Reserve Mpumalanga

Berg en Daal Restcamp, Kruger, 20th September 2009

We were up early and ready to queue at the gate, and yes it was a big queue. We drove towards Lower Sabie Restcamp keeping on the tar road for most of the way. Paul was beginning to get a bit disappointed as he hadn't seen many big cats in Kruger, then as luck would have it Paul spotted a leopard in a tree quite a distance from the roadside. We managed to get some quite good ...

... hippos sailing past on their way downstream. It seemed there were several family groups gathered together, with many young and several tiny babies, who were having a whale of a time getting their faces right into the mud, slipping and sliding and falling over their legs and their trunks in their excitement. Crossing the river they would cling on to the taller adults for dear life, struggling to keep trunks raised, slipping under and ...

... We mainly did a self-drive safari as well as some guided drives and walks. We saw all sorts of exciting animals, including the 'big 5'. These are the animals which were supposedly the most dangerous to hunt, including lions, leopards, buffalo, elephants and rhinos . Our favourite animals were probably the giraffes and ...

... before 6am, we see people out of their cars squinting their eyes in the low lights of the morning to try to make out the animals on the other side of the bridge beyond the gate. Anna and I are wrapped in the fleece blankets Heinrich provides in his awesome landrover. We get told some ground rules and get to know each other. The ice is quickly broken and the tone for the day is set: FUN with gratuitous comedy in between to which we all giggle. This is likely ...

... or to walk quickly sometimes walking like frogs so low to the ground, going from bush to bush to hide from the lion's view. We were all very sweaty and getting tired from the heat, walking hunched over, and from the sheer apprehension of being in the open plain with the only thing protecting us from the lion was our fearless guides with their guns. You could see the excitement in Irwin's eyes as his hunting instinct ...

So I got my first Text message! I really didn't think it would take an engineer to figure out the instructions that I plainly laid out for you on a previous blog, but I guess I was wrong. Stephen Nebel sent me a text message last night throught my cell phone number using the computer, very simple really if you are sitting at a computer all day. Well hope to hear from more of you, maybe you can call Stephen to get directions. Hope your family is well, Stephen. Well, take care everyone

... a shower, and a meal! Oh the little things that make me happy. I'm not sure why I am going camping this weekend, I am pretty much camping 24/7, except with camping I can cook. Yes, I still have not been able to cook. I was supposed to move, the beginning of March, but that didn't happen. I was scheduled to move the end of March, but I don't have a bed. So I have not bought a hot plate to cook on. I eat while in town, and on weekends I ...

... said he would like to take me to Krugar with his family the end of March. Also the big thing, I am getting a wardrobe!!!! Tomorrow, I think. Oh well, I know that it is really coming. So know the bigger news, the grant that I wrote to the Dell Foundation came through, and I received the fax last week that the computers will arrive the end of the month. So yes, I have opportunities to go back to America, and I would still take them, but things are not as bleak as before. Take care.

... I am having a very hard time understanding things. The white people that have come into Vuwani to work get an amazing amount of respect, but cannot speak an ounce of Venda. I on the other hand can speak Venda like a three month old and have lost respect, because I am not doing anything, because my NGO is holding me back. I am patiently waiting for campaigns to begin, but if the people do not show up to meetings, and when I show up to their office what am i meant to do. I am ...

I must say we are all adults here, and what you see on my blog at times may not seem acceptable to you, but you also have to realize that we are living in a very different world than you. I am sharing it with you to let you know that I am alive and kicking. :) So I spent the weekend in Nelspruit. It is a very beautiful, city! I did not feel ...