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Journal
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Saturday, May 30, 2009 On our first game drive at Mala Mala, our ranger whisked us directly to a pair of mating lions. The "interval" earlier in the day had been 23 minutes, but we waited around for about 45 minutes watching the pair peacefully sleep before the female woke up, walked over the to male, and the deed began.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009 We're back in Johannesburg after three nights in Phinda, a private reserve in Kwa Zulu Natal. We spent one night at Forest Lodge and two nights at Vlei Lodge. (pictures to follow eventually) Phinda is an amazing place, with seven distinctly different habitats. We spent a lot of our game drives in the sand forest (or as I called it, the "spiderveld," because of some INSANELY large spiderwebs with HUGE eight-legged residents). We had some unusual sightings, including an aardvark, a bush baby, and a genet that hung out in a tree during dinner.  Tomorrow we're off to Mala Mala for three nights in search of leopards...
Thursday, May 21, 2009 Last weekend I went to Lion Sands, a private reserve in Sabi Sands. Ivory Sands lodge is over-the-top - my chalet had two parts, separated by an overflow pool overlooking the bush which was filled with bushbuck, monkeys, and a stray elephant or two.  On the right side was a living area, with a fireplace, fully stocked fridge, and a porthole through which the butler delivered coffee, tea, or cocoa in the morning.  On the left side was the bed and bath area, which included a mosquito-net covered heated bed, a ginormous bathtub with every imaginable bath scrub and gel, and an outdoor shower.   The night sky was breathtakingly beautiful - more stars than I can remember seeing anywhere - ever. I made an attempt - ok, maybe half a dozen aattempts - at some long exposure star trail photographs.  And of course, there were also animals. (click to play slideshow) 
Friday, May 15, 2009 As the end of the third week of my assignment nears, I was thinking about a post about our funny little rituals. So just as the ritual gets figured out, get a surprise. Today we had a meeting with senior police officials to discuss our project. After the meeting, they asked what our schedule was like for the rest of the day, and we explained that we were busy working on our report. Note to self: whenever the police ask if you have an hour or so to spare, you do. An hour later, our team was flying around in a police helicopter! From a project perspective, it was very helpful to see the region from above - especially the stadium and some of the more rural areas that we have not been able to explore in depth. On a personal note, wow - just wow. When they asked us if we were available in an hour, we actually thought that they were setting up a meeting for us to meet with their IT staff, or to see their server room. We were simply blown away. From the Nelspruit Airfield, we flew over the new stadium, over Nelspruit and the surrounding farmland, and then along a beautiful gorge (the Crcodile River) up to near the Mozambique border. Then we flew along the border of Kruger National Park and saw hippos and herds of water buffalo that scattered off sand bars when they heard us because they are used to the ranger's helicopters. What a seriously GREAT experience and team bonding experience. (click to view slideshow) 
Tuesday, May 12, 2009 My work weeks here are insanely busy. I am usually up at 5:30 to do some work in my room before joining the team for breakfast at 7. We leave for the office at 7:45 and our days are usually filled with meetings which means we spend the evenings trying to actually absorb what we have learned during the day. We are stretched so thin that we are now sending half of our team to meetings so that the other half can try to make progress on our final report which is due in just over a week! But, I am just over an hour from Kruger National Park and some of the world's best private game reserves, so the weekends are my own :) Last weekend, I visited Sabi Sands for some phenominal game drives (and more importantly, lodges with bath products and wash cloths!). The highlight of the weekend was tracking a male leopard - first finding the tracks, then hearing his call, and then staying with him for what seemed like forever (including when he turned around, within a few feet of me, to mark a bush near our vehicle and nearly marked me instead!). (click to view slideshow) 
Thursday, May 07, 2009 Our client has graciously provided us with a vehicle during our stay in Nelspruit. There aren't really "taxis" in Nelspruit so having a car makes things a LOT easier. On our team of four, only two of us have international driver's licenses, and of us, I am the more confident manual transmission driver :) Our first vehicle was a two-door Opel Corsa Lite. On a few occasions we crammed five of us into it :)  The little Opel had one interesting feature. Sometimes the battery would spontaneously become disconnected and we'd have to pop the bonnet (that's the hood for you Americans) and jiggle the wires (and by "we" I mean the guys on my team). So, we convinced the rental company to exchange it and now we have a four-door Chico City Sport.  So far so good with driving on the other side of the road, and sitting on the other side of the car. Every once in a while I try to shift using the window roller downer thing, but other than that, all is well. One more thing: stop lights/traffic lights etc. are referred to as "robots" here, as in "make a left at the second robot."
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 On Monday, my subteam left Nelspruit and traveled BACK to Johannesburg (well, nearer to Pretoria, which is the capital of South Africa) to meet with our client and the CEO of their organization. The drive took about three and a half hours and I am so thankful that they arranged a driver so we didn't have to do a road trip in the Opel. (remember, I'm driving on the opposite side of the road here, and sitting on the opposite side of the car driving a manual transmission - it makes the Arctic Fox seem like a space ship). Our client hosted us at an amazing lodge outside of Pretoria. We arrived around lunch and decided to take advantage of the wonderful weather and work on the terrace. After much searching, we determined that though the lodge thought it had internet access, it indeed did not. This is the third establishment where my team has provided troubleshooting for internet/wireless issues, so I guess we're making some sort of difference in the community :) I'll admit it, we're a grumpy bunch without internet, however, I learned that this is a perception issue. We relocated to my terrace (which had power outlets) and hunkered down for several solid hours of work. If there was something we needed that required internet, we just wrote it on a list for follow-up later. Then one of my teammates who has a high-powered antennae found an unsecured wireless network that he was able to connect to and then we were able to access the internet by connecting to his laptop. Talk about innovation! I do believe that our three hours of "disconnected" work was about the most productive we've been thus far, maybe because we didn't have any distractions. It's still funny to think about some poor farmer out there wondering why his network suddenly became so slow :) After a lovely dinner and socializing at the lodge, we returned to our rooms to find dozens of animals grazing on the grass. The majority were blesbok (a type of antelope) but there were also wildebeest and several LARGE kudu. It was AWESOME to stand silently and listen to them munching on the grass, and at one point I heard the howls of what I think must be wild dogs (I haven't heard wild dogs, and I haven't heard this, and it was COOL and of course not captured on any recording device). Tuesday we had back to back meetings with the South African Police Service in Johannesburg and also met with a non profit that specializes in crime in the banking industry. We then hopped back on the highway for the long drive back to Nelspruit, trying to keep ourselves awake by playing the alphabet game (we got to the letter X) and listening to a Lionel Richie cd many, many, many times. 
Sunday, May 03, 2009 Today we moved in to the new guesthouse. As I mentioned previously, there was a bit of a hiccup with our accommodations so the team had to split up during the first week but we are now reunited. The guesthouse is about a 5-10 minute drive from our last lodge and is at the end of a cul-de-sac in a nice residential neighborhood.  This means that I will likely NOT wake to roosters tomorrow am :) Of course, when we arrived our first order of business was to check out the wireless internet - here are a few of my team members testing poolwide wireless access.  My room is directly above the main lobby area, though there are many informal gathering areas which is one of the appealing aspects of the guesthouse. In addition to about the largest closet I've ever seen, my room has a small terrace with a great view of the surrounding area.   I will miss my poultry friends at breakfast though :) 
Saturday, May 02, 2009 Spent the day on a day safari in Kruger park. I've beenup since 3:45 in the morning (darned roosters!) so I will let the slide show speak for itself. 
Friday, May 01, 2009 I spent yesterday with four members of the South African Police Service, touring the local 10111 call center (the equivelant of 911) and the Mozambique border. For lunch, our hosts planned a lovely picnic at an amazing private reserve. I present: personal hygiene, Mpumalanga style (shot by one of my team mates)
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