Critter catch

One day our ranger, Flower Boy, decided on catching a scorpion. He was running around like a crazy person (as rangers often are), over-turning stones like crazy (which rangers admittedly quite often are). Now, there are a couple of ways of doing this... the right way and the wrong way. Which one FB decided on remained no mystery, a girlish yelp followed by some swearing told us exactly what his choice of action had been.

 

Luckily this one wasn't one of the dangerous ones and all he got was a sore hand and bruised pride.

 

He did however also show us a bunch of other little ones, of a more harmeless variety. He had some good help finding these guys from an excellent critter spotter though...

Maybe I should let you in on the fact that he successfully managed to catch another one a couple of months later... and thereby redeemed himself.

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Wildside moments

On the second tour this season, I was back with my new-found love; Entabeni. This time the weavers were going crazy building their nests at the Wildside camp. These chatty little guys, as well as the amorous tree agamas and warthogs, were common sightings in camp and thoroughly enjoyed by the Norwegian guests.

A sighting I won't forget is probably one of the more unusual animals to be called in over the radio on a game drive... a frog! Not just any frog though, but a bull frog, the largest species in southern Africa. It was my first encounter with this enormous amphibian and one that really made my day.

Elephants are always a joy to encounter and sometimes their playfulness really remind me of dogs interacting with each other. I never get tired of them!

However, the elephants weren't the only creatures to be monkeying around...

Another important ingredient to this trip was the weather. The thunderstorm one night killed the generator and we periodically had to manage without electricity and water. I had saved up a few litres in bottles and kettles however and so wasn't suffering too badly... I even managed to “shower” after being out running!

A few of the game drives were even cut short because of the sudden burst of the clouds. Other times the violent fury of Thor stopped as suddenly as it had began and we were treated to fantastic sunsets. 

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First tour of the season

As it's been a while since the last post, I want to share some memorable moments from past tours.

Early on, our driver Leonard, realized that the bus wasn't behaving as it should, but he was hoping for the best as a replacement vehicle would take a whole day to arrive. The real break-down however, didn't occur until we had just reached the Lowveld, with half an hour left to go. We stopped at a small kiosk where people had gathered with their vehicles at the junction, playing loud music and mingling, as it was Saturday night. Tired but intrigued, we joined in on this weekend activity for a couple of hours, as darkness settled.

We were picked up by Karongwe's staff and left poor Leonard to wait for help on his own. When we eventually arrived at the bush camp, it was decided that we'd have a late start the following morning. I think we all appreciated that, as the night temperature of two degrees made us all want to go into hibernation. Needless to say, I managed to stay out of the swimming pool, even though it looks very idyllic.

The bus breaking down and the cold nights are probably two of the memories of this trip that stand out, but one of the highlights was a female cheetah with four cubs that we encountered on foot the first day.

This female has been part of a breeding program and thus is not too bothered with human presence, but in an effort to keep the cubs wild, a respectful distance is still a must.
 

Usually on a tour, there's one or two guests celebrating birthdays and this time was no exception. The bush lunch we had on one of the guests' 70^th birthday was truly a memory for life, as the setting couldn't have been more beautiful. When having meals in the bush, many expect sitting down in the dirt, eating chunks of meat with bare hands, cave man style...

This is however certainly not how we usually do it. We were soon joined by some of the other local primates, but luckily they were content with watching our feast from the treetops.

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