Monday, December 14, 2009

Building and Elephant Patrol with Darci




Darci arrived to base camp on November 23rd for 2 weeks of volunteering with me. For those who don't know Darci, I worked with her in NY, we sat about 3 feet away from one another and I missed her lots, she's such a good friend. It was really weird to see her out of context and in the camp. Our building week project was to finish building a wall around a water tank on a farm. The farmers have 2 tanks, one for the animals and one for themselves. They wanted to protect their drinking water tank. It was really hot the first day of building week and some people had trouble with the heat but we knew we'd finish the wall in a couple of days so we were able to take our time. It rained twice during the week so a couple of nights we had to sleep like sardines under a tarpaulin. I usually try to sleep a little further out from the masses but the close quarters were fine for a couple of nights. I've found since I brought my own pillow out, I can sleep anywhere outdoors, the whole night through!

The night before we finished the wall, the local farmers and family (6 people in all) came over to our camp on the build site for a sing song under the tarp. It was fantastic! They sang some local songs and we sang some songs back. I joined into a fine rendition of Wild Rover. The next day we cleaned up the site, and the whole family came out again including the kids for a photo session. I've never seen this happen with all the walls I've built here so it was really special to see how appreciative they were of the work we did.

We headed back to camp a day early since we had finished the wall, it was nice to have an extra day to laze around base camp and go for hikes. Also we had the EHRA end of year party and I was to help Rachel with a slideshow we were going to show on a projector. We all got dolled up, as much as you can in the desert and quite a few friends of EHRA came out to camp for the evening. We even roasted a sheep on the fire. Poor Dave had to do the preparation of the sheep. I've never seen this man turn away food but at lunch that day, after he prepped the sheep, he looked too nauseous for his sandwich. It was a delicious feast though and we all sat around under the stars with drinks looking at the best EHRA photos of the year on the projector. Pretty cool to be a part of that and you really see all the work they've done over the last 6 years.

On Monday we set out for elephant patrol. We'd heard there was a sighting of a bull in the area so we set out to find some tracks. The last 2 patrols I've been on we hadn't seen elephants the first day, we just spent the time looking for fresh poo and tracks. But this time we spotted the guy by 10.30am! It was great. And it was in the wetlands, an area I'd never been to before. We found another younger bull there as well so we spent most of the day checking them out. Then we decided to go look for some herds in the Huab River, also a place I'd never been on patrol. It was a long but scenic drive and we spotted 3 giraffe along the way which is kind of unusual on patrol. We also saw a lot springbok, oryx and steenbok which are all antelopes and all delicious!

The next day we found the Huab herds pretty easily too. We saw Misty the bull first. Years ago part of his trunk was cut off (or truncated!) in a trap so he's developed a new way of picking up branches to eat, really impressive to see how he's adapted. We watched the herds for the rest of the day and camped in an area where we thought they might pass by. We were hoping they'd walk past our camp at night but sadly they went in a different direction. We picked them up the next day and again, parked and watched as they all strolled by. Misty was in musth though which can make him unpredictable. At one point I was sitting on top of the truck facing him and he almost charged me. You're never supposed to move suddenly around elephants but he came at me and got so close I had to scoot back, otherwise he would have brushed me with his trunk or tusks. No thanks! Since these are wild elephants, it wouldn't be a good thing if they started touching us. Dave was sitting in the truck right below me when this happened and even he was a little freaked out. Cool experience though, I felt very small and insignificant which is always a good thing every now and then. It puts us in our place.

We decided after 3 days of solid elephant watching, we'd take the long way back to base camp and drive through the real desert. Dave describes this area as a 'geological wonderland' and it includes the petrified forest. We even thought we might look out for a black rhino which is kind of like looking for a needle in a haystack but we were passing through that territory anyway. We stayed at one of my favorite areas to camp when I did the fund raising trek, and again there was a stunning sunset and boulder craters to sleep in. On Thursday we got up early as usual and started to make our way back to base camp. Hendrick who is an unbelievable tracker spotted a black rhino on the horizon. Even for us with binoculars it was tough to see. We tracked him by foot a little bit but he could either smell or hear us, even though we were so far away. Very exciting to see in the wild. Dave had never seen one in the 3 years he's been with EHRA and Hendrick hadn't seen one in 2 years.

I have to admit it was my favorite patrol to date, so much wildlife, interaction with the local community and elephants, new scenery and having Darci there was the icing on the cake. So fun to have someone I know around and I got filled in on all the NYC gossip!

Here are all the photos from the trip

Jen
xx

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