Elephants
Hi Everyone,
We are back in Windhoek after two fantastic weeks in the desert. We volunteered with a group called EHRA - Elephant-Human Relations Aid, and had a blast. We spent the first week at their base camp, building a dam for the elephants nearby. The camp is set on the Ugab river, which for 99% of the year is just a dry, sandy riverbed. Usually they do projects that help strengthen relations with the farmers in the area and help protect their water sources from elephant dammage, but since there has been an extra-dry spell in the region lately, most of those water points have dried up. So we built an elephant-friendly water point instead. It was a lot of hard work, and the first day was HOT - 40 degrees C in the shade, which is well over 100 degrees F. The weather calmed down a bit after that though, thankfully and we were even shivering a few nights! The camp is quite rustic and in a beautiful location. We slept in an a-frame - basically just a wooden deck floor with a reed-thatched roof, open to the environment on the sides. There were outdoor showers and a composting toilet, and a kitchen area where we cooked over a fire every night and still ate very well! We knew it was going to be an excellent two weeks when about 30 minutes after we got to camp the first day, a herd of elephants came down the river and close to camp with two 2-month-old calves. We didn't see any more elephants for the rest of the work week, but for the second week we were out on 'elephant patrol'. Basically just traveling around the area in a big, old, beat up, modefied land cruiser, checking on the elephants in the area. We started near camp and found the two herds in the area along with a few solo males within the first day so we were incredibly lucky and got to head across the desert to another riverbed to check on the other herds. I guess they don't make this trek very often, as it is long and hard on the vehicles so we were incredibly lucky. We traveled for an afternoon and a morning through the desert, and camped out overnight in a fantastic place where nothing hindered your stargazing, not even a tree. Just the big mountains in the distance sillouetted against the sky. It was absolutely beautiful. In the morning, the colors of the rocks and sand were spectacular and we got to stop at a series of caves where the bushmen used to live and see shards of stone tools on the ground. The second riverbed was the Huab river, and we found two more herds there along with more solo males. Again we were incredibly lucky, as one of the females in the first herd had a less than 2-day-old calf. He was amazing to see - so tiny and still trying to figure out his feet and trunk. What a cutie! Since we were the first to spot him, our group got to name him and they settled on Homer as it was a little boy and the name had to start with an H. I wish I could post a photo, but we've been having problems with that later so maybe another time. I hope! One other hilight of the trip was while watching two big bulls feeding on the last morning. I was sitting on the top of the vehicle when one male decided to come inspect the car. He walked by, incredibly close, just watching us and when he got to the back of the car turned and stared me down for a minute, before reaching up with his trunk and feeding on the tree directly above my head. He was less than 5 feet away and it was absolutely an incredible experience! Some of our friends in the other car got a few photos which will be quite a memory to hold on to, as long as they remember to send them to us! Needless to say, we had a great time and met some fantastic people. This organization is definately an interesting one and we learned a lot in our time there. I'm almost out of time so have to cut it short here. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. We actually forgot until about 5pm that day, but oh well. Tomorrow we leave Namibia and head to Victoria Falls in Zambia for a few days. So until next time...
Andrea
We are back in Windhoek after two fantastic weeks in the desert. We volunteered with a group called EHRA - Elephant-Human Relations Aid, and had a blast. We spent the first week at their base camp, building a dam for the elephants nearby. The camp is set on the Ugab river, which for 99% of the year is just a dry, sandy riverbed. Usually they do projects that help strengthen relations with the farmers in the area and help protect their water sources from elephant dammage, but since there has been an extra-dry spell in the region lately, most of those water points have dried up. So we built an elephant-friendly water point instead. It was a lot of hard work, and the first day was HOT - 40 degrees C in the shade, which is well over 100 degrees F. The weather calmed down a bit after that though, thankfully and we were even shivering a few nights! The camp is quite rustic and in a beautiful location. We slept in an a-frame - basically just a wooden deck floor with a reed-thatched roof, open to the environment on the sides. There were outdoor showers and a composting toilet, and a kitchen area where we cooked over a fire every night and still ate very well! We knew it was going to be an excellent two weeks when about 30 minutes after we got to camp the first day, a herd of elephants came down the river and close to camp with two 2-month-old calves. We didn't see any more elephants for the rest of the work week, but for the second week we were out on 'elephant patrol'. Basically just traveling around the area in a big, old, beat up, modefied land cruiser, checking on the elephants in the area. We started near camp and found the two herds in the area along with a few solo males within the first day so we were incredibly lucky and got to head across the desert to another riverbed to check on the other herds. I guess they don't make this trek very often, as it is long and hard on the vehicles so we were incredibly lucky. We traveled for an afternoon and a morning through the desert, and camped out overnight in a fantastic place where nothing hindered your stargazing, not even a tree. Just the big mountains in the distance sillouetted against the sky. It was absolutely beautiful. In the morning, the colors of the rocks and sand were spectacular and we got to stop at a series of caves where the bushmen used to live and see shards of stone tools on the ground. The second riverbed was the Huab river, and we found two more herds there along with more solo males. Again we were incredibly lucky, as one of the females in the first herd had a less than 2-day-old calf. He was amazing to see - so tiny and still trying to figure out his feet and trunk. What a cutie! Since we were the first to spot him, our group got to name him and they settled on Homer as it was a little boy and the name had to start with an H. I wish I could post a photo, but we've been having problems with that later so maybe another time. I hope! One other hilight of the trip was while watching two big bulls feeding on the last morning. I was sitting on the top of the vehicle when one male decided to come inspect the car. He walked by, incredibly close, just watching us and when he got to the back of the car turned and stared me down for a minute, before reaching up with his trunk and feeding on the tree directly above my head. He was less than 5 feet away and it was absolutely an incredible experience! Some of our friends in the other car got a few photos which will be quite a memory to hold on to, as long as they remember to send them to us! Needless to say, we had a great time and met some fantastic people. This organization is definately an interesting one and we learned a lot in our time there. I'm almost out of time so have to cut it short here. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. We actually forgot until about 5pm that day, but oh well. Tomorrow we leave Namibia and head to Victoria Falls in Zambia for a few days. So until next time...
Andrea
posted by aliberatinsa at 4:02 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home