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Thursday, July 28, 2011

Chobe






I have to start off this blog entry by stating that Rwanda, our 2 year old male lion, is roaring in the background. I never grow tired of that sound even if it's 4 a.m.

Well last weekend me and the boys and two other volunteers from Lions headed out to Chobe National Park in Botswana. Everyone had built it up so much that I was afraid that I was expecting too much of it. Well it was all that and a bag of potato chips!! I've never seen so many animals within 2 days in my life.

We started out the day by grabbing a shuttle to the Botswana border and then a safari truck picked us up on the other side to head to our first game viewing. The first game drive was by water. It was so amazing to see elephants crossing the rivers and hippos by the dozen all grouped up together. We saw many crocs and one even had a huge fish in it's mouth that it had just killed. I wouldn't even be able to describe the colours of the birds here, they are just amazing. At one point we even saw a 1 meter snake crossing the river. After about three hours we headed back to shore for lunch and had a little downtime to relax.

Next on the agenda was our first game drive on land. As we enter the park we see some warthogs...always a funny scene. What was the second animal, oh just a leopard. Apparently it's rare to see a leopard since there are so few left in the wild but we managed to see it twice over the weekend. At one point of the drive I swear there must have been about 250 elephants around heading towards the water. At one point on one of the drives an elephant was about 5 feet from Jordan. Then came the moment of the day for me when we turned a corner and there laying in the middle of the road was a male lion about 15 months old. I literally couldn't speak....I just pointed. We were so luckily to also see 5 cubs sitting all together waiting for their mothers to get back from hunting. 200 pictures later and we were on our way. There were so many giraffe, kudu, ginny fowl (very funny birds might I add), warthogs, puke, sable, impala, hippos, and I won't start to try to list the birds although one is called a Bastard!! I didn't giggle at all when they told me that!!

That night we arrived at camp around 6:30 to a nice bonfire to warm us up. Yes we tented it in the wilds of Africa!! They had an amazing supper for us and we struggled to stay up past 7:30. I'm not going to lie...Jordan and I were the first to bed :) We read for a while and then I pitched a fit when I found a spider crawling across my pillow. Poor Jordan had just fallen asleep when I yelled for him to take care of it...apparently I made it a little more dramatic then necessary!!

Then next day we were up at 6:00 and off on another game drive. We were to happy when we saw the leopard again and another family of lions. After a few hours it was back to camp where we had some food, some rest time and then back home. Everyone should do something like this at least once in their life...please add it to your list.

Enjoy the photos...good night. xoxo

Monday, July 25, 2011

The boys are back in town...




Hey everyone,

So the boys have arrived! They have been hear almost a week but things have been so busy that I hadn't had a chance to write anything. There is much to write about now though.

As we were driving back to Lion Encounter we came up on 7 wild elephants just on the side of the road. I'm not sure they realized for the first few seconds that these were indeed wild. So the day they arrived we all went on their first lion walk with the 2 Z's (Zaria & Zamfara). I was so great to see their expressions when they we able to touch a lion for the first time. By the end of their first day they say lions, elephants, giraffe, baboons, vervet monkeys, a croc and some hippos....not bad for a first day.

On their second day that had a the great opportunity to feed some of our big lions up in Dambwa. Jordan had to carry a leg in while my Dad took a head of a donkey to feed. Now that lions clearly are put into a holding area while they put in the meat so when they finally open the holding area door it's something to see adult lions just tearing at the meat until nothing is left but some white bone.

They have also done the tour of town and many other activities so things are going great and they are both loving it. Jordan has gone out with the young ones as well but Mom is here to ensure he stays in-line!!

We went to Chobe National Park this weekend but that will be for the next entry!! so many photos...so little space on these pages.

Take care everyone...

Vick xoxo

Thursday, July 14, 2011

The excitement is growing...





Well it's just 6 days before Jordan and my Dad get here so planning has begun. I was able to bid on a trip into the Chobe National Park in Botswana in a silent auction and won the bid so off we are going to Chobe. There will be a birthday for Dad as well but I will keep that quiet to no secrets are revealed!!

On elephant research these days we are seeing two females very pregnant and about to give birth. Now the odds of us seeing the birth is very slim but we are hoping that once she has the babies we will see some very young elephants. She is so big that she is staying around the area so it's a very exciting possibility. You can see her here in the picture. Elephants actually carry their babies for 2 years before giving birth and a baby elephant is about 200-250 kgs at birth....that would make me take birth control!!

As I sit here in the office I recognize some of the differences in my office environment. Right now I am sitting on the edge of the chair because Bug the cat is sitting on it as well and I wouldn't want to disturb him. Also at times we get a knock at the door or should I say a scrape at the door because Simba or Trevor would like to sit in the office with us. It's crazy but I love it!!

I had a crazy moment the other day when me and a velvet monkey started to play a game together. When I came out of the office he (remember how we know it's a male velvet monkey!!) was standing about 10m away from me. We just stood there staring at each other and then I decided to see how he would react to me. So I squatted down and then he followed...then I stood up and he followed. This went on for a few minutes until he changed the game to I going to hide behind this palm and play peek-a-boo with you. It was awesome and now Likando tells me...Vicky there are monkeys outside!!

I stayed over at the general manager's house this week with Cara because they are on vacation. The picture you see is one of my new friends Atlas. He was very curious to see what I was doing on the computer. Also, I ended up helping out on my day off with a puppy that was found outside of someone's house in town. It was shivering, dehydrated and had fleas. The girls managed to kill the fleas with some powder and the rest of us worked on giving it water, food and warm cuddles. The vet came by to attend to it as well and it seems that the puppy is doing very well now.

Well that's all for now folks...stay tuned and I'm happy to hear I have some new followers...Luc!!

Cheers

Thursday, July 7, 2011

What a week...




Well there are few stories over the last week. On my day off this week I went out with Cara, Anant & his niece and nephew to the big tree, Zambiezi Sun and the Croc Farm. The big tree is well...a big tree but you can climb up on it and have a great view of the falls and you can see over into Zimbabwe. We sat up there and had a few drinks before moving on to the Zambiezi Sun for lunch. After lunch we were off to the Croc Farm where we saw some massive crocs but the highlight was actually holding one that was 1 1/2 years old. There are still small but can do some damage to fingers!!

Now on Monday we headed out on elephant research which is normally just a beautiful ride around the park where you see a lot of animals and hopefully you find elephants. Well that day was a little different. As we going along a very narrow road deep in the bush we heard some people on the other side of the water banging pots and then we heard a trumpet of an elephant so off we went. Along the way out of the area we were patrolling some people noticed 2 people duck down along the riverbed. Well as you may remember we always have a scout with us from the Zambia Wildlife Authorities so we halted the truck and the chase began. The whole time the rest of us just watched from the truck to what was going on. One of the guys started running so the scout shot in the air which did not stop him but it did stop his friend. He was yelling to stay down and had the riffle cocked. Needless to say at this point the heart was racing. Before I go on here you need to know that illegally fishing is seen as poaching and the punishment is sever here for that. Although we don't usually think of fish in that manner they have to treat it the same as if they were killing a buffalo or an impala illegally. The law is the law here. So back to the story....at this point the guy keeps trying to take off so the scout holds him down and grabs a branch from the tree and starts to whip him on the back. He then let him go and the guy took off in terror. I have to say that I was shocked by this but after thinking about it what the guy was doing was illegal and technically if someone runs after doing something illegal the scouts have a right to shoot so this guy was lucky he got away with only a branch whipping.

So was the day over....no way. We then made it over to the area where the elephants were which was a lodge that consisted of small cabins and tents. We found the elephants and the owner said he was ok with them being there but then the scout convinced him that he should fire off some rounds in the air to scare them away from the area because it was dangerous for the visitors. Well he shot in the air and all the elephants started to run into the tent area and then the scout ran down that way and shot again. The elephants proceeded to just run back to the original area. You can guess what happened next...that's right he ran back and shot again and the elephants went back to the tent area. This went on for a good 20 minutes which just started to get embarrassing. With all of the shooting it also intrigued the guests and they all started to come to the area and some followed the scout while drinking beer. At no point did these people think that these are 12 large wild elephants that can kill them in 2 seconds. Anyhow after 20 minutes the situation was finally under control and we proceeded home. That was definitely the craziest elephant research I have been on.

On a softer side, I had about 15 students and 4 teachers come for a visit this week so I put together a lesson with the help of the lion handlers and guides to talk about the importance of conservation and helping the lion population. It was really cool to see the students go from the typical I'm bored look to fascinated and full of questions by the end. After the quick lesson for about 20 minutes we took them over to see our 2 year old lions and then the cubs. I was able to get them to the fence so some of them could touch a lion and one even let me lift her paw so I could show them how big their claws are. They were so thrilled that one girl even sung a song for me at the end. It was a great day and I'm hoping to work with some more school children this month.

Anyhow that's all for now and sorry no pictures of my eyebrow waxing Amy!!

Cheers.