Botswana - 17

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11/3/2003 -

Wow... I'm coming home in two days! November 5th.... time seems to have passed quite quickly. At least - it seems that way looking back on it. When I was at the other end (and even while I was in the middle) it went damn slow!

I'm not sure what the next step is - I'm trying to figure out if the best use of my time for the next six months will be to come back here or if it will be to be in the US with people I care about (the revolving door thing that's happening in my house is getting a bit INFURIATING! I have some great roommates and some awful ones. But the great ones always leave and Siri is left all alone again ). So - we'll see. I'm not leaving anything behind that I can't bear to lose, but I'm also seriously considering coming back. Mainly because I've actually been able to start developing a social life over the last three weeks. Even if it does mostly revolve around the Marines and their swimming pool.

Anyway... no pictures to put up today, because I brought my still camera with me rather than my digital camera. But - the story of the weekend:

Chris (the resident from DC who has been my favorite person to live with by far... She sits in front of the TV watching the news and every time Bush's face pops up spits: "Weasel! Weasel!" It's like a highly specialized form of Tourette's...) headed back to the US last Thursday. Friday morning I headed back to Madikwe with Katie, the girl from Oregon that I've been spending time with recently. We found someone to drive us across the border to South Africa (and it's so nice having my waiver.... It means I don't have to fight with people to get in/out of Botswana!) and got to the camp really early. So we sat around in the heat for a while, reading, playing cards, generally relaxing. I will have an African tan when I get home (to the snow... and cold... and rain... *shudder* ). Chatted with our guide a bit (Paul) who I will get to later. For now - suffice it to say that he has great blue-green eyes and is definitely attractive.

Anyway - first game drive - a set of real assholes in the truck with us, but Katie and I sat in the front seat and just ignored them. Lots of animals... saw a rhino and baby from a distance and decided to get out and track them. Single file, stay quiet, do whatever the guide says. I was walking behind the guide, barely watching my feet, just checking out the bushes around me, when all of a sudden he backs up really quickly, and pretty much falls over me. What would cause this? Well - right in front of us is a young (as in small) Black Spitting Cobra. Reared up, with its hood out. About to spit. AAAAGH! Apparently they're really accurate (get you right between the eyes) and they can blind you. And if they bite you... you've got a couple hours to live. It was tiny and looked a lot like a flower... but was definitely the scariest animal experience I have had in Africa. Apparently it was one of our guide's scariest as well.

But... we didn't find the rhino. Oh well. We did see a pack of twenty seven wild dogs which are the most endangered predators in the world. Really rare... So we were very lucky and honored to see them. They're animals that hunt at dusk and dawn, and we saw them at around 4:30, just before they were waking up for the evening hunt. There was a pile of puppies (6 months old), a pile of juveniles (a year and a half), and then the adults were just hanging out at the fringes. The puppies kept getting up, snapping at flies, and biting whatever flank or tail happened to be closest. It was absolutely adorable. We sat and watched them for about forty five minutes before heading off (because another lodge's truck showed up and we had to leave. Damn).

Went to bed early that night (I have no idea why I was so tired) and woke up in the middle of the night for the brief pounding of rain on our tin roof. The next morning - left for a game drive at 6am, with the same obnoxious couples from the nights before. We went into the southern part of the park, which I hadn't seen before. Lots of giraffes (the collective noun is a "journey"), a blessbok (sp?) - apparently the only one in the entire 750,000 hectare game park, a few gemsbok (beautiful animals.. white faces, long straight horns - they can kill a lion!), red hartebeest, tsessebe (the fastest antelope), zebra, wildebeest, a pair of klipspringers (lit. rock jumpers) and lots of other herbivores. It was a good morning for herbivores. They're so cool looking - I feel like they don't get enough appreciation. But I definitely enjoyed them.

Back to camp, and the same sort of afternoon we'd had the day before. Lots of sitting around and doing nothing. The assholes left (thank god) and we got a new group of people to go on our game drive with. They were much more interesting (and nicer!). So - off we went at 4:00. Paul promised to find us a lion. And sure enough - we found two prides of them. The first pride was three males and one female, all asleep by a small watering hole. They were really young (one and a half to two and a half years) - very small, and they still had their spots! Apparently it's really rare that cubs are abandoned that young, but these ones were for some reason, and they had a pretty tough life. But they were cute - tail twitching, snapping at flies, looking up at us and blinking lazily�

Then we went off to find their parents - which was a pride of two males (brothers from the Kalahari) and two females. We got there at a little before sunset and watched them for a while. Eventually one of the females gets up and walks off. Then one of the males gets up and tries to mate with the female that's still lying there. She groans, rolls over, shoves him off, stands up and they walk off together. We're left with just the one male (with serious bedhead!). He lies there for about ten minutes, as the other three lions get out of sight. Then, at just around sunset, he gets up, looks around, and starts his territorial roaring. This - is an awe-inspiring performance. It's a a 'whuffing' - you can see his ribs and belly expanding and contracting with the motion of his diaphragm. He forms an O with his mouth (there aren't really any visible teeth) and huffs.. this huffing comes out as a deep pitched rumble that vibrates your breast bone and can apparently be heard up to 12 kilometers away. The other lions respond. This goes on for about 5 minutes. A sunset concert. He walked off to join the others. We followed for a little while, then headed down another road to have our "sundowners" - sodas and snacks (or beer, if it is preferred). While we're all standing around (outside the truck) we hear the lions roaring again... And realize just how close we still are to them. Wow... Really an amazing experience.

Back to the camp for dinner, and we all got champagne because Saturday was the birthday of one of the other women there, and Sunday was Katie's birthday. Our guide looked exhausted (they have to stay up until we all go to bed, and then get up at least half an hour before us to get stuff ready... They're supposed to have some time to sleep in the middle of the day but it's just too damn hot). People started heading to bed and Katie and I stayed up talking to Paul.

So - here's the quick history. He actually reminded me quite a bit of Ben Saunders but a little less crazy/more mellow... He was going to school for a BSci in something that sounds like kinematics/kinetics - I can't remember clearly. He was forced to take Econ/Management classes as well to do what he wanted (physical training heading towards working with cardiac and spinal patient rehab) and so dropped out/was kicked out (he has later been asked to go back because he was second in his class for all the physical therapy stuff). Worked as a physical trainer for a while. Moved to England, and worked as a manager of physical trainers. Moved back to South Africa, and randomly picked up being a game guide. Has been doing that for a year and a half now, I think. This is his last month. In December - he's got a job working in a ski resort for four months so he can learn how to ski. Guess where this ski resort is. Yep - that's right - Vermont. So I gave him my e-mail address and phone number and told him to call while he was there (*wink wink nudge nudge*).

Katie and I went to bed at about 10:30 after the three of us spent an hour and a half chatting. The first thing she says to me when we get to our cabin is: "Is it just me or is he cute?" (Hmmm� Yeah!). She's got a boyfriend (in England) but we were enjoying ourselves and being flirtatious. The two young South African guides appreciated it, I think. They don't see a lot of girls a) our age, b) not there with a boyfriend/husband, and c) without family around!

That night felt a lot like a high school sleepover - we spent the next two hours talking about the most random things. Got up really early the next morning and headed out for our last game drive. A lot of the same things we'd seen before, but still really fun... and then we found the cheetahs. Four of them, all brothers, extremely large and capable of pulling down an adult wildebeest (wildebeest weigh about 250 kg). When we first saw them they were sitting down a ways off from the road, so you could only see their heads popping out of the grass when they sat up. So we drove away and had our morning coffee, then drove back past them. They had just gotten up, and were walking single file into the bush. Probably to go hunting. So we followed them for about half an hour. Mmmmm... so nice.

Then.. Back at camp, waited around for our ride (spent more time talking to Paul) and headed back to Gabs Sunday afternoon.

So - here I am. Second to last day of work, mostly packed (packing carefully so I don't bring any of the centipedes that have invaded my house home with me... they like to curl up in dark soft places - as in - clothes/bags that are on the floor. I keep sucking them into the vacuum cleaner, because they thrash if you pick them up, and apparently they bite. There are probably 20 in the vacuum right now, all still alive and likely breeding. *shudder*) and trying to finish things up. I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to coming home or not - I've spent the past three and a half months marking this date, and now that it's here - I really have no clue what I'm doing with it! Well - I guess I just have to figure it all out.

Lots of love to everyone... and I'll keep putting stuff up here (especially if I get a copy of Katie's pictures from the weekend) because it's nice to keep a journal like this and it's a lot easier (and less irritating for you guys!) than mass e-mailing out my life updates. Everyone stay sane, and send me your phone numbers (to my hotmail address) so I can find you while I'm home.