Days 13 and 14
Thursday 12th Sept – I struggled on Thursday. I think I have been coming down off a mega high being at the Lion Sanctuary and things here are so different than there. In some ways I wish I had done things in reverse. I think I would have appreciated it more here.
I’m finding that I don’t get along with one of the girls here and so we hardly speak to each other. It’s mainly differing opinions (in that she thinks she is always right) and if I’m being really honest it’s putting a slight downer on my time here. I’m trying to stay positive and remember that I can’t possibly get along with everyone in the world and that I shouldn’t let it get to me because lets face it, I’m in SOUTH AFRICA and hanging out with CHEETAHS! Which pretty much makes up for all of the other stuff. I’m finding I have a lot of time to myself which I have been able to use to build my relationship with God.
Ok… so moving on… Thursday we took Lukah for another walk. This time we were out for 3 hours! And again she wasn’t successful. She tried a couple of times but there also wasn’t much around for her to try with. It was a tiring walk, up and down hills but the exercise and fresh air is very good. Though I did find myself singing “Climb every mountain” from Sound of Music for some unknown reason. LOL
We finally made it back to camp and had a break. After our break we cleaned thoroughly cleaned the cool room with bleach. I got a few head spins from that but it’s now clean ready to have another carcass thrown on the floor! Lunch was more left over spag bol… They have been very unorganised in providing us with food, not to say that I have been starving, but they were meant to shop on the Monday and its now Friday and we still don’t have many fresh ingredients. In fact Wednesday night on the menu was a chicken stir fry however we had no chicken so instead we found ourselves eating kudu. Yep, you read right… kudu. Kudu is a type of antelope here with very long horns. I was game enough to try to game meat (haha get it?? LOL oh wow my jokes are lame… Ian at Welgedacht would be laughing though… ) It actually tasted a lot like beef and it was definitely palatable.
After lunch we headed to the boys enclosure and to check on pregnant mumma Buhle (means Beautiful in Afrikaans). No cubs yet. We cleaned the camps and also cleaned the serval, caracal and Lukah’s camp. We had the rest of the afternoon off so I read a fair chunk of Kevin’s book. I’m thoroughly enjoying it and it’s challenging a lot of my preconceived ideas of lions. Loving it.
Friday 13th – Unlucky for some… not so much for me. This morning we took things relatively easy. Giving fresh water to the cats and spending some time with the Sakura the caracal who didn’t want to say hello to me and then to Lucky and Dexter the servals and on to Lukah again. I love how she just flops down on me and rubs her head against me then licks my hand with such affection. She is adorable. We then cleaned the hyena camp and spent some time with the male cheetahs. While this boys are handsome and beautiful, they won’t come to you like Lukah does. They are also older and probably wiser but it was good nonetheless to have a bit of time with them. Oti thinks that Buhle will have her cubs this weekend as she has already begun lactating. I am not so sure. But it certainly would be very exciting if she did.
There are many vervet monkey’s around and I’ve been trying to get a good picture of one of them but they are just too quick for me.
This world out here is very isolated and sometimes is way too quiet. I feel peaceful here but at the same time am craving other people. Well people that I want to be around anyway. J
So funny story while I have your attention and this actually happened about a week and a bit ago. I had my cheetah manual out at the main house at Welgedacht and Gerald the owner found it and asked if he could read it. Of course I said yes. The next day we meet Kevin for the first time and my manual gets handed over to him. OH NO! My amateur manual being handed to a big cat specialist???? I panicked naturally but it turns out Kevin thought it was good and well written. It now sits at his home as my exchange for his book. Perhaps I’ll do another one on the lion one day…
Here are some photos from the last couple of days. :)
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