Days After the Hunt

After the big buffalo hunt things have kind of slowed down. I was fortunate enough to Skype my brother and family on the night of his graduation so that was awesome! It certainly was nice to see everyone and share stories from both sides. After Skyping Susie and I got the opportunity to start going in the Nyala breeding enclosure while they are feeding. For the next week or so we are just sitting in the cruiser while they feed so they get used to us. After they get used to us we need to start taking pictures and identifying them. Once we have enough pictures so identify each properly we will start creating a portfolio and this will count as my internship project.

I got lucky enough to get my first vehicle while I was here! It is an extremely old Toyota land cruiser. It has a five gallon gas can as a fuel tank, a giraffe's horn bone at the top of the stick for shifting, breaks that you have to pump furiously before they work, doesn't start quite often, and usually smokes under my seat when I shift. It may not be the best but I am getting rather good at handling it and driving manual, and it sure does beat walking the entire reserve looking for the animals. 

After the Nyala breeding we started getting ready for the busy night of bar tending. It will be my second night so I have a pretty good handle on things, we will be starting to train in Susie, Mandi will be doing most of the waitressing, and Justin will help out when needed. It was a lot less busy then the previous weekend, so Susie got quite lucky. I am starting to make some friends on the other side of the bar and even met another girl from America. Her name is Kristin and she is working on a conservation reserve nearby. She is going to be a senior at Florida State University and she is mainly studying predatory habits and here her focus is lions. She is a very nice girl and I am looking forward to hearing more about her research here. We ended up closing that night around 2 am, so even though it was a slow night it was very exciting. Next weekend a girl is having her going away party and we are guessing between 80 and 90 people will be here so it will be packed and I am looking forward to it!

Since the night of bartending things have been very slow. Th family of one of the students from Bushwise across the road has been staying with us and they are very nice. We have dinner with them and sit around the fire at night for an hour or 2, but other than that we don't see them much. Susie has been working on the website and I have just been exploring the reserve since Hannes is still on his 4 day buffalo hunt. I talked to Mandi about some of the things I hope to do here before I leave and I have to mention them to Hannes when he gets back. Mandi said this Wednesday there is a good possibility of her raking out Susie and I for a little fun. She said more than likely we will get to go see this huge animal rehab center that takes on about a 3 hour tour and then going up along the mountain side where vendors of all kinds of African memorabilia line up for miles. Later on in my stay here I also hope to visit Kruger, go on a hunt of my own, and hopefully some more surprising wildlife tours.

The animals are still rather hard to spot during the day due to the full moon at night, but hopefully I will be bringing in some better photos over the next couple weeks.