Cheetah Chins & the Dreaded Mamba

June 5, 2012

It’s been an exciting couple of days over here.  Even on Africa Time, we’ve done a lot.  Oh, hello Gavin & Andrea!  Apparently some less than positive consequences from the last blogger so they’ll be keeping an eye on me.  Anyway, onto some politically correct fun stuff.

Yesterday we went searching for the radio collar and its attached Critter Cam.  With the help of two marvelous Naro San (the native people of this area) trackers, the willing cooperation of one of the game ranch managers, and an aerial antenna with extension poles, we recovered it in one day.

Granted, it was one day with about 5km of walking, but still, we found it.  We walked one area with no luck.  We’d about given up for the day and the knee Annabelle took out was reminding me that it wasn’t 100%.  We were in the car on the way back when we found a high spot.  We stopped, Andrea hooked up the radio antenna and we listened with baited breath.  Lo and behold, a beep!  We’d been listening all day for that stinking beep and there it was!  All of us were excited, Andrea, Caoilfhionn, me and both trackers.  Excited enough we nearly left the GPS in the truck.  Now, the trackers knew exactly where we were, but the veld here is fairly uniform and there’s none of the helpful mountains we have in Arizona, so a GPS is a good idea.

Anyway, the trackers took charge of the antenna and attached radio and followed the beep.  For those unfamiliar with radio collars, you can use you’re an antenna to find directionality, the way of the loudest beep.  Forget the Tao de Ching, the Tao of beep is king in wildlife.  It wasn’t a straight path, but we found it.  And by we, I mean one of the San trackers.  To celebrate, Andrea made two delicious pizzas and we settled down to watch the Critter Cam video.

Well, there’s lots of video of the veld and a cheetah chin.  Yup, hours and hours of cheetah chin.  I am now very familiar with one cheetah’s chin.  There are about 30 hours of Critter Cam footage from three different cheetahs and I’m told that watching all of those hours, frame by frame, is one of our duties.  I will be very familiar with cheetah chins by the time I come back.

In terms of fantastic sightings, we saw loads of kudu, impala, warthog, and gemsbok which are pretty common, some more eland, less common.  And yesterday, trudging through the veld, we saw a herd of zebra.  Now to see that ever elusive cheetah!

Today we took down some of the equipment used to collar the cheetahs and checked the camera traps.  Well, we were all quite absorbed in the camera trap and when we finished that, we turned to the next bit of equipment.  Jane was yelling “Run!” before I really understood what I saw.  Then she said “Cobra!”  Well, bad knee or no, I ran.  I have no desire to meet an angry spitting cobra face to face.  None.  See one, yes, meet an angry one, no.  Because what my poor eyes finally made out before I fled, was a very, very large snake who had reared up.  When a snake rears up, that means get the heck out of Dodge.

Well, Phale (pronounced pol-LAY) went to investigate why we were all upset.  I went in for a photo, staying further than spitting distance away.  Phale was not so cautious.  He got close enough to identify one gigantic black mamba that was climbing the tree we were supposed to be working under.  I have a fantastic picture of the mamba in the tree with its front lifted up trying to climb higher.  It was about 2.5 meters long, probably 7-8 feet.  It was huge.  I also have a great picture of its tracks to the water and then to the tree.  It passed within less than 2 meters of us and we never saw it. Makes you wonder how very much wildlife you just don’t see even when it’s right there.

Anyway, I’m trying to keep these, short, light and to the point.  That and I’m tired so, I hope you enjoyed!

Ghanzi At Last

This is a two post kind of day.  One, I wanted to post that last one from sitting in Gabarone (pronounced ha-ba-RO-nee with a glottal stop at the ‘b’ and no, I still can’t pronounce it right).  And two, I want to share today.  I have limited bandwidth, so we’re operating on a text only basis before you get too excited.

Last night I came into Maun (pronounced ma-UN with the that weird swallowing the UN thing) to meet Gavin and Andrea, the heads of CCB in Ghanzi (HAHN-zi).  They were waiting for me (thank guys!) and were understanding of my lost luggage (long story, we’re reunited now and I remember why I gave up on check baggage).  We went back to the most charming backpacker’s camp.  I’ll post pictures, eventually.  I got to meet fellow volunteer Caoilfhionn (kwi-LIN) and got to sleep on a bed!  Never discount the joys of sleeping on a flat, even surface. 

Come morning, I had to joy of a warm shower and a hot breakfast.  I also met Greg, who works for National Geographic.  Well, later I found out he also invented the Critter Cam.  I didn’t even have a chance to go all fan-girl on him because he left for the Delta when we rescued my luggage.  After that, we began that journey from Maun to Ghanzi (a few hours) and I learned more about Botswana from Gavin and Andrea.  That will probably be at least one post later.

We saw warthogs and ostriches on the road, and I’m promised that warthogs wander near camp often so there should be lots of pics of them when I can post them.  We also saw, goats, cattle, and donkeys by the dozen and a few horses.  All in all I was satisfied with that for one day.  I mean, I’m here for a month!

Well we went out this afternoon to see if we could find the radio-collared cheetah whose collar is set to fall off tomorrow morning.  We didn’t catch a blip of him, but we did see kudu and impala who are apparently quite common, more warthogs, but the sighting of the day was hands down the three giraffes.  Gavin was telling us that we hadn’t seen anywhere near the normal number of wildlife when lo and behold, we spot a giraffe.  Then we realize there are three of them.  We stopped the car to snap pictures and gawk at them.  Just after that, a herd of eland cross the road in front of us.  Both things that apparently quite uncommon.  As in it was the first time Gavin had ever seen them on this park.  Then on the way back to camp, we saw a brown hyena in the road.  That was only the third time this year a brown hyena had been spotted.  So although the kudu and the impala were shy today, I am totally ok with that.

So even if I still haven’t seen a cheetah, I saw giraffes, eland, and a brown hyena.  All in all, I call today a win.

I’m staying in a darling little camp with all the amenities (hot water, stove, fridge, bed, electricity and internet!).  Right now it’s empty, just Caoilfhionn, Gavin, Andrea and I.  Caoilfhionn and I each get our own bedroom although the kitchen and bathrooms are communal areas.  Quite frankly, I’m just thrilled to have the above listed luxuries.  And to have any internet whatsoever.  Anyway we have a moderately early morning tomorrow trying to track down our cheetah and his radio collar with attached Critter Cam (I might be a lot excited to see that footage).  This means a lot of hiking through the bush tomorrow most likely, so good night friends! 

Language, Flights, & Africa Time

This is from yesterday, when I had no internet:

June 1, 2012

Today for the first time I flew on an airplane not operated by a US or British company.  It was different.  For one thing we got one of those darling half sized planes where the large carry-on items had to be loaded in baggage areas.  For another, I was the minority.  I was the only white female on the plane.  There were a handful of older European men, a handful of African women, and a plane full of African businessmen.  It wasn’t an awful feeling, just different.

One thing really amazes me here though, so many people can go from speaking their native tongue to English and back without skipping a beat.  I also met a woman who spoke at least three languages fluently (German, English and something African).  I want to be that cool.  How badass would it be to switch from English to Spanish to French to Arabic without pause? 

The other huge difference I’m noticing is that time is considered very differently here. For those of my friends from Nowhereville, USA, you know those old timers that set around and figure things’ll get done eventually?  Everyone here is like that.  Even the businessmen are patient.  It’s incredible.  For instance, my flight from Jo’burg got in over an hour ago and my flight to Maun leaves in about three hours.  Check-in still isn’t open.  So I’m killing time again.

Another thing, the workers (at the airports at least) are always singing or humming or drumming their fingers.  Music just seems to flow from them all.  And the ones that are from the same area seem to all know each other and exchange greetings and news, switching between native and English at will. (I will not get over this soon.)

Now for one more thing, the food.  Admittedly all I’ve had in the way of food so far consisted of standard plane food.  On BA, we had pasta, muffins, a lovely chicken curry, and a traditional English Breakfast.  On Air  Botswana, we were given three little plastic packets.  Well, me being curious and fairly hungry, I consumed all three.  There was a pack of Ritz meets Cheez-its, and two more interesting packages.  One was Marula berry nuggets which were quite tasty although with that much sugar it’s hard not to be.  The other was Botswana’s beef jerky, botslingo, which is not at all the same as we get in the states.  For one thing, it tastes funny (duh!).  For another it is considerably drier and fattier.  But still all in all very tasty.

Africa Time:

In South Africa this morning I got a taste of Africa Time.  I killed hours and hours in the waiting area this morning and thought I’d experienced this “slowness” Africa moves at.  I was wrong.  Compared to Gabarone, Jo’burg moves at warp speed.  When the volunteer coordinator warned me that delays of several hours were common, I thought, “Surely not.”  And the trip was going so smoothly I foolishly believed, “Not me!”  Ha.  Hahahaha.  Lies.

My flight was to leave at 5, but now it’s not expected to leave until 8:30 pm.  Now that’s a big difference to an American.  Here it barely warrants a phone call.  Now, usually I’m a go with the flow kind of gal and I would be here to, if there was something to do.  Alas, there is not even public wifi.  For a person attached at the wrists to her computer, that’s not fun at all.  So I can’t post this, I can’t check Facebook and can’t reassure all of my worried friends and family that I am alive, I am safe, just bored out of my mind.  I am trying terribly hard to remember that Zac Brown song and that I ain’t in no hurry.  But this fool always worries and I want to be there already.  It’s all I’ve been saying all day.  

Travel

As I write this, I’m sitting in South Africa, killing time.  I wanted to start this yesterday, but an unexpected duffel bag blowout meant that my time in London was spent desperately searching for a sturdy bag large enough to hold my camera case and a bunch of other junk.  After admiring several suitcases I couldn’t dream of affording, I stumbled on a heavy canvas bag and voila!  I have new luggage.  But by the time I’d done that I barely had time for what my friend Kenya calls a “ho bath” and a change of clothes.  When I finished that, I scrambled over to my gate, got sat down, opened the computer and heard “General boarding is now open.”  Well, I stuffed my cute little netbook into my lovely new bag and got on the plane, what else was there to do?

That makes three flights so far with two more today.  Honestly, I can’t wait to reach Maun because at least then there’s no more flying!  I love flying but really, there comes a point where enough is enough.  Even with as nice as the budget flight on BA is, my sore knee is stiff, and surprise, sore, from being bent so long and I’m starting to think the crick in my neck might be permanent.  But it’s worth it.  That’s what I remind myself.  Trip of a lifetime and all that jazz.

That was all that got me out of bed on Wednesday when Annabelle (my puppy) crawled up and laid down on top of me, something she never does.  For the next seven weeks, she and Jake (my older dog) belong to my parents while I travel.

I go back and forth between being terrified, nervous, excited and just plain tired.  I’ve never been to Africa, and even with my compulsive Google searches, I feel like I don’t know enough and I am far from prepared.  See, last time I went abroad was through ASU and everything was coordinated and there was a massive support network.  In Botswana, I have CCB and in England I have family, but all the planning, all the prep work came down to me so if anything goes wrong, it’s my fault.  Not exactly the most comforting feeling in the world.

I meant this post to be light and funny so you all don’t worry about me, but as it turns out it’s not.  It’s just honest.  I can’t say that I’m having a ton of fun yet (let’s face it 22 hours on a plane isn’t really fun) but I’m making progress.  With any luck, the next post will be more fun.

Have a great day everyone!