A little bit easier start to today as we were going on a spoor
census. I may not be spelling it right but spoor means animal tracks, and I
don’t know if this is a typical term for looking at animal tracks but I will
say I was relieved to know we were not going out and checking out poo. We did
it all on foot and this was pretty cool as when I went to Tanzania we were not
able to walk through the bush like this. But there are no lions in the area so
other than pissing off an elephant, we are good here. But there are lots of
elephants in this area and it was not more than 45-50 minutes into our hike
when we came across a family with calves and we had to high-tail it over to a
kopie and climb up. We were down wind of them but if they knew we were around
they would have been totally pissed at us. Since elephants are the number two
killer of people in Africa, probably a good idea we kept our distance when on
foot. Hippos are number one. We hung out on top of the kopie watching them and
seeing where they were going and when Joe, our guide felt it was safe, we
climbed down the other side and “kopie hopped” about a ½ mile away before
turning back for camp.
This afternoon I did my first laundry after lunch, which was
interesting as I have never washed my clothes in a wash basin before. But they
don’t stink so I think I did OK. I also learned about “Captain” the creepy
elephant from Jan (the guy who does the camp maintenance) He said that Captain
is a 15-year-old male with two broken tusks that sometimes hangs around camp
and steals people’s laundry. Last time he took some guys bath towel off the
line, flung it around for a while then took a dump on it for good measure. I
also hear he likes to just hang out in the middle of camp sometimes and disrupt
things. Supposedly he does not get upset with anybody, he just stands in the
middle of camp making it unsafe to get to and from tents so they shuttle people
around Captain using the trucks. Captain has not been seen for a few weeks but
usually is not all that far away.
In the afternoon we went out mending fences that separate
the local town from the reserve as any animal that gets through is fair game to
be killed by the people living here. After that we had a BBQ under the stars. I
was feeling kind of old, given that everybody here is under 25 except the
supervisors, but when I got back to my tent I read the notes I got form work
and they brought a smile to my face and made me feel better. I intended on
reading these on the plane but the flight schedule has always been in the late
evening and I have wound up sleeping much of the time. But the timing was good
to read them and I’ll hold them around for the next time I am feeling a little
too old to be doing this.
No comments:
Post a Comment