many sounds of the night creatures clearly heard in the distance. It is so relaxing to sit there and listen to the sounds of night and the river flowing by. Before I headed off to bed, Cara and Stefan were doing a final check of the braai area to make sure we had tidied up nicely and the night secruity man told them that there had been a hippo who wandered onto the grounds on the back side of the sleeping room! The hippo lives down near the river somewhere and does come out to visit from time to time. Hippos can be a little cranky around humans, espeically at night when they are feeding, so I'm not all that disappointed that I didn't get to see him that night! But a little later, I did hear something chowing outside of my window, I'm not sure what it was, I was so tired and didn't have the energy to even go look out the window! LOL
And there ends, "Elephant Day"...
Elephant Day - Friday Part 2 Shangaan Villiage
I am finding the Shangaan Cultural Village a little difficult to explain right now. There seems to be contradictions between what the Internet tells me and what I saw and heard while Cara and I were there. I'm going to have to come back to this blog after I've considered this a bit more... my question to myself right now is, how much of what I saw and heard is for the tourists benefit and because Cara and I did do a lot of Q&A while we were there, how much truth is there. I'm leaning towards more truth than "circus" as it were.
I've seen our own Native American village reconstructions that were meant for tourists to learn more about their heritage and it is very apparent that those villages were built for the tourist/educational interests. I think what Cara and I saw was a culture trying hard to hang on in an ever changing world. It's going to be difficult for me to express what I saw and how I felt about what I saw while we were there. I think the one thing I can say for sure is that I was saddened for the Shangaan people...
I've seen our own Native American village reconstructions that were meant for tourists to learn more about their heritage and it is very apparent that those villages were built for the tourist/educational interests. I think what Cara and I saw was a culture trying hard to hang on in an ever changing world. It's going to be difficult for me to express what I saw and how I felt about what I saw while we were there. I think the one thing I can say for sure is that I was saddened for the Shangaan people...
In the meantime, I have posted pictures taken in the village on the Picasa album in the album called, "Elephant Day - Friday Part 2 Shangaan Village". Also there is a link below with the ... tourist version...
http://www.encounter.co.za/article/137.htmlElephant Day - Friday Part 1
Liese tells me I'm not writing fast enough for her! So I'll try to type faster, the problem with that becomes the spelling impossible for spell check to read my mind! But Liese, I'll give it a shot. I have a couple of more days to go through and there is a lot that happened in those days. For those who are keeping up and enjoying the blog/photos, thank you for your comments :)
I said before that Liese had typed up a very pretty and colorful itinerary for the weekend for me, but she left out a surprise. Down the road from where we stayed on Thursday night, there is the Elephant Sanctuary. This is a half way house for elephants who need temporary sanctuary until they are able to be moved into a safe environment when they are old enough. The day we were there, there were 2 elephants for the public to see and interact with. The key to survival, for tourist and resident alike is t remember that no matter how cute and cuddly they appear, they are called WILD animals for a reason. Kasper and Kitso, the elephants at the sanctuary, are trained and worked with every day. The trainers go out to their pen every morning and move them to their exercise yards. They then take them through their routine and here is where they check for elephants mood for the day! On cranky days, the trainers must work with them longer to help get them in the "mood" for their job. Their job is to entertain and educate tourists! Their trainers are never far from them at any time. Though they both came to the sanctuary when they were young, they are still wild animals. After interacting with them, it is easy to forget that they aren't domesticated, simply under control of their trainers. With that said, let's move on to the "hug an elephant day".
Santi has known for quite some time that my favorite animal is the elephant. He is such a "gentle giant", rather easy going up until he feel threatened. What Shepherd, our guide for the tour, said was that people actually would get wild animals (and again, I stress wild) for pets... They seem to think they have a large enough back yard to keep an elephant! It isn't long before they discover exactly how many acres it takes to support 1 elephant! The sad fact is that when nature becomes unbalanced then all of the wild life suffers. Right now at Kruger Park there are more elephants than the land can support. They eat more than their share of the grasses and leave other animals to go without. At this point Kruger is looking to move right about 200 elephants out of the park.
One thing that I did learn about elephants at the sanctuary is that elephants are very emotional animals. They have a gland that secretes a type of musk when they are happy, sad, excited and of course, in season! The elephant herds are bonded together as a family and they are very protective of their family! Even at the sanctuary they are torn between what is best for the elephant, yet they need to support their program which is why they have opened the sanctuary to the public. It's not their first choice but elephants just aren't cheap to keep! At the Elephant Sanctuary they strive to educate visitors about the elephants and give them a chance to look at them and even feel how different their skin feels from one part of the body to the other. Again, the trainer is very close to the animal and he uses a lot of treats to get the elephant to cooperate.
Cara and I were among the first visitors of the day. Kasper, the older of the 2 (he's about 25 and considered a young adult of breeding age) was a little fussy and his trainer did have to speak to him, but again, we were the first visitors of the day, maybe they stayed up too late watching TV? Kitso, is about 12 years old and considered a "teenager". He was very cooperative and almost seemed to enjoy the interaction with the group. He came to the Sanctuary when he was younger and he depends on Kasper to help guide him. Interestingly enough, I had always thought that the way the youngsters hold on to the tail of an adult was a "trick" that was taught, but it is a natural instinct that they learn from an early age!
Shepherd continued to educate us on the life and anatomy of the elephant while both Kasper and Kitso stood before us. Then it was time for each of us to come over to the elephant and get a "hands on" lesson about the elephant. I jumped up to be first, I couldn't wait any longer to feel the elephant! I went to Kasper and as I said, he was a bit fussy but his trainer spoke to him and he decided to be more cooperative, of course a hand full of elephant snacks didn't hurt either. I think he also may have his trainer a little trained as well! Cara did say that the Elephant Sanctuary (there are other such venues as well) had a reputation for a soft hand in training their elephants, they use the reward system in their training where as others do not. Kasper got a hand full of elephant treats and he also smiled as if to say, "see, who's the boss now?" I was amazed at how much expression that the elephants had! Of course I had seen them in zoos but never this close and never with an elephant who seemed at peace with where he was. Granted, his preference would probably be out in the wild to roam freely, but after they have so much interaction with humans they can never be released back into the wild. When man interferes with nature it seems he must continue to interfere... this is a sad but true fact.
I was guided through the parts of the elephant, such as the trunk. There are no bones in the trunk and it seems much softer than say his back or his legs. It's almost reptilian to the touch but not as cold I think. I've had snakes and reptiles and he has more the feel of a large lizard as opposed to a snake, but still not the same... Looking into his soulful eyes with his long eyelashes (that helped keep the flies out of his eyes), he watched me as closely as I watched him. You just want to hug him and tell him everything is going to be OK :) He uses the trunk much like we use our hands, to grab what he needs and to either eat it or throw it over himself! It's moist and warm, much like our noses, and the edges of the trunk are used as we use our fingers.
Being a young adult, Kasper's tusks aren't as long as a fully developed male at this point but I would estimate them about 14" (?) and I couldn't encircle them with one hand span where they were the thickest. They are basically the same material that teeth are made from and they feel cool to the touch but not as smooth as the polished ivory that you would see in a museum. I will mention that most countries in the world prohibit importing of ivory because the elephants were being slaughtered just for their tusks and the ivory. Make no mistake, there are still poachers who have a market for the tusks and the authorities are always on the look out for them. An interesting fact, the elephant replaces his back molars about every 5 years...
Moving down his body, the "elbows" are callused as he sleeps on his side on the ground at night. Kasper sleeps about 5 hours a night because his weight compresses on his lungs and it becomes hard for him to breath. I'm not sure how many times he may lay down in a 24 hour period, I think I forgot to ask that question. When he gets tired of standing on his feet, he does the same thing you and I do, he shifts his weight to one side and lets the other side take a little break for a while. Amazing isn't it? How much they are like us they are? His body is covered with wiry hair that alerts him to flies and other pests. He uses his tail to swat at them. One of the reasons they throw mud and dirt on themselves is to swat at the flies as well. His main body skin has a rougher texture to it. It feels more "man made" than biological in some ways.
He flaps his huge ears to cool himself. It's wonderful to be behind those ears when they flap when it's very warm outside! The ears themselves feel like soft leather and they are irregular shaped at the ends. I'm not sure if he's born that way or if that is just a natural development from flapping his ears as much as he does. He tolerates the heat with the help of those very large and soft ears! If I had ears like that I'm sure I'd do the same thing as Kasper does!
I believe he has 5 nails on each foot. The foot has a very rough texture to it, it has to to support his weight plus "bundu bashing" (walking in the brush). If you've looked at some of the photos on the Picasa site I'm sure you've noted the thorn bushes and their very large and SHARP thorns! Nature has given him the tools and ability to survive the areas, where he lives, in quite well!
Cara took her turn after me and she went to Kitso. Cara has been raised all of her life in South Africa and she has seen the elephants (as well as other animals) in the wild many times. I was eager to go play with the kids, while Cara was a little hesitant. I was laughing at her as she kept her distance from Kitso and she said that she had been raised all of her life to understand that these are wild animals! This was also Cara's first time being up close and personal with an elephant. So the "tourist" was accompanied by another tourist! I guess it's kind of like us, we have all of these tourist attractions around us, but we never really go there until we have visitors!
Before Cara was done with her up close and personal meeting with Kitso, he gave her a kiss! You can see by the expression on her face that she was surprised at this! He uses his trunk to give "kisses" and he even makes little kissing noises as he gives his kisses. Kasper doesn't give kisses, he was older when he came to the Sanctuary, where Kitso was much younger. Kitso's kisses are very gentile and oh so sweet!
After meeting the kids and seeing their pens it was time for the ride on the elephant. Now, since Kasper had a little attitude with me earlier, I wasn't exactly sure we needed a little "closer" relationship. Cara had also noted his little mood earlier so when it was time for the ride, she went first and chose Kitso, who is smaller and generally just a happy go lucky kind of a guy, at least from what we saw. OK so the problem with Kitso is that he is smaller, which was less of a problem for our tiny Cara but it did present problems for me and my ... ah.. mature figure shall we say? Now, we were told before we went that it was a bumpy ride and we should expect to be a little sore. I think the word "little" could have been modified just a bit here! Cara said that her bony "bum" was smarting a bit after the ride but she was fine the next day. Now, if you look at my more mature "bum" on the elephant you will see where tailbone meets elephant spine. Use your imagination on that one! I wasn't exactly "fine" on Saturday!
Here is the other thing, going uphill was easy really, the kids kind of sauntered up the hill and you start thinking, "OK, this isn't as bad as Shepherd said it was going to be..." Ha! Just remember, what goes up must come down... The down hill speed is a tad faster, which isn't a problem until the curves come up! It's kind of like being a passenger on a motorcycle. You are supposed to LEAN into the curves... NOT! For the record here, I'm not a good motorcycle passenger either! So as Kitso was going down hill and around corners I grabbed onto the trainer and very "politely" told him that to save himself he needed to save me too! LOL I kept telling him I was bigger than him and if I fell off he was going with me! I don't think a tourist has threatened him like that before because he just started to laugh! By the way, you do sign your life away before you go in there. There is a whole list of things you are agreeing to before you're allowed in. It was too much reading for me without reading glasses and I asked him why they just didn't make you sign a document saying "Nothing is Our Fault"! Seems to me that would cover just about anything!
So remember that "where human tailbone meets elephant spine" comment? Let's just say I had blisters where I never knew you could have blisters! It was a jarring experience and for someone who sits behind a computer all day, it was a workout as well! Santi asked me about it later and when I told her she just laughed! They had saved this as a surprise for me. I knew there was a surprise coming but no one let the cat (or should I say elephant?) out of the bag!
Although I think the experience as a whole was wonderful, that was only the beginning of the day. We said good bye to Kasper and Kito and continued on our merry way... This was going to prove to be a very educational and wonderful day by the time we were through!
For more information on the Elephant Sanctuary you can go to:
http://www.elephantsanctuary.co.za/hazyviewhome.htm
I said before that Liese had typed up a very pretty and colorful itinerary for the weekend for me, but she left out a surprise. Down the road from where we stayed on Thursday night, there is the Elephant Sanctuary. This is a half way house for elephants who need temporary sanctuary until they are able to be moved into a safe environment when they are old enough. The day we were there, there were 2 elephants for the public to see and interact with. The key to survival, for tourist and resident alike is t remember that no matter how cute and cuddly they appear, they are called WILD animals for a reason. Kasper and Kitso, the elephants at the sanctuary, are trained and worked with every day. The trainers go out to their pen every morning and move them to their exercise yards. They then take them through their routine and here is where they check for elephants mood for the day! On cranky days, the trainers must work with them longer to help get them in the "mood" for their job. Their job is to entertain and educate tourists! Their trainers are never far from them at any time. Though they both came to the sanctuary when they were young, they are still wild animals. After interacting with them, it is easy to forget that they aren't domesticated, simply under control of their trainers. With that said, let's move on to the "hug an elephant day".
Santi has known for quite some time that my favorite animal is the elephant. He is such a "gentle giant", rather easy going up until he feel threatened. What Shepherd, our guide for the tour, said was that people actually would get wild animals (and again, I stress wild) for pets... They seem to think they have a large enough back yard to keep an elephant! It isn't long before they discover exactly how many acres it takes to support 1 elephant! The sad fact is that when nature becomes unbalanced then all of the wild life suffers. Right now at Kruger Park there are more elephants than the land can support. They eat more than their share of the grasses and leave other animals to go without. At this point Kruger is looking to move right about 200 elephants out of the park.
One thing that I did learn about elephants at the sanctuary is that elephants are very emotional animals. They have a gland that secretes a type of musk when they are happy, sad, excited and of course, in season! The elephant herds are bonded together as a family and they are very protective of their family! Even at the sanctuary they are torn between what is best for the elephant, yet they need to support their program which is why they have opened the sanctuary to the public. It's not their first choice but elephants just aren't cheap to keep! At the Elephant Sanctuary they strive to educate visitors about the elephants and give them a chance to look at them and even feel how different their skin feels from one part of the body to the other. Again, the trainer is very close to the animal and he uses a lot of treats to get the elephant to cooperate.
Cara and I were among the first visitors of the day. Kasper, the older of the 2 (he's about 25 and considered a young adult of breeding age) was a little fussy and his trainer did have to speak to him, but again, we were the first visitors of the day, maybe they stayed up too late watching TV? Kitso, is about 12 years old and considered a "teenager". He was very cooperative and almost seemed to enjoy the interaction with the group. He came to the Sanctuary when he was younger and he depends on Kasper to help guide him. Interestingly enough, I had always thought that the way the youngsters hold on to the tail of an adult was a "trick" that was taught, but it is a natural instinct that they learn from an early age!
Shepherd continued to educate us on the life and anatomy of the elephant while both Kasper and Kitso stood before us. Then it was time for each of us to come over to the elephant and get a "hands on" lesson about the elephant. I jumped up to be first, I couldn't wait any longer to feel the elephant! I went to Kasper and as I said, he was a bit fussy but his trainer spoke to him and he decided to be more cooperative, of course a hand full of elephant snacks didn't hurt either. I think he also may have his trainer a little trained as well! Cara did say that the Elephant Sanctuary (there are other such venues as well) had a reputation for a soft hand in training their elephants, they use the reward system in their training where as others do not. Kasper got a hand full of elephant treats and he also smiled as if to say, "see, who's the boss now?" I was amazed at how much expression that the elephants had! Of course I had seen them in zoos but never this close and never with an elephant who seemed at peace with where he was. Granted, his preference would probably be out in the wild to roam freely, but after they have so much interaction with humans they can never be released back into the wild. When man interferes with nature it seems he must continue to interfere... this is a sad but true fact.
I was guided through the parts of the elephant, such as the trunk. There are no bones in the trunk and it seems much softer than say his back or his legs. It's almost reptilian to the touch but not as cold I think. I've had snakes and reptiles and he has more the feel of a large lizard as opposed to a snake, but still not the same... Looking into his soulful eyes with his long eyelashes (that helped keep the flies out of his eyes), he watched me as closely as I watched him. You just want to hug him and tell him everything is going to be OK :) He uses the trunk much like we use our hands, to grab what he needs and to either eat it or throw it over himself! It's moist and warm, much like our noses, and the edges of the trunk are used as we use our fingers.
Being a young adult, Kasper's tusks aren't as long as a fully developed male at this point but I would estimate them about 14" (?) and I couldn't encircle them with one hand span where they were the thickest. They are basically the same material that teeth are made from and they feel cool to the touch but not as smooth as the polished ivory that you would see in a museum. I will mention that most countries in the world prohibit importing of ivory because the elephants were being slaughtered just for their tusks and the ivory. Make no mistake, there are still poachers who have a market for the tusks and the authorities are always on the look out for them. An interesting fact, the elephant replaces his back molars about every 5 years...
Moving down his body, the "elbows" are callused as he sleeps on his side on the ground at night. Kasper sleeps about 5 hours a night because his weight compresses on his lungs and it becomes hard for him to breath. I'm not sure how many times he may lay down in a 24 hour period, I think I forgot to ask that question. When he gets tired of standing on his feet, he does the same thing you and I do, he shifts his weight to one side and lets the other side take a little break for a while. Amazing isn't it? How much they are like us they are? His body is covered with wiry hair that alerts him to flies and other pests. He uses his tail to swat at them. One of the reasons they throw mud and dirt on themselves is to swat at the flies as well. His main body skin has a rougher texture to it. It feels more "man made" than biological in some ways.
He flaps his huge ears to cool himself. It's wonderful to be behind those ears when they flap when it's very warm outside! The ears themselves feel like soft leather and they are irregular shaped at the ends. I'm not sure if he's born that way or if that is just a natural development from flapping his ears as much as he does. He tolerates the heat with the help of those very large and soft ears! If I had ears like that I'm sure I'd do the same thing as Kasper does!
I believe he has 5 nails on each foot. The foot has a very rough texture to it, it has to to support his weight plus "bundu bashing" (walking in the brush). If you've looked at some of the photos on the Picasa site I'm sure you've noted the thorn bushes and their very large and SHARP thorns! Nature has given him the tools and ability to survive the areas, where he lives, in quite well!
Cara took her turn after me and she went to Kitso. Cara has been raised all of her life in South Africa and she has seen the elephants (as well as other animals) in the wild many times. I was eager to go play with the kids, while Cara was a little hesitant. I was laughing at her as she kept her distance from Kitso and she said that she had been raised all of her life to understand that these are wild animals! This was also Cara's first time being up close and personal with an elephant. So the "tourist" was accompanied by another tourist! I guess it's kind of like us, we have all of these tourist attractions around us, but we never really go there until we have visitors!
Before Cara was done with her up close and personal meeting with Kitso, he gave her a kiss! You can see by the expression on her face that she was surprised at this! He uses his trunk to give "kisses" and he even makes little kissing noises as he gives his kisses. Kasper doesn't give kisses, he was older when he came to the Sanctuary, where Kitso was much younger. Kitso's kisses are very gentile and oh so sweet!
After meeting the kids and seeing their pens it was time for the ride on the elephant. Now, since Kasper had a little attitude with me earlier, I wasn't exactly sure we needed a little "closer" relationship. Cara had also noted his little mood earlier so when it was time for the ride, she went first and chose Kitso, who is smaller and generally just a happy go lucky kind of a guy, at least from what we saw. OK so the problem with Kitso is that he is smaller, which was less of a problem for our tiny Cara but it did present problems for me and my ... ah.. mature figure shall we say? Now, we were told before we went that it was a bumpy ride and we should expect to be a little sore. I think the word "little" could have been modified just a bit here! Cara said that her bony "bum" was smarting a bit after the ride but she was fine the next day. Now, if you look at my more mature "bum" on the elephant you will see where tailbone meets elephant spine. Use your imagination on that one! I wasn't exactly "fine" on Saturday!
Here is the other thing, going uphill was easy really, the kids kind of sauntered up the hill and you start thinking, "OK, this isn't as bad as Shepherd said it was going to be..." Ha! Just remember, what goes up must come down... The down hill speed is a tad faster, which isn't a problem until the curves come up! It's kind of like being a passenger on a motorcycle. You are supposed to LEAN into the curves... NOT! For the record here, I'm not a good motorcycle passenger either! So as Kitso was going down hill and around corners I grabbed onto the trainer and very "politely" told him that to save himself he needed to save me too! LOL I kept telling him I was bigger than him and if I fell off he was going with me! I don't think a tourist has threatened him like that before because he just started to laugh! By the way, you do sign your life away before you go in there. There is a whole list of things you are agreeing to before you're allowed in. It was too much reading for me without reading glasses and I asked him why they just didn't make you sign a document saying "Nothing is Our Fault"! Seems to me that would cover just about anything!
So remember that "where human tailbone meets elephant spine" comment? Let's just say I had blisters where I never knew you could have blisters! It was a jarring experience and for someone who sits behind a computer all day, it was a workout as well! Santi asked me about it later and when I told her she just laughed! They had saved this as a surprise for me. I knew there was a surprise coming but no one let the cat (or should I say elephant?) out of the bag!
Although I think the experience as a whole was wonderful, that was only the beginning of the day. We said good bye to Kasper and Kito and continued on our merry way... This was going to prove to be a very educational and wonderful day by the time we were through!
For more information on the Elephant Sanctuary you can go to:
http://www.elephantsanctuary.co.za/hazyviewhome.htm
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