Lions, lions and more lions…

Posted on December 6th, 2006 by Christelle.
Categories: Africa, Botswana.

I’ve got some more exciting lions stories!!!
I accompanied 2 clients to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve again last week (to help with the cooking). It was an amazing trip; we saw a lot: lots of Oryx, Wildebeest, springboks, steenboks, 8 cheetahs (yes, 8!!!!) and 7 lions.

We found our first 2 male lions during our morning drive. 6 AM, we’ve just stepped in the car and we’ve been driving for 30 seconds when the car stops! There are 2 male lions lying on the road, literally 20 meters from our camp!!! They are so big and beautiful. After 15 minutes of fanatic photography taking, we continue for our drive. Later on, we find another 5 lions lying under a tree: 3 females and 2 males. Lying down and sleeping are a lion’s favourite activities; I can relate to that. I always said that in my next life, I want to be a cat!!! Fanatic photography and we go again… 20 minutes later we found another type of cat lying under a tree…. 5 cheetahs!!!! Oh my god, 5 cheetahs! I’m so excited!!! My finger starts hurting for taking so many pictures. We leave our 5 cheetahs and continue our little drive. We find some very funny Giraffes, some more Springboks, Oryx, and 30 minutes later some cheetahs again! 3 of them!!! Somebody just shoot me now because I don’t think I can survive the excitement and adrenaline rush!!!!!!! When we couldn’t take it anymore, we decided to head back to camp to have a brunch. The 2 lions were gone but we decided to do a quick inspection of the surrounding bushes and YES, here they are… you’ll never guess… they are lying under a tree… 50 meters away from our camp and only 30 meters from my tent. Oh, yes Christelle! That was a good spot to pick to put your tent… between the camp and the lions!!! Anyhow, it’s business as usual in the camp: I’m cooking keeping an eye in the direction of the lions and we have lunch. Around 3PM, we go for another drive, have a little sundowner and we come back to camp for dinner… the lions are gone but they’re probably not far so we move my tent a bit close to the other 2; well I’m not a hero so we put my tent in the middle of the other 2! Personally I thought that up in the tree would have been a better choice. We have a nice dinner, good conversation, sipping wine, etc … then Jeff and Paul, our guides, tell us not to panic and to look behind us because we have some uninvited guests… so I turned on my chair slowly and I’m facing the 2 males lions 15 meters away! Did I faint? I cannot remember… maybe? No, I stayed very cool… amazing, isn’t it? The lions didn’t seem like they were up for trouble; they just walked in our camp, look at us having dinner and stand there. At some point, we were asked to slowly stand up and still slowly walk to the car. So we did just that… Before they joined us, Jeff and Paul took the wine glasses with them! Can you believe those guys?!?!? Here we are, in the safari car, sipping our wine, looking at 2 lions taking over our camp… That’s Africa! Eventually Paul drove the car to push off the lions because it looked like they had decided to spend the night with us J Lions gone, everyone in their tent and sweet dreams… I dreamt of lions that night, incredible, right? The lions didn’t come back during the night, thanks god! That would have been very scary… Those 3 days in the Kalahari were wonderful; I know I said it before but the African bush is an amazing place; you feel a deep connection with nature there; there’s no other place like this in the world.

Another little lion story… I was looking at the camp’s water hole last night. It was full moon so you could see very clearly. There were some zebras drinking, everything was quiet, then the zebras left. Suddenly we saw some shadows sneaking out… Yes, lions! We start counting…1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Waooo amazing all the lions at once (they are 4 females and 2 males around camp). We’re hoping we’ll see some little creatures crawling around because we’ve heard that one of the females have 3 cubs. An elephant appears between the trees and walks to the water holes, the lions flee and we hear the cubs and the mother calling each others; they were hidden under a tree a bit further. Then something catches our eye on the right…. Another lion! And another one! My god, there are 8 lions, not 6! Then we hear 2 male lions roaring further away… Impossible… 10 lions! It looks like new lions have been joining our little group. It could mean trouble because out of the 4 new lions, one is a male. And girls, you know how men are J During the entire night, we hear roaring, and something that sounded like a fight. It was a hell of a night in the bush.

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Born to be wild!

Posted on December 1st, 2006 by Christelle.
Categories: Africa, Botswana.

Hello Again!

I told you the time flies out here; it’s been almost 1 month since my last entry! Bad bad Christelle!

I got my visa extension without any problem and I even got an extra 10 days. I can now stay in Botswana until the 10th of January which is cool because I can celebrate Christmas and New Year in Maun with my new friends.

Let me tell you about my latest visit to the school; always very entertaining those visits…. I start the generator on, switch on the computer and after 15 minutes everything stops… No, no, no!!!!!! No petrol in the generator anymore. And we’re in the middle of nowhere here, it’s not like I can go to the petrol station to get more (the next one is in Maun, 120km away!). So here I am with Pearl, the head of the school, going through the village trying to find someone who has petrol for us. Surely enough, Pearl knew someone who had petrol but there was nobody at home… so since I was “désespérée”, we just help ourselves. Oh, no I’m a criminal now!!!! After our misbehaviour, we’re back at school and I’m back in business… I thought…. Well, hell no! I tried to print a few things and the printer starts to paper jam and paper jam and paper jam: no way to print. I called one of the teachers and she said that the printer doesn’t print since it fell on the floor… “What fell on the floor?” “How?” “When?” “Somebody shoot me now!!!” I spent 1 hour inspecting the printer taking everything out and back in again but couldn’t fix it. Since the school urgently needed a few reports we had created to be printed, I switched to plan B: put all the docs on a USB key and print them in David’s office in Maun (hey, another trip to Maun!!!). I also brought the printer into David’s office; I’ll try to have another look at it there.
It’s almost the summer holidays; school stops on the 24th. Everyone is very excited about the upcoming holidays but not very enthusiastic about that awful machine called a computer… I feel like Don Quixote fighting against the mills! At least I was able to train Thato, one of the teachers, very well. So now I’m sure that when I leave at least one person will know how to switch on the computer, print whatever documents is needed and create new Word documents if necessary; my little contribution to the Moreomaoto Primary School. In December, when the school is closed, I’m probably going to create all kind of forms and documents for the general administration of the village (chief, police, clinic, etc).

Life at camp has been very busy. The camp was full for the first 2 weeks of November and it was hard work. There were groups going all directions: Makgadikgadi pans, Nxai pan, Central Kalahari Reserve, etc. I was lucky; I got to go to the Makgadikgadi pans again, 5 days this time. I helped out with setting the camp (putting up tents, setting tables, making everything look pretty, etc) and the catering. It was hard work sometimes but I didn’t mind; it was great to be living outdoors. It was a bit rough though: obviously no electricity but also no shower! But at some point, I got to shower in the cattle water post with a bucket! It was very “Out of Africa”.

It was all very basic but this little camp very quickly felt like home. On the last day, I went with the clients on the quad-bikes. Brmmm brmmm brmmm… Christelle’s speeding on the salt pans!!! It was great, riding with the wind on those huge empty Moon-like salt pans. You have a feeling of being alone in the world but it’s not lonely though; the emptiness and the wilderness of the landscape fill your heart… Just remembering it gives me shivers! Waow, Waow, Waow!!!! On that trip, we also went to observe some Meerkats; they were so cute. They look very human in their behavior and they are so funny. I could have spent hours watching those incredible little creatures!

Last week, I went to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve for 3 days (to give a hand again). Another very nice place to visit and it’s Cheetah country, those dear cats of mine. I love them! Unfortunately we didn’t see any cheetah… very disappointing but I’m going again next week so hopefully…

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you…I finally got to see my first lions! And I was the one who spotted them… very proud. They were 2 young males, part of the group who keep roaring at night. They are very impressive but so cute! One evening, we heard them just after dinner so we all jump into a car and went on a night drive to track those lions. And we found them: 2 females! They were lying very relaxed in front of the car and we also got a glimpse of the male but he was a bit shy. At a certain point, they started roaring… oh my God! What a power! You actually feel the vibration in your stomach and that was only the females. Apparently if the male starts roaring next to you, it feels like you’re standing next to the bass during a Rolling Stone concert!

It’s quieter at camp now, down to 4-6 clients a day instead of 20. We can all start relaxing and getting some sleep again. December should be quiet so hopefully I can get a few days off to go and visit the Delta. But you never know, David gets a lot of last minute bookings and local people (South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana) will start going on holidays so it may get hectic again at some point… My motto here is “Be prepared for the unexpected” … so I’ll be prepared!

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