Hey guys, sorry it's been so long, I dont really have much internet time here (only like 2 1/2 hours in town every 2 weeks and only some of that is spent at the internet cafe)so I'm just using the email I sent out to everyone. Hope all is well here! I see there are more intense ads....
SO. This is pretty crazy. I sat down and after 2 long weeks at the reserve I have absolutely no idea where to start. It feels like I've been living here for months, yet I know it's only been 2 weeks. Funny how that works huh? Oh man and I am so limited for time....
I guess I'll start out by explaining the camp. We're located on a reserve created by De Beers diamond mine (yeah a bit of a contradiction I know but this is their way of giving back for everything they're taking) and it is just over 32000 ha. So pretty damn big, especially when all of the "roads" are basically just routes the cars on the reserve take relatively frequently so sometimes they are VERY difficult to find, especially this year as we've gotten a lot of rain in comparison to most other years (almost double) so there's a ton of tall grass on the ground, whereas there's apparantly usually practically nothing year-round at venetia (other than the trees). There's tons of mini mountains I guess you could call them scattered around, dams, pans, "riverbeds", etc. It's absolutely beautiful.
We're right at the tip of south africa, like a 30 min drive away from where it converges with Botswana and Zimbabwe (what a view! The border is where the limpopo and Shashe river converge), so apparently they get a lot of Zimbos walking through the reserve in their quest to Jo'berg for money and work (so sad~ apparently the lions just walk the river lines at the border of Zimbabwe & South Africa now because they've recognised an easy food source). The people who actually make it to Jo'berg through starvation and all the animal dangers are incredible. Unbelievable everything they go through (just to give you an idea it was a 7 hr car ride from the jo'berg airport to venetia....).
Work at the reserve is pretty cool as well. I am now well trained in the exciting art of telemetry (tracking down collared animals with radio signals and a portable antenna, lol) triangulation, etc. It's amazing to see all these animals up close even though the reserve looks nothing like I envisioned....I think I envisioned Kenya. Dry, no grass, no trees....very barren. Apparently the bushveld actually has a TON of "bush trees" in it. Who would have guessed? Lol. It's so dense sometimes it can be really difficult to see something as noticable as a giraffe if they're just off the trail.
But despite this we've still seen some pretty incredible things. Impala, a big beautiful Kudu male so close to us, Vilebeeste, Zebra, Gemsbok, Giraffe just chillin (and running...it's like they're in slow mo it's so cool to watch), elephant herds walk across our path, a couple bull elephants check us out preparing to mock charge us (the other group actually WAS mock charged...twice, lucky buggers), a leopard (the first sighting at venetia by GVI in the 2 years they've been here which is pretty cool~that's how we roll), following lions walk down the road for ages, etc, etc. I'm dying to see a lion kill but nothing yet. The closest I've come is watching a lion pounce and chase down a herd of impala and zebras (then fail) and then the carcass of a zebra 4 days later....I suppose if you put the together you kind of get a kill? Ok, ok not quite....
I love being so close to the animals and just surrounded by them always. The danger is actually kind of exciting... We got stuck in a sand riverbed for an hour and a half the other day in an area with no radio and we'd have to really search the landscape just to make sure there weren't any lions or leopards nearby before we could walk like 5m's over to get rocks to try and put under the tires...You're just on the lookout 24/7 it's kind of crazy.
Everyone's really nice here and the food is surprisingly good. We all have camp duty once a week where you dont go out on drive, instead you do the household chores and you;re paired up with someone and cook for the whole lot of us instead. There's actually a lot of variety in what you can make. I was expecting beans and rice a lot but we actually have like 4 meat dinners/wk and 4 meat lunches/wk and just I guess a lot of luxuries I wasn't expecting. We're in a tent camp but it's actually a lot nicer than you would think, and the furniture and stuff is pretty decent indeed. The only tricky thing is sleeping with the mosquito net...it gets hot and a little difficult to manage at times, sometimes I just wake up completely out of it...but I'm getting better, I just wish I'd splurged for a larger one... Anyways that's all I can really say right now, I've pretty much ran out of internet time and things to say. Hope all is well at home and I'll post something again when I come to town in about another 2 weeks or so. Love and miss you all!!
-Laura
South Africa
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