August 29, 2016

We woke up at 5:30am to walk around the huge pond. We were frozen. Hot tea helped. Cake for breakfast because no one is in charge of us!

Now, the thing I keep wanting to call a pond isn't a pond. I don't know what it is. It's actually formed by a dam the Park people made. Basically, if the dam hadn't been made, the water would be too spread out in the dry season (now) for any of the animals to use. Especially the deep-diving elephants! 

 

We started to walk after the sun was up and Mandy had picked up our trusty scout. The things seen on our two-hour walk are in chronological order below:

-Elephant tracks in the sand

-Hyena tracks in the sand

-Puku tracks in the sand

-Elephant/Hippo digging holes (they like to dig to find more water and mud)

-Hippo paths from the bush into the water. They basically file in one-by-one in a straight line and it's comical in my mind

-A hunting kingfisher!

-a half-eaten bird (hyena)

-white hyena poop; it's white because they crunch on so many bones that the calcium turns their poop totally white

- Fishing eagle 

-More hippo trails over the dam

-the monumental view of the other side of the dam

-Actual hippos up close and probably a little bit too close 

I actually thought the hippo bit would be my last few minutes on this earth. It kinda scared me. But then I remembered that I'm probably going to die of a plane crash, so I was in fact safe at that moment.

Here is a hippo trail:

The walk was good and we had to stretch after.

We then had a habitat assessment practical wherein we learned to assess randomized transects and estimate many different characteristics of trees and how these relate to the suitability of a given habitat for the release of different species. 

We checked our camera traps. One cam had a neat video of a hyena! But the other two cameras were blank! That's good for only 12 hours of time!

Lunch of veggies and bread.

We packed up and left. Without Mandy, me and three other girls drive off. The first and only issue we encountered on this trip was the elephants in the road.

The dude flopped his big foot out into the road completely unannounced 20 meters in front of our moving vehicle. Alma slammed on breaks, of course... And we stood still for a minute before Alma backed us up several meters. The elephant didn't even acknowledge us for a split second, which I found kinda rude, but instead ate leaves off the trees from across the road. It took only 3 minutes for him to find his slow way up into the woods on the opposite side of the road, but we waited a little longer before slowing approaching with our measly Toyota car. We inched up the road, trying to find the big guy, when all of a sudden another big lady broke through the woods and onto the road just ahead of us again! No warning! Alma switched the vehicle in reverse so quick! As the animal snacked and moved along, one of us was assigned with watching one side of the road for more elephants, while the others focused on trying the find out if the passed elephants were facing us or walking away in the woods. We inched one step forward and two steps back for ten minutes, I'd guess. Finally, Alma went for it and we scooted on by. It felt like Jurassic Park except with mammals who were just enjoying a leisurely snack.

I couldn't get a picture.

The drive home took forever, but Alma and I talked a lot about all kinds of stuff. So that was cool! I had to give the, what I like to call "Implications for Autism" speech when she asked about my work, but otherwise, we talked about Africa and I learned a lot! 

Our pathetic little car made it home with all of the hub caps it left with! We were surprise and relieved. I took a 120-second cold shower, as one does, and then dabbed into some bug spray in prep for dinner out on the town. Apparently it's customary at the end of the Rehab Course to go out to dinner with the organizers. Technically we still have a few classes left because of some shifts that occurred earlier this week, but we went ahead and did the dinner. We also got our certificates, which were really cute. The dinner was otherwise quite awkward because Jasper is too awkward to handle. 

I had fish and chips for dinner, with French fries. The restaurant was called Ad Lib and was filled with people from all over. It was fancy, but still so incredibly cheap! 

This was my first trip to town... It looked good! Of course, I really couldn't tell because it was SO DARK. Everything was basically pitch black. The roads had street lamps every few meters but they don't work, Alma said. I was fearful while driving because at times it was impossible to see. I'm really ready to see the city in the light. 

Then, deep sleep.

Woke up with mosquito bites.