Singing in the rain

*warning* this post may cause jealousy when you live in the Netherlands (or another country where it is currently raining or freezing)

I know it’s probably around 10 degrees in the Netherlands (I even hear they predict temperatures below zero at night) but I’m still going to say it: it has been cold here! Well I shouldn’t overreact, it has been around 19 degrees at night, but still it’s a nice change from the 36 degrees we had to suffer through last week. We’ve even had rain, Martijn and I were still out feeding the horses and were drenched in under a minute. It’s funny how quickly you get used to the higher temperatures. For the first couple of weeks I’ve been wondering why on earth I even brought a pair of jeans but now everyone is wearing jumpers and jackets in the evenings and I’m actually sleeping under a duvet instead of just a sheet. You see how hard our life is here ;)

More proof of how busy we are: on Tuesday we went to the beach near St. Lucia. It was a bit ‘cooler’ (but still around 25 degrees) so it was nice and quiet. The water was a bit cold though, plus there’s always the risk of getting eaten by sharks (or hippos or crocodiles) so I didn’t actually swim but it was nice to sunbathe for a bit. We decided to include sunbathing for 40 minutes in our daily schedule from then on (it hasn’t happened yet). On the way back we took a shortcut through a reserve belonging to a five star lodge and were lucky enought to find a (five star) lioness in the middle of the road. We didn’t even see her at first as we were all looking at the car behind us. When Martijn said there was a lion in front of us we thought he was joking, we almost ran her over. When we were watching her, a male lion came walking up to the nearby fence, later followed by a second one. They were roaring at each other, it was really cool.

We spend another afternoon at Eric and Gina’s. Nathan took Mikaela and me to shoot the pallet gun. I had done it before but I’m not a very good shot. Imagine my surprise when my first three shots all hit their marks (a tin can 150 metres away). According to Nathan the gun was skew (he kept missing the cans). We were so focussed on the shooting we didn’t realize Martijn and Eric lit some fireworks behind us, my ears were ringing all night.

Yesterday, Yvette, Rick, Wesley and I went to the Hluhluwe Park in another attempt to find a leopard (or wild dogs, I still haven’t seen them in the wild). Unfortunately the ‘interesting’ animals seemed to be on strike. We saw a lot of zebra, nyala, warthog, waterbuck, buffalos and a rhino but that was it. Funny how easy it is to forget how amazing it actually is to get to see this. We are spoiled with all the rhino in the park and we consider the buffalo the impalas of the big five (you see them everywhere).

I know it sounds like we’re nog doing anything here but we actually do work. I got up at 5.30am three days in a row to get the horses ready for rides. We have had rides every day for the last week and a half and I even guided two myself because our guide was off. I was a bit nervous about that as I don’t know a lot about the park, plants and animals but I think I did alright. I hope the stories I told were actually true and not me mixing up all the facts and making up new trees and animals that don’t actually exists. Ah well, the guests had fun and they were all really nice. At least we didn’t get lost.

Meanwhile in Africa

I haven’t been eaten yet! The mosquitoes sure have tried though... Both my arms are covered in bites and rashes and other marks. I fear I might be allergic to something here. I now know that it’s the tiny animals you should fear, not the big ones.

Speaking of large animals, we went on a game drive last Sunday! The Hluhluwe Imfolozi Park is really beautiful with it’s rolling hills and winding rivers. The scenery in itself makes it worth the trip but we had a couple of great sightings as well. I was really happy because there were lots of Rhinos! I’d only ever seen them from kilometers away in the Krueger so I really wanted to see even just one… Instead we saw two in the distance, a mother and baby next to the car, two adults drinking 3 metres away from us, two adults lounging by a river with a herd of buffalo, and a group of rhinos grazing on a hillside. I still cannot believe how lucky we were to see all that. We also saw loads of buffalo and an elephant emerging from the bushes right in front of our car. That gave Nathan, our guide, a bit of a fright as he wanted to back the car up to give the elli some space but some idiot had parked right behind us.

Of course we also saw impala, warthog, zebra, nyala and lots of birds but sadly not a single giraffe. As it was Maaike’s last game drive she really wanted to see a lion but unfortunately we didn’t find them either. They are hanging out close to the gate apparantly so maybe on my next gamedrive. This morning I went on a horseride with two friends of Martijn and one of them told me she lives in the Hluhluwe Park as her husband is the head ecologist there. She told me that she was annoyed because she could barely get out of the park this morning as the road was blocked by a group of lions and a bunch of people in cars watching them. How rude of those lions to block the road like that ;)

What else have I been up to? All the days seem to blend together here and time flies. This is already my third week. Three new volunteers have arrived from the Netherlands: Yvette, Wesley and Rik. They were supposed to help Nathan out but him and Mikaela have a couple days off so they are just hanging out and helping with the horses. Yesterday we all went to False Bay to have drinks and watch the sunset and afterwards we had another braai (fifth braai since I arrived!). I went on a couple of rides, did some training with the horses, hung out at Eric’s. A couple days ago Maaike and I helped Eric and Gina in ‘the Nut House’ roasting, seasoning and packing (and eating!) macademia nuts. Their daughter and son in law also came over with their grandkids and brought a quad bike so of course we took that for a spin as well!

Now I’m hanging out at the bar with Yvette. It is really quiet at the lodge as there are no guests, Maaike and Maarten have left, Nathan and Mikaela are off and Martijn, Wesley and Rik went to Richardsbay. Apparantly another lady is coming soon to help out with the horses, she has been here before and I have heard some wild stories about her, we’ll see how that goes.

 To be continued…

Back to the Bush

It’s on! I’m back in the country I fell in love with two years ago: South Africa. Ever since I came back from Hoedspruit I’ve been trying to find the time to come back and now that I’ve finally graduated (and not planning on starting another degree for now ;) ), it feels like the perfect time to travel.

I’m currently sitting by the pool in 30 degree weather in Hluhluwe, SA. I will be spending the next 10 weeks here as a volunteer. I’m staying at Wildebees ecolodge where I’ll be helping out with the horse safaris. It’s not a big five reserve like Jejane but we’ve got Impala and Nyala (a baby Nyala!), Duiker and we get visits from Janets, Leopards (apparently there is a leopard cub!), Jackals, Bushpigs and lots more. And of course there’s lots of birds and, sadly, insects. When I was in Hoedspruit it was the middle of winter so there were barely any mosquitoes and I haven’t seen a single snake. Here I’ve seen two snakes over the span of one week and I’ve got so many mosquito bites they look like constellations. I’ve found a toad in my room twice and a weird type of hairy caterpillar has given me a rash on my arm. I keep waking up at night feeling something is crawling over me. When I told Maaike about it she told me one of the previous interns who stayed in my bungalow thought there was something in the matrass. Of course that resulted in us giving the matrass a thorough inspection. We were slamming it and even listening if we could hear something moving inside. Nothing so far...

Besides me, there are two other volunteers from the Netherlands, Maaike and Maarten. They are both leaving next week though. There is Nathan, who is the head ranger and Michaela and Mariska who do management. On Saturday, three more volunteers will arrive and one of them will help out with the horses as well. There is also a guide for the horse safaris who helps with taking care of the horses. We let the horses out to graze on the property in the mornings and rake the paddocks, in the afternoon we brush them and feed them for the night. If there are guests we take them out on rides in the morning or afternoon through the False Bay Park, otherwise we can do whatever we want to train them. We went on a couple of rides in the Eucalyptus plantations nearby, we did some jumping yesterday and I did some training with the 2.5 year old gelding. There are eight horses: one is the 2.5 year old and one has a tendon injury but the rest we can ride. My favorite so far is a little mare who apparently gets spooked a lot but has a very nice gait and is quite fast.

When we’re not riding we just hang out, go for walks, read etc. We hang out at the neighbours a lot. They have a Macademia farm where I helped out with moving crates the other day. There aren’t a lot of guests staying at the lodge right now but it’s supposed to get busier next week and over Easter. The owner, Martijn, told me that when the guests go on excursions and there’s a spare seat in the car I can come along. We are also planning on doing a staff gamedrive in the nearby Hluhluwe Imfolozi Park and maybe going to the beach at St. Lucia. Everyone is really nice and welcoming. All in all it’s very nice and relaxed.

That’s it for now, I’ll keep you guys posted!

Read about my adventures the first time around: once-south-africa-back-and-forth.blogspot.nl