Eco Training – July 8th through August 4th

Well Ulises and I spent the last 28 days at a game/safari field guide training course at the Karongwe Game Reserve in the north western portion of South Africa (if you are interested in geography and feel the need to look up where we were exactly on the map, it is just west of Krueger National Park, and just north of Huitspruit). So much happened over the course of the last month that I could hardly capture the fun, learning, silly incidents and great friendships that we forged while at Eco Training. Let me begin by saying it was wonderful, amazing, frightening, awesome, and one of a kind experience. I find myself missing the African Bushveld, outdoor showers (sometimes frequented by your friendly neighborhood wart hog), and 6am wake up calls of the Natal Francolins outside of our tent. It is not often that you get the opportunity to share the walk to the bathroom with Black Backed Jackals, Spotted Hyena, Leopards, Kudu, spiders, Civet, African Elephants, and of course your other human beings who can’t sleep 10 hours nights without at least one potty break.

The journey started off unassumingly, we anxiously awaited a pick up by the “bush bus” from the minibus station at the Jo-Burg Airport, which was exactly on time – and thus had our umpteenth experience on how things in Africa run a little less structured than in the US. We hopped on the bus to meet our driver Lance (soon to be one of our part time instructors), Analee, and Anders (a gregarious couple from Sweden), Tom (an outgoing gap year guy from the UK), Michele (a native South African student), and Greg (another one of those gap year UK guys…. they have a tendency to re-occur throughout this narrative). We piled in the van and got ready for our 6-hour ride to Eco Training (only 5 of us were heading to Karongwe camp, as Michele and Greg were completing their course at another camp).

We arrived in camp tired, dusty, and super hungry – but the first welcome to camp was “Hi there, here is your tent, enjoy, please join us in a half hour or so as you need to sign away your life if you don’t mind…indemnity and all.” We had arrived late, and missed the camp briefing, the description of what the “duty” students must do (Yup Jodi, that’s right, DUTY), and a whole lot of other little things like… if the showers say “out of order”, where do you shower?


After re-signing our indemnity forms, complete with the signatures of two witnesses and all, we sat down for our camp briefing with our instructor and guru of the bush – Rob. The basics are as follows:

• Wake up call (performed by Duty Students – by the way, Duty rotates by tent so each of the 9 tents (18 people total) have to do it three times during the month) at 6:00AM
• Tea & Coffee 6-6:15AM
• Game Drive or Field Walk 6:30AM
• Arrive back in camp 9:30
• Breakfast 10AM
• Lecture 11AM
• Free Time 1-3PM
• Afternoon Tea (or what us in the US call it…lunch) 3PM
• Evening Game Drive or Field Walk 3:30PM
• Arrive back in camp 6:30
• Dinner 7:30
• Sleep 8PM …just kidding, but after 3 nights everyone was asleep by 9, that is everyone except for our team…but we’ll get to that in a bit

Over the duration of the course we would have several instructors, all of whom brought a bit of their own style and knowledge to the table – at the offset we would have Ronnie and Lance, later on to be swapped out with Dale and then finally the F(u)GASA evaluator Sean.

After this run through we all introduced ourselves, giving a bit of background on why we are attending the course, and what we hope to gain from it, and also unknowingly dividing ourselves into teams. Our classmates and their reasons for attending were as varied as the types of spoor and sign (that means tracks and poo) that we would soon be able to identify, but here is the quick cast of characters…

Team B: AKA Team Honey Badger
Bernie – Switzerland – Music Teacher
Tom – UK – End of Gap year student (honing his tracking skills)
Michael – UK – Soon to be university student
Ian – UK – Soon to be university student
Craig – UK – Soon to be university student
Kathy – UK – University Grad soon to be a business professional (aka - working stiff)
Hugo – Holland – Leopard (we’ll get to that one)
Tamani – USA – Unemployed loser
Ulises – USA – Husband of unemployed loser

Team A: AKA The Serious Team
Patrick – Holland – Former mixed martial arts champion, current working stiff
Danny – Holland – Professor and Photographer
Nicole – Holland – Working Stiff
Anne – UK – Former resident of UK, now half owner of S. African lodge
Neil – UK – Former headmaster, now half owner of S. African lodge
Glenn – SA – Working stiff
Linda – SA – Photographer
Anders - Sweden – Hunter extraordinaire
Analee – Sweden – Personal trainer

In South Africa, if you want to become a Field Guide (which is not a park ranger, or a tour guide, it is quite different) you have to take certification exams, which are known as F(u)GASA. There are multiple levels of the F(u)GASA certification process – and at the culmination of the Eco Training course, people had an option to take the F(u)GASA test – that is if they already paid for it.

There were 4 people definitely taking the F(u)GASA test and several more who were planning on taking the Eco Training exams in order to pass Eco Training Level 1. Turns out that split the 18 of us into Team A – The Serious Group and Team B – The Slacker Group, aka- Team Honey Badger. I crossed my fingers and sauntered off to our tent hoping that being in the slacker group didn’t mean keggers every night – turns out it didn’t.

How Do You Pass?
You might be thinking right about this time, what does it mean to go to a field guide-training course? how are you assessed? What do you learn? Well, turns out that you learn a little bit of everything, and are in turn assessed on everything. There were a total of three exams, two preliminary exams and one final, a practical field walk exam, a practical rifle shoot and safety evaluation, two presentations and finally your one-hour practical field drive. All of this testing required that you learn how to:

• Drive a stick shift transmission land rover with the steering wheel on the WRONG SIDE (yup you UK folks it is the wrong side)
• Learn how to read animal tracks
• Learn how to interpret and identify poo (that includes scat, dung and feces – didn’t know there was a difference did you…scat is from carnivores, dung from herbivores and feces from omnivores)
• Learn how to identify trees and interpret what they can tell you about the environment
• Learn how to identify birds by their call and GISS (general indication shape and size)
• Learn how to ride in the tracker seat on the bonnet (that is hood in UK speak) of the Landy
• Learn how to shoot a rifle at 10 meters
• Learn how to identify and interpret cloud formations
• Learn the constellations in the southern hemisphere and learn how to use them for navigation

Basically you need to know how to answer any possible question that your average visitor in S. Africa on holiday and going out with you as their field guide could ask, and possess a modicum of the information and skills required to keep them safe.

After running through the curriculum, and thinking that it has truly been over 8 years since I have been in a classroom setting – I will admit that I was quite scared, and a bit daunted.

Day 1 –
Team Honey Badger (as we would later call ourselves) set off on our morning field walk with Ronnie. After only an hour and a half, I had written 5 pages of notes, and my brain was thoroughly overwhelmed with the names of trees, medicinal uses for them, the use of the Baboons Tail plant as a carrier of embers, the way to tell Kudu dung from Giraffe Dung, and how the Buffalo Thorn Tree captures souls….WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO?

That day our lecture was on ecology and climatology (Mike you would be appalled by how little time we dedicated to cold fronts and warm fronts), and followed it up with our first game drive that evening. It was very fun, and quite an interactive experience. When you think of driving, it is usually in an enclosed vehicle over paved roads, and typically doesn’t involve anyone sitting on the hood of the car actively looking for animal tracks – so riding in the Land Rover was a bit of an adjustment. It is full contact riding, with trees, thorns and other obstacles coming at you as you ride along the dirt roads of the reserve, all the while being aware that if you open your mouth to yawn or laugh, you never know what might fly into it at 25KM per hour.

Michael was the first person to ride in the tracker seat on the Land Rover, and was still there when Rob got word over the radio that the lion pride was in the same vicinity as their position from the morning. So after a bit of off road driving and watching Michael cower on the hood of the Landy, we arrived to pull up near Zero (the male lion) and two of the adult females. Even though we could barely see them, it was awesome, and I got at least one good photo of Zero.

We were back in camp after nightfall, and just in time for dinner – and anxious to see what might happen in the next 27 days.

Day to Day-
Each day progressed similar to the day prior, morning and night activities were the same (if you drove the night before, you drove in the AM, and if you walked the night before, you walked in the morning) and then you would switch, lessons were one to three hours long and covered topics like – tree identification from the leaf arrangement, leaf type, and margin; grass identification, mammals, astronomy, reptiles, arthropods, amphibians, fish, game reserve management, rifle safety, taxonomy, and geology. Lessons were conducted at the same tables where we had our big communal dinners, and I can’t say that having them right after breakfast - and quite often during the hottest portion of the day – I didn’t feel the eyelids droop on occasion.

Life around camp and on our team fell into a nice little ritual and routine. We would all grumpily wake in the morning, bundled up for our walk or drive (seeing as the sun had yet to rise and it was near 6Degrees Celsius or so), we would try to run different members of the team into prickly bushes, learn some new Bush Sports (such as mud missile and dung spitting), learn tons about our surroundings, and return back to camp anxious to compare notes with the other team and find out what they saw during the day.

After lessons an impromptu table tennis championship would start up between Hugo, Michael, Ian, Craig and the newbie ping pongers Tom and Kathy. After an hour or more the click clack of the paddles would end and everyone would drift off to study, read, plug in their MP3 players, or just waste away the afternoon sitting in the sun.

Often in the afternoons our resident survivor man Tom would give lessons on how to survive out there in the wild.
Things that Tom demonstrated were:
-How to make a fire drill
-How to start a fire with a fire drill (note, do not make the fire so far away from the wood that you have to carry it to the wood pile, our friend Patrick’s arm hair may still not have grown back)
-How to make rope (cordage) from the Mother-in-laws Tongue Plant
-How to make a spring snare
-How to make a bow
-How to make a breast enhancement cream from the Knob Thorn Tree (well it was supposed to be an analgesic, but works for both)

In the evenings our activities turned to seeing how many nocturnal animals we could spot with the spotlight out on the drive, and then upon returning to camp, hoping to get back in time to see our camp guardian, Sully light the nightly fire with his magic gas can that took wood from zero to inferno in seconds.

During dinner we would fight over the one pitcher of guava juice and compare notes on the cuisine of the other nationalities at the table… for example, did you know that the Dutch don’t have a term for a Dutch oven? That people really eat something called Beefy Bovril (cow bones and blood cooked down to a black goo), and that the Brits call Jelly Jam because Jelly is actually Jell-O to them? Looney right? This may then devolve into a “lets see if we can get Patrick to try some gross spread like Marmite” or a “let’s teach Tamani the Queen’s English” game resulting in me trying to pronounce words like Tomato and Color like Toe-mah-toe and Colour. I think we both left the table looking like we had tasted something downright funky.

Inevitably there would be a rock, scissors, and paper game between Michael & Hugo, to see who would have to get up and get seconds for the other. And after our bellies were stuffed and conversation had been exhausted, we would clear the table, assemble around the fire pit, and try to stay up past 9PM, which proved ridiculously difficult.

Drives
Game drives were an integral part of our days and one of the most fun. Each day we would set out with us 9 Honey Badgers and one (sometimes two) instructors. We would hop into the 12 passenger Land Rover Game Vehicle, which is an AWD 4x4 monster of a car with the steering wheel on the right (for the driver/guide of course), a passenger seat on the left, one seat on the hood of the car for the tracker, and three rows of bench seats at varying heights behind the driver. Sitting in the back inevitably meant being covered from head to toe in dust by the end of the ride, having to dodge the most branches, and getting bounced so far out of your seat at times that you might just get left behind.

After our third day at camp the driving lessons started, meaning we had to drive the Landy with everyone aboard, and take turns as the tracker. It was fun, particularly as the Land Rover was hard to stall, but I still managed a healthy 7 stalls in my first drive…insert applause here. As driver you were responsible for keeping the car on the road, not whacking your passengers in the face with branches, listening for signals from your tracker, looking for animals, and listening to the radio. It’s a lot to handle.

The main advantage of a drive over a walk is that the animals that are habituated to the car, have a healthy fear of if, and will not disturb it. However that same animal on foot might react very hostilely.

Interesting Days
We had so many unique and once in a life time experiences, that it is difficult for me to try and capture them in words, but I simply must highlight some of our most interesting, harrowing, and silly days we had.

July 13, Leopards and Poo Cigarettes
On our walk this particular morning we saw some fresh leopard tracks near by camp, and decided that we should follow them. We tracked them for a while, but did not make it very far – that said, the Leopard was stuck in our minds for the afternoon drive. When we headed out we had no real expectations of what to see, or where to head, but on the way back to camp we were driving when all of a sudden a large cat (well the back half of him anyway) dashed across the road after some Impala. Lance took us on a bit of off roading to try and locate where the Leopard had gone, but to no avail.

Lance and Ronnie are funny guys, and as you might know some funny guys yourself, the type that have good involved long stories with just the right amount of one ups-man ship to keep feeding them to each other as the night goes on. While standing around the campfire that night Lance told a great story about a guy who was a smoker, but one of those smokers who never had his own cigarettes, and would constantly bum them off of everyone else. So, in order to teach him a lesson, one day the guys at the lodge emptied out a few cigarettes and packed them with crushed up Zebra dung, all in anticipation of when this guy would try to bum off of them later in the night. So after dinner they are all standing around and he comes up to the guys and asks for a smoke – they hand him the pack and he grabs one of the few that are left, lights it, takes a big drag, and nearly chokes to death – ah bush justice. This story was then followed up by Ronnie’s story of an elephant dung birthday cake, complete with icing and candles (elephant dung is big, it would totally work).

July 14, Vultures and Sleeping Under the Stars
This morning we were tracking the wily leopard again when we happened to drive into an area with dozens of White Backed Vultures perched menacingly on the tops of leafless tree limbs, all circling and surrounding one area of the bush. We knew that it meant a kill was somewhere nearby, but were having a truly difficult time finding it, until we nearly ran it over that is. We came across a fresh Hyena kill of an adult male Kudu (large antelope with gorgeous spiraled horns). It was gory, but interesting to see how the Hyena kill, attacking the underbelly of the Kudu and removing its vital organs, and then eating the flesh afterwards. It was amazing to see how little of the Kudu was left after at most one day after its untimely demise. The vultures were doing their part too, and as you can see from our photos, it was a huge animal at one time.

Upon returning to camp it was time for our first exam, and then time for our camping trip away from camp…we had to plan and organize an overland overnight camp under the stars. Each tent was assigned a job (dinner duty, firewood, pots and pans, water, etc) Ulises and I were in charge of the paraffin lamps. In addition to a job, each team had to take a one-hour watch to stay up and patrol the perimeter of our outdoor camp, making sure no one got gnawed on by Hyenas or some other creature of the night. We worked quickly packing up our gear, sleeping bags, mats, lamps, paraffin, dishes, food, water, coolers, toilet paper, shovels, and anything else I am forgetting – putting it all in the trailer hitched to the Landy, while 10 of us walked to the campsite, and 10 of us drove.

After digging our fire pit, and starting up a pretty big fire, we arranged all of the sleeping bags and tarps, with everyone’s heads facing in towards the fire. Our makeshift kitchen and toilet were set up, and the lanterns positioned in a perimeter around all of the sleeping bags – all that remained was to eat, sleep and hopefully make it through guard duty.

Everything was surprisingly quiet, particularly given that we were sleeping outside with 19 of our classmates and hundreds of unseen neighbors. We ate well, crawled into our sleeping bags, and slept fitfully until our guard duty at 2AM. While on duty Ulises and I heard some unfortunate animal meet its end, and watched a curious jackal walk around camp, but overall it was quite still. It wasn’t until the super cold morning (of 2 degrees Celsius) when we found out that right as everyone was going to sleep around 9, a hyena had paid a very close visit to our friend Ian – but decided that she wasn’t in the mood for any of that UK meat – mad cow disease and all.

Needless to say we were all slow to get up, as sleeping on sand in cold weather makes you less anxious to get out of the sleeping bag, and makes the next day slow and very lethargic. It was the first time I have ever camped under the stars, and it was quite beautiful – next time I’ll have a heater though.

July18, Navigate Shmavigate
This morning we headed out on a lovely walk to the second tallest point in the park, where we climbed up to the top and sat for a while, just watching the clouds and enjoying the scenery. It wasn’t until we climbed back down that I realized I was at the front of the line, and all the threats of having to find our way back to camp were about to be realized. Rob turned around and (after a demonstration of how to make sure it was safe and no rounds in the chamber) handed me the rifle saying ‘Okay, now get us home”

Gulp

I have a decent sense of direction, but being in the southern hemisphere has been messing with my mind for weeks now (I mean the moon isn’t a crescent it is a smile – it’s odd), and now I am expected to lead 9 other people an hours walk or so back to camp, with a rifle none the less. Get out of here.

I pulled my baseball cap lower, swallowed, took the ridiculously heavy 375 rifle, and said, “Okay, let’s go”. This of course was immediately followed by me stepping into an aardvark hole and nearly sprawling face first arms akimbo and rifle flying to the left (I like to think if this had happened it would have also landed in a fresh pile of elephant dung – just for effect though). As luck would have it, Rob and Ulises both stopped me from taking a dirt bath and after some barely noticeable blushing, we were off.

The navigation was thankfully relatively easy, as we had walked nearly due north of camp, so all I had to do was keep going south – (if you are ever in the same situation, walk towards the lowest notch in the Sugar Loaf Mountains). I walked through bushes, brambles, dung, and dust – which of course meant that I made everyone else walk that way too. I managed not to trip again, but did get Hugo hung up on several trees. I stalled as often as necessary to stop and get my bearings, and then kept on – most of the time ignoring the head nods from others in the group – seeing as they were often nodding in different directions.

Miraculously we arrived back at camp, in one piece, sweaty, and with a super tired arm, I had navigated back. It was really cool, and I never want to do it again!


July 19, Tracking the Wiley Hugo
Today we saw elephants for the first time on the trip, it was amazing. You can hear them before you can see them, and it sounds like some large wind is blowing through the vegetation, knocking down trees, while at the same time some mad man is ripping out plants by their roots. I still am dumbfounded by the fact that an animal of 18 or so feet (at the shoulder) and weighing several tons, can hide so well by just standing in the grass, and can leave a trail of destruction in its wake that actually looks like “a herd of elephants ran through” – just like you used to say mom.

In the afternoon we decided to hone our tracking skills with an anti tracking exercise. Half of the team went on a walk with Ronnie, in a broad loop around camp and back to where the rest of us waited. Our job was to track their path and follow the route they took back to our camp. It was extremely difficult, you would think that sneakers and hiking boots would be easy to spot, but across rocks and soft sand it all looks like nothing to me. Our saving grace was the fact that Hugo had on some soft soled soccer shoes that left a very distinct tread pattern which we were able to follow extremely slowly back to camp – despite some back tracking, side stepping, and other “throw us off the trail behavior” it only took us an hour and a half to track their 10 minute walk. Oh well – thanks Hugo, it could have taken 3 hours without your shoe prints!

July 20, Elephants, Lions and Zero Oh My!
Today we took a leisurely morning walk with Ronnie, which resulted in us learning another new bush sport – this one thankfully did not involve putting Impala dung into your mouth and spitting, but had the potential to be just as messy – Today it was Mud Missile. The premise is easily described by the name of the sport, you find a long slightly bendy branch, strip it to make a long stick, find a partly dried watering hole with thick clay like mud, grab some mud, shape it on the stick and send it flying (preferably straight ahead, but in the case of some folks at 90degree angle to the right). It was fun all around, that is until it became a mud slinging war, the main casualties being Tom and Michael.

Much grimier, and slightly tired, we went back to camp as today was Presentation Day number one, a five minute presentation in front of the entire class about a topic of your choosing (Ulises did Ticks – gross creatures that they are, and I did the Southern White Faced Scops Owl). It is strange how no matter how long or how many presentations you give in a lifetime, they are always horrifying to give.

On our evening drive we saw the elephant herd again, arriving near the river, just after the herd had crashed and tore their way through the trees. We cleared one tree out of the road, and made our way closer to the riverbed, where we ran into the lion cubs and the lionesses near the riverbank. We watched them for quite some time, until we heard the roar of Zero that is. We took off in the Landy trying to find the direction of his call, and just as the sun was setting, we came across a portion of the road where the elephants had knocked down yet another tree – this one however, was quite near the lion, and it was dark out. So with Bernie holding the spotlight on our unwelcome roadside obstacle, Rob, Ulises and Tom cleared out the tree while we listened to Zero roar.

We finally made it to Zero’s napping spot, to find a huge lion, black mane, curled up like your average house cat – well one that could crush your throat that is. It was so cool to see such a fierce animal in the open – and when you heard his roar, there was no doubt as to why Lions are called the king of the jungle. It was spine tingling.


July 22, Potholes and Pancakes
Today is our one-day off during our 28-day adventure, and we have rented two Scions to drive to see some of the areas natural wonders in the area known as the escarpment. We rode down to the gate with the rest of the folks heading out for fun on our day off. We hit the road around 9 and were at our first stop – Berlin Falls, within 40 minutes. We stopped off and watched the waterfall for a while, before we piled back into the cars and drove to Graskhop a tiny town with all the modern conveniences of restaurants, grocery stores, and phones! We had breakfast at a little B&B, with nearly everyone ordering pancakes with apples, caramel and ice cream – it was a healthy breakfast indeed. I particularly savored my real coffee after weeks of cofe powder, which in no way is the same. After breakfast we struck out to run errands, spend money, and interact with people outside of our little isolated camp society.

Basically we all went to the grocery store and loaded up on junk food, chips, bar one bars (like snickers), soda, batteries, and booze – that’s right booze. It was at this time that I got asked for my phone number by a lovely slightly tipsy gentleman in the liquor store, and Ulises and I had to show our wedding rings and say oh no, we’re married – nothing like a liquor store pick up to make a girl feel pretty. Everyone also bought Biltong (South African thick Jerky) at some of the local shops, which specialized in beef, ostrich, and most deliciously Kudu. We finally piled back into the car ready to head for God’s Window.

God’s Window was lovely, a beautiful trail leading to several picturesque overlooks from which you can see the entire valley area – the view is so vast and clear that it made me feel that we were looking out of a plane window at the ground far below. We took some team photos for posterity and managed to annoy a whole bunch of other site seers – but you are only here once right?

After God’s window we headed to potholes, an area where the slow running of streams and underground water sources has carved large holes and crevasses into the rock, resulting in some beautiful waterfalls and rock formations that look similar to those in Bryce canyon in Utah. We took a long time here, hopping across the potholes, taking photos, being silly in general. One of my favorite parts of the stop was watching the Vervant Monkeys near the café beg for food, steal people’s sandwiches, and dodge the staff that came out equipped with slingshots. We all piled back into the cars with our pockets lighter, our stomachs full of junk food, and ready for dinner!

Upon arrival back at the camp gate we waited until the rental car folks came to pick up the cars – this resulted in an extremely painful conversation as the rental agency guy decided to charge us all more for the cars than was agreed to. After much gnashing of teeth and testing of tolerance levels, we turned over the cars and headed back to the comfort of the wilderness.


July 26, Ready Set Charge?
This morning we headed out on our drive with Ulises at the wheel and Tom as tracker when we came across some lion tracks. We followed them around several turns, and through a few different areas of the park, until we heard the sounds of Impala sending up an alarm call. We followed the sound, but seemed to lose it, until they sent up another round of calls (it sounds a little like an asthmatic dogs bark). We followed the sounds and stopped as Rob and Tom hopped out of the car to go and investigate – seeing if they could get a better idea of where the lions were.

As Rob and Tom headed off, we sat in the Landy, chatting and overall enjoying the sunny morning which had finally warmed up, I think we were all content just to enjoy the drive, not really expecting to find any lions at this point – the trail had run cold too many times.

That’s when we heard it, a scream/yell, that was definitely human, and followed immediately by laughter. I thought that it was a joke, that Tom or Rob had scared the other one and was having a good bit of fun at the others expense. That is, that’s what I thought for the few seconds it took until we heard a volley of lion roars, very loud, and bladder quivering.

All of us Honey Badgers left in the car stared at each other – What do we do? Do we drive to them? Where are they? What if Rob and Tom are waling in a circle and we drive away from them? What if it’s already too late? We simply didn’t know what to do, and despite several people’s gut instinct to drive forward and find them, we waited.

Leaving the optimism up to Michael, he very calmly stated, “as long as he’s roaring, he can’t be eating” which was a very pragmatic observation at the moment. We also had not heard a rifle shot, which I hoped meant that it hadn’t been that serious, that the lions hadn’t been that close.

After what seemed like forever, but was probably only 2 minutes, Tom and Rob walked back to the Landy, Rob looking as grey as death and Tom looking ruddy cheeked – they were shaken, but fine – and yes, they had been charged – twice.

We drove forward in the car to where the entire pride was now located (near and in a tree eating a Leopard bait kill) and got to hear the whole story. As Rob and Tom tracked the lions into the area, they only came across day old, or older tracks, no fresh ones. As they walked they unknowingly came close to the cubs, which set the lioness on edge, and she charged them, just as they were turning to move back towards the road. She stopped short, just wanting to get them away from the young, but in their escape they walked towards a termite mound, behind which Zero, the big male lion, was walking. To get the lion to move back, Rob yelled and shouted, which had the desired effect, but like all males – Zero had to get in the last word.

It was a crazy drive, a crazy day, and a once in a lifetime experience for all involved. I can only say that I have never been so happy to head back to camp as a complete team.

July 28, Cheetah Kills and Rifle Shoots
Today we headed out on the morning drive with few expectations of what to see. We were yet again tracking the elusive leopard, which would evade us the entire time we were at Karongwe. We were on our way back to camp when a call came over the radio to Dale, that the female Cheetah and her Cubs had a kill and were eating it very close to our camp…Nuff Said! We took off to go and see it, and what a sight. I have never seen an animal eating in the wild – at least not prey that it took down itself. The Cheetah were busy eating a Grey Duiker (small antelope) and making quick work of it too. It wasn’t particularly pretty, but it was interesting as the mother sat back letting her cubs figure out how to eat the Duiker and the best way to do so. Let’s just say they all needed a bath afterwards.

Today was a bit different in that there was no afternoon activity since it was our practical rifle shoot day. We drove off of the reserve to a small range where we each got to practice how to safely, load, aim, fire and shoot a target at 10 Meters. 10 Meters is the distance at which a field guide can shoot an animal if all goes wrong, and it charges himself and his guests. It is a surprisingly short distance, but felt like quite a ways when it was my turn up to bat.

The practical shoot was as follows:
1-Single shot from a 308 Rifle soft nose bullets at 10 Meters to work on stance and accuracy
3-Rapid fire shots from a 308 Rifle soft nose bullets at 10 Meters to work on speed and accuracy (a guide has to get all bullets in the bull’s-eye in under 10 seconds to be certified)
1-Single shot from a 375 Rifle soft nose bullet to see the difference

Now several folks had fired rifles before, or gone hunting, but I have never held a gun nor fired one, so this was new and scary territory for me. We all took our turns, most of the guys going first. Ulises did quite well on his single shot, as did nearly everyone. I stepped up and wouldn’t you know that I got a near bull’s-eye on my first try ever?! On the rapid-fire exercise only Craig and Ulises managed to get anywhere near 10 seconds (check out this footage) both of them doing quite well on accuracy too. I took 26 seconds, but hit 2 in the black and one in the white of the target. On our last go around you will never guess who got the most accurate shot with the heavy rifle – Yup, that’s right, Me, Ms. Tamani Oakley herself. I got a bull’s-eye (well near enough that I will count it). As much as I don’t like guns, it was pretty cool to actually be good at it.



After our rifle exercise everyone had quite a bit of fun spreading the word that the Americans somehow ended up being the best shots out of everyone. I went on to further the stereotype that along with our birth certificates we are each issued a pistol at birth – blue stock for boys and pink for girls.

Mister M Wishes us a Happy Anniversary
Today was the beginning of the practical drives for those taking the F(u)GASA exams. Ulises and I were invited to join Anne on her game drive, and (due to my confusion were nearly late) we rushed to hop into the land rover just as Anne began her pre-drive brief. The practical drive assessment lasts for 3 hours, and is meant to be a proxy for a real game drive with real paying clients. The driver has to navigate, spot, drive, entertain, educate and safely return all of the passengers to camp all with a smile and some luck that some animals might be around to be seen.

We saw several animals along the way, Zebra, Impala, Steenbok, Waterbuck, Nile Croc, and Mongoose too. It was a good drive, but we hadn’t seen any big mammals yet, nothing to write home about that is until the sun went down and Anne was navigating us back to camp. All of a sudden we smelled a terrible stench. Now to elephants this probably smells like Axe – wait that is a terrible stench – maybe it smells more like cinnamon buns, anyway, the smell was coming from Mister M.

Mister M is a young male elephant that just happened to be in the middle of going through Musth. In elephants, the males enter into periods of time during which their testosterone levels go through the roof, and they advertise to all the available ladies that they are ready to mate. This advertisement isn’t a nice personal ad placed in your local paper, or even on EHarmony, but comes in the form of a horrible smell, dripping temporal glands, and continuous drizzling of urine down the legs for weeks. It is quite attractive I must say (McGill don’t get any ideas).

In addition to smelling like a rose garden, males in Musth also tend to be highly irritable and aggressive, which would explain why Mister M decided to try and chase the car – not charge it really – but to definitely assert who was in charge and test Anne’s reversing skills at the same time. Here is a very blurry photo of Mister M as he pursued us.

Thankfully we drove around him, and avoided any unpleasantness, but just in case you smell a stinky elephant and were thinking of saying hello – I suggest getting out of
Dodge.

We made it back to camp in one piece and Ulises and I were able to open up a bottle of South African wine and celebrate our anniversary in the wild. It isn’t often that you can say an elephant chased you on your anniversary is it?

August 3, Last Day Sundowner
Today is our last day at camp, and after 27 days I know that I am going to miss this place. We had a relatively lazy morning, going on a walk that turned into an "avoid the elephants" walk. We did a pretty good job, although they seem to just want to hang out near our camp. We each got our Eco Training scores (you can congratulate me later on my passing Eco Training Level 1, imagine a bow here), spent time packing up our stuff, and helped Tom put together the Hangie BBQ that he was doing for dinner. Imagine a big pit in the sand, filled with rocks that had been heated for hours with hot coals, and then foil bags of meat and veggies going on top to get cooked – all covered back up with sand. Very similar to the pit pig roasts at the Cuban party.

In the afternoon we all got ready to head over to Beacon Rock, the tallest point in the reserve, to have a sundowner. A Sundowner is basically a party involving people, some drinks and the sunset. Somehow we managed to squeeze 19 of us onto a big rock and proceeded to waste away quite some time chatting and reminiscing about the previous month. The silly things that had happened (like people talking into the radio like it was a telephone with a receiver, chair collapses, and three stooges like branch whacking) and just enjoying each other’s company for one last evening. We had a great time, and I was quite sad to see the evening end, but there was food waiting for us back at camp and a bonfire to light.

We arrived back at camp to find that the elephants were in camp, and that they were standing on our dinner. Since the BBQ was in the riverbed, and so was the elephant herd, we couldn’t get down there to rescue the food. So with empty stomachs, but full cups, we lit the bonfire (which was really more like burning a whole tree) and waited for the elephants to leave. Thankfully we ate, a little late, and a bit crispier than anticipated, but I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I doubt there will ever be another opportunity in my life to say dinner was late due to a herd of elephants.

Gratitude
I am so thankful that Ulises found this course, and that we were able to attend with such a group of fun and enthusiastic people. I know that safari vacations are fun, and they can be educational too, but I would not trade the friendships and knowledge that I gained for anything, I miss being out in the bush every day, there is simply nothing like it. To all those Eco Training folks, you made it unforgettable! If you are ever in the states, look us up – and yes Michael we will get Facebook. Cheers.












Animals I Saw
Antelope
Kudu
Waterbuck
Bushbuck
Steenbok
Duiker (Grey and Blue)
Impala
Nyala


Blue Wildebeest
White Rhino
Southern Giraffe













Plains Zebra
African Elephant
Spotted Hyena
Genet
Civet
Dwarf Mongoose
Slender Mongoose
Millers Mongoose
Black Backed Jackal
Rock Dassie (Hyrax)
Nile Crocodile
Terrapin
Honey Badger
Warthog
Bush Pig



Cats
Lions (cubs, black mane male, female)
Cheetah (male, female and cubs)
Leopard (the hind end of one male and the titanium tooth candidate)
African Wild Cat
Servil


More Birds than I can think of….


Words and Phrases I Learned
Taking a Slash - Pee
Biscuit - Cookie
Scon - Scone
Bonnet - Hood
Queue - Line
Cheers – Hello, Thanks, Salute, Cheers, Goodbye
Tomatoe - Tomato
Colour - Color
Muffin - Cupcake
Jam / Jelly / Marmalade
Pancake / Flap Jack / Crepe / Crumpet
Tart / Pie / Cake
Loo - Potty
Bin – Trash Can
Plaster - Bandaid


HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY DEAR SISSY KASHATA (Ya Old Lady!)