15th & 16th May
Yesterday I made a conscious effort to have proper Kiswahili lessons and realised how many bad habits I have already picked up, the advice from my Mwalimu (teacher) was to ask everyone to speak to me only in Kiswahili so be prepared for lots of miscommunication and misunderstanding!
In the afternoon I joined Daniel the guide on a safari, I sat up front with Daniel in an attempt to absorb all of his information and skills. One thing I definitely need to improve on in order to become a guide is getting eagle eyesight, he literally spotted a lion from miles away from a tiny movement of the lion’s ears flicking flies off. We traversed off-road (also need to improve my 4×4 driving skills) and found the originally spotted lion, plus 8 others including 3 cubs, 3 sub-adults and 3 adult females. It was amazing to be so close to the lions who were so relaxed. One of the adults was ‘bathing’ one of the older cubs while the three young cubs nursed and another adult rolled on her back away from the main pride, taking some ‘me time.
I of course took a million photos and haven’t gotten around to editing them yet (unemployed life is so busy) so they will be added in at a later date. Heres two I couldn’t resist editing:
16th May
Another run to start the day, I use to word ‘run’ very loosely, its more of a stumble but today 2 dogs and I stumbled 3km so we are slightly improving. It is difficult to run around the camp as there is limited space so to challenge ourselves and we ran the hill down and up from the hide twice, not managing to run all of it both times so that is something to aim for. Both times there was nothing to observe at the hide, but also we didn’t run into any Elephants or Rhinos today so thats a plus.
Today I attempted to work on my website, for those of you who know me well, know that this website has been a LONG time coming, the website is supposed to showcase my photos and allow people to order prints, calendars etc, it has however been in a state of unreadiness for nearly a year now ?
It’s a combination of me not knowing anything about designing a website, not having fast enough internet to be able to load everything without wanting to throw the laptop through the window, and there being a million unedited photos on my hard drive, therefore not having them ready to put on the website. The problem with living in Africa is that whenever you get time off from work you don’t want to sit in front of a computer editing photos, you want to go and explore amazing, wild places and take more photos… and that is how you end up in my predicament. I mean I literally can’t complain, I have been able to explore so many ridiculously amazing places, maybe one day I will sort through my photos and be able to share that beauty with the rest of the world.
Charl got some time away from work in the afternoon so we explored outside the conservancy a little which meant we were finally able to let the dogs off the lead, giving them some much-needed freedom and a chance to run around and use up some energy. There was of course still plenty of goat and cows to chase, something Rafa sometimes does and sometimes doesn’t do… you get a split second to make a dash for his collar when you see his ears prick forward and if you miss that split second he is off! Anyway, it was worth the risk, I would rather he chase goats than lion or giraffe or anything else found in the conservancy. Disclaimer, he doesn’t chase to kill, he just likes the chase. We are working on it with training but at the end of the day dogs like to chase things!
We jumped back in the car to get home, again you can see the difference in the dogs, Ruu is just needed and thinks she is a lap dog and all Rafa is interested in is jumping out the window and chasing anything with a pulse!
Duma is beginning to enjoy being a house cat, she basks in the sunlight and meows loudly when she wants food, being in the house all the time allows her to demand food 24-7!
I’m looking forward to Duma being released into the wild!
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