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…