Better late than never

I’ve been putting this off for ages but here it is, my final Africa blog (with the ‘scoop’ on my next destination)! I’ve been home for three weeks now and I finally feel like I’m settling in a little bit (not for long though, more on that later). It’s hard to describe the feeling but the first few weeks it was like I was dreaming and would wake up back in Africa. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to be back and see everyone (and my horse!) but I felt a bit lost without the bush and the daily work with the horses. I know I’m lucky that I don’t have a job right now and can just do whatever I want for a couple of weeks while everyone else is working hard, but trust me, it gets boring. I wish I had something to structure my days a bit more. I also miss the African way of life. Only when you leave do you notice how stressed we all are worrying about silly things.

So the past couple of weeks I’ve been trying to catch up with everyone back home, went on two horse riding weekends, celebrated my birthday, saw movies, had drinks and dinners and sleepovers with friends, enjoyed the lovely (and not so lovely) weather, trained my horse (I think she’s happy I’m leaving again soon) and whatnot. A big thank you to everyone who took the time to see me these past couple of weeks, I know you’re all busy but you made it a lot easier for me to be back.

Let’s get caught up on my last two weeks in Africa. I did lots of riding and training (no surprise there), taught riding lessons, we took out guest rides. One day we had guests who wanted to have lunch at the halfway point so while Sakhile took out the guests on the horses, me and two others took a van into the park to bring the food. They do these kind of things on rides often but had never done it at this particular spot because it’s not that easy to reach by car. The roads were quite bad because of the heavy rains we’d had but we ventured out anyway. Annnd... we almost got the car stuck! Thankfully we had a skilled driver who managed to turn the van around (in a quite dense forest) and we took another way around. Then we had to carry the food to the lake as the car couldn’t get that far. We managed to get everything set up just in time though and the guests loved it.

What else? Heleen came by for another riding lesson and she cantered (on her own!). I was so proud, she had improved so much and I was positive she could do it. She was (understandably) a bit nervous at first but she persisted and she did great! I tried show jumping with Camelot, who seemed really confused as to what to do with her legs when jumping but eventually loved it. Christine and I went on another beautiful ride to Sandy Point. This time I only almost died twice on that narrow, thorny path. Mariska, Christine, Martijn and I also went to St.Lucia for a day where we had the best sushi ever, betted on who could take the most selfies with different animals and took a boat tour with some hippos (and crocs). Ow and on the drive there and back we almost ran over a hippo and an elephant, no biggie.

Before I knew it my time in Hluhluwe was over and we were on our way to the airport where I arrived 15 minutes before take off and still had time to sit down and be bored (that doesn’t mean I wasn’t stressing on the way there as you can probably imagine). I want to thank everyone for making my time in Zululand so special. I feel blessed to have met you all and I’m going to miss you loads! May we meet again ;)

THE END... 

...Ow wait, you’re probably wondering what’s next (at least everybody keeps asking me that). Like I said I’m not home for long because next Friday I’m taking another plane to …*drumroll*…  Wyoming!!! I’m going back to MaeCile and the ranch (where I went on vacation last year, see earlier blog entries) to help out for the summer. I’m going to spend ten weeks riding, training, learning, exploring and whatever else comes along. And of course meeting new people and catching up with old friends. I can’t wait! Of course I’ll keep you posted through this blog so see you soon!

Elephants, floodings and camping trips

I can’t believe it’s almost the end of May. I’ll be leaving this amazing place on the 6th of June, only ten days from now. Time really flew by. It’s like I said in one of my blogs last year, it simultaneously feels like I only just got here and like I’ve been here forever. I do miss my friends and family back home and of course my own horse but I really can’t imagine going back. I’m still having so much fun here!

It has been quiet at the lodge this month, it’s almost weird to have guests around. Now that we don’t have as many guests wanting to ride, we have some more time to train the horses ourselves. I’m still working with the 2,5 year old, he is doing great! He’s a really fast learner and isn’t scared of anything. A couple weeks ago, I put a saddle on him for the first time and he was completely fine with it. No matter what I did, from putting it on his neck to dropping it behind him, he didn’t even blink. Yesterday I lunged him with a bit for the first time and even the steering went great. The only thing we are struggling with is the canter. He’ll just trot really fast but it takes a lot of effort to get him to canter in the arena. I decided to ride another horse around the property and lead him on a halter. At first he almost dragged me from the saddle because he didn’t want to move, but eventually he followed us and even cantered. The camping guests were laughing at me as I kept passing their tent with the horses.

I teach a lot of horse riding lessons at the moment. Mariette asked me if I wanted to do a riding lesson with her daughter and two of her friends’ kids. One of the kids, Evan, has already come back for two more lessons and his mom, Heleen, also wanted to do a riding lesson. She wanted to practice canter, because she had been on a ride with us before, but she still felt a bit unbalanced. We did some balance exercises in trot and she improved so much after that. Attila looked like a completely different horse, he was so much more relaxed and her seat was so much better! I train two or three horses a day, which keeps me busy. It is really nice though, I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of the amazing scenery here. Christine helps out with the horses a lot, we get along really well. We’ve got a similar work ethic I guess, same ideas about the horse care and she’s a great person to talk to. We have a lot of fun. Besides all the riding we are still working on a new project concerning the horses as well (more on that soon hopefully).

What else? We’ve been having some cold weather. Two weeks ago it was raining for three days straight. I got so bored because we couldn’t do much with the horses and there was not much else to do either. We all just sat in the bar all day (in five layers of clothing because it was freezing) and watched tv shows and movies. Even in my room it was freezing because I don’t have windows.. The one night I went back to my room after watching a movie in the bar and I heard a weird noise coming from my room, like running water. When I opened the door I saw the bathroom sink had exploded and was gushing water, the whole bathroom was flooded. I ran back to the bar, hoping to catch Michaela before she closed up. I think she thought I was under attack with the way I was yelling. She helped me look for the switch to turn the water off, which was somewhere in the bush, in the middle of the night. I couldn’t use the bathroom for two days. We’ve also had a lot of power outages, especially in the evenings. That’s life in Africa I guess ;)

We went on another game drive in the Hluhluwe Park. We were having a braai at one of the picnic spots in the park when we suddenly heard a growling noise. At first we thought it might be a lion so I walked back to the car to get my camera when I saw it was a big group of around 25 elephants bathing in the river. They were having so much fun swimming and playing, it was an amazing sighting. We also went camping in Ithala, a nearby reserve. It might be the most beautiful park I’ve seen so far. It had some amazing viewpoints, beautiful hills and it was a bit more open than the Hluhluwe Park. The campsite was next to a river where we had drinks in the afternoons, we did a couple of drives through the park, had a braai, did some stargazing, talked around the campfire. It was really nice to be away for a couple of days and just relax.

That’s it for now, I’m going back to denying the fact that I have to leave soon, if you don’t hear from me again I decided to just not get on the plane and stay here forever ;)

Follow the sun

It’s been awhile since I last wrote, and no that is not because I was eaten alive by mosquitoes. There actually haven’t been as many mosquitoes now that it’s getting closer to winter. There aren’t as many guests either (not that the two are related ;). April was a busy month with both guests at the lodge and horse rides but now we have two days where there are no guests. It is really quiet around here, especially at night. The animals have been acting a bit strange as well. We are all sleeping with radios next to our bed so we can inform each other when we hear something. It is making me a little paranoid to be honest. Yesterday evening I thought I heard gunshots while it was actually just Nathan slamming his car door shut..

Last week (or the week before? I can’t keep track of time) we went on another beach trip. This time to 9 mile beach (not to be confused with green mile ;). To get there, we had to drive over a sand road for about an hour. It sure was an experience, bouncing around in the car, with seven people in one vehicle. I think some of us might have gotten a mild concussion that day ;). The beach was worth the trip though, it was beautiful. It was very secluded so we had it to ourselves for most of the day. The waves were pretty strong though, after every wave I had to check if my bikini was still in place. On the way back I got to drive, I’m still not sure whether that was because people actually trusted my driving or just didn’t want to be the designated driver. It was my first time driving on the left side of the road (for longer than five minutes) but I got everyone home in one piece. We even saw a rhino on our drive home, quite surprising considering there was a party going on in the back seat and they could probably hear us coming from miles away.

Yvette, Rick, Wesley and I also did another trip into the park, the Imfolozi side this time. We left at 5.30am because it’s a bit of a drive. Unfortunately we had had a party the night before, which Yvette and I left quite early, but *some people* had only had 2.5 hours of sleep. Thanks again Wesley for not crashing the car and Rick for grabbing the wheel every once in awhile ;) We saw a lot of animals (a group of zebra that seemed to be following us around) but sadly no wild dogs (the one animal I still really want to see in the wild) or lions and leopards for that matter. I did see a giraffe! That made me ridiculously happy as I hadn’t seen one here yet. Also more rhino’s and a lot of elephants (in the middle of the road..). The scenery that side was great though! The only downside of that part of the park was that there was no restaurant so we had to survive on cookies that day :P

Since we were used to getting up early anyways we decided to do a sunrise ride with the horses the next morning. This time we got up at 4.30am to get the horses ready and ride out to False Bay before 6.15am. We arrived just in time to see the sun rising above the mountains in the distance and then disappearing again behind a cloud.. We did see the sun rise a second time that morning as it came out from behind the clouds ;) It was beautiful, really the perfect spot to watch and the horses were great even though it was still dark out when we left. Thanks again for getting up that early Yvette and Wesley! At least we got loads of beautiful photos ;) Hopefully we can offer these rides to guests in the future as well.

Sadly, Yvette, Rick and Wesley went back home last week. It was great meeting you guys, see you again here next year?!

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

Sweet goodbyes

August 27th

The strange thing about travelling is that it always feels like you’ve been somewhere forever while at the same time it seems like just yesterday that you arrived. That’s how I feel now, it feels like time just flew by while I was in the USA while at the same time it seems like ages ago when I left New York. I am back at JFK airport now, waiting for my flight to Dublin (and then on to Amsterdam). I’ll arrive in Amsterdam Sunday morning around 10AM, after forty hours and five flights. I don’t know why I thought booking these flights was a good idea at the time, I am exhausted. At least I didn’t have to travel on my own for the first part of the journey. Jess, one of the other interns, was on the same flight to Salt Lake City as I was and in Salt Lake we saw Rosie and George, who had left Cody a couple hours before we did. It was so good to see them again even though they had only just left. I can’t believe how close I’ve gotten to all the people I’ve met on my travels and how much I’m gonna miss them. Thank you guys for making this an amazing summer and an experience I will never forget. It’s going to be quiet to be back home again and not constantly be surrounded by other people. I am already trying to figure out when and where I can go on my next trip. I always thought I wouldn’t be good at staying abroad for an extended period of time, I’d miss my family and friends (and horse!) too much. And I do miss them, but I also realised I love meeting new people and exploring new places and this is a good time in my life to do it. I must also admit I rather liked not having wifi and not constantly being in contact with everyone, it was nice and quiet.

This trip has made me realise I’m still a country girl at heart, even though I loved living in the city. There is no better feeling than riding through the middle of nowhere on your horse. The views in Wyoming were amazing, I don’t think they’ll ever get old. On every ride I was amazed by the mountains surrounding me. I love how the steep slopes that petrified me on my first day seemed easy during the third week. The feeling of trusting your horse to get you down safely is great. Even though I ride western back home and I am used to riding on a long rein (or without a bridle) this experience has thought me to just trust my horse to find it’s on way down a hill and not having to control everything. I got to ride a lot of different horses and learned a lot about training. I especially loved those training sessions. The methods they use are mostly in line with what I do back home but it’s amazing to see how much patience MaeCile has with the horses. Where others would have given up or would have gotten angry with the horse she just tries again. She also emphasizes the importance of taking small steps and giving the horse time to digest what it has learned. The amount of time she invests in ground work certainly pays off in the long run.

 

It was a weird last day as two of the interns had already left in the middle of the night. The rest of us got up at 5.30 to tack up for one final ride. Jess wanted to see the sunrise and we got to the top of the hill just in time. The second we arrived, the sun peeked out from behind the mountains. The colours were amazing, the sky was painted in shades of pink and purple. Even though it was freezing, it was one of the best rides of the holiday. When we rode back to the ranch over the mountains, we found the rest of the horses peacefully grazing up there. I’ve never seen them on top of the mountains and it was such an amazing sight, definitely my ‘gift’ for today.

After the ride, George took photos of me and Hazel. I love how great they turned out. I look like a real cowgirl. I did manage to lose my cowboy hat when loping around the arena and of course it fell on Hazel. She didn’t spook too badly though and I didn’t fall of this time ;) I wish I could take this horse home. She has been amazing, one of the sweetest horses I’ve ever ridden. She loved a good gallop but I never felt out of control and she was a true mountain goat! Unfortunately it was time to say goodbye to the other interns after that as their flight was around noon. It was really weird being at the ranch without them. Jess and I had lunch with Emelie and MaeCile and finished our packing. It was a struggle to get all my souvenirs (*cough* boots *cough*) in my bag but I did manage in the end. And like a true cowgirl I tied my rope to my bag with some bailing twine! With two carry-on bags instead of the one I came with, we boarded the plane in Cody. I was really sad to be leaving Wyoming and I hope I get to go back someday!