Author's Note

Hopelessly, I'm taking a mental picture of you now, 'cause hopelessly the hope is that we have so much to feel good about.
- One Republic

P.S. Please feed the fish :)

Friday 24 August 2012

AFRICA BLOG - Day 23-24

Day 23 - Monday 16th July
Up at 5:45am to go on research with Neeru. Was pretty awesome as always to see wild lions so close. We followed the pride through Ngamo for a few hours so got to see all 12 lions at one time or another.
       After breakfast a few of us joined Torie at BPG to help her with her project. She has a green and red ball which she puts in an enclosure to see whether lions have a preference so that enrichment in zoos could be improved - lions are colour blind but they don't like the shade of red and also they may recognise it as the colour of blood - pretty awesome experiment. So yeh, we watched the 7 girls Amghela, Acacia, Lina, Nandi, Mani, Msasa and Lisha for half an hour then came back to camp to chill for a few hours, before lunch and horse food making in the afternoon. This was then followed by elephant herding - always cool to be casually walking amongst African Elephants.
      In the evening a group of us sat about in the presentation room and watched Bridesmaids - nice chillaxed evening and overall a pretty lazy day!
Mighty Milo, leader of the Ngamo pride
One of the girls hogging the green ball
Walking with Ami



Day 24 - Tuesday 17th July
AWESOME LAST DAY! Well last full day of activities at AP before leaving to Victoria Falls tomorrow. Started with my last walk with the P's, Paza and Penya. Fairly uneventful as they were only fed yesterday but got some nice final photos with them. We were back on Torie's project after brekkie; we were meant to try the Big 4 Maxwell, Mufasa, Arthur and Casper but we couldn't get them into their management enclosure so we tried the Big 7 Apollo, Achilles, Kwezi, Mambo, Mamba, Phoenix and Penduka. Although this was also somewhat unsuccessful as they wouldn't come out of management! While standing around getting frustrated by lions, the founder of the park Mr. Andrew Conolly came over!!! I was so excited to talk to him - such an inspiring man! Myself and Neeru thanked him for the chance to experience this world and he thanked us for coming and making a difference :) Then we talked for a while about Stage 3 Burundi agreement and those that criticise what Antelope Park do. Mr. C. quoted Gandhi saying "First they ignore us, then they laugh at us, then they fight us then we win", which I though was fantastic and totally sums up AP. Just before he returned to his house, Neeru and I had a photo with him: he put his arm round me then goes to Neeru "Sorry I can't put my arm around you!" (this is funny as he only has one arm - he had his left arm, wedding ring and watch included, bitten off by a lion several years ago) what a legend! Our meeting with him kept us buzzing even though the lions still weren't playing ball (pun intended); after 20 minutes we gave up and wandered around BPG checking all the lions had water and chatting to a few of them en route ... as you do. A lot of prides are bachelor prides consisting of between 4 and 7 adult males. We visited a group of 5 called Chengeta, Amandla, Chando, Chaka and Chabalala whose enclosure is round the back so they probably don't get many visitors. When we approached them a few of them came to the fence to greet us - as they brushed along it we could put our fingers through to scratch their mane and down their side - obviously being wary of the fact that they might turn and bite said fingers off at any moment, however it did genuinely seem like they were just greeting us as they would the other pride members. Accepted :D It's actually one of my favourite things to do here. We moved to the adjacent enclosure where Ltalo, Praise, Landela and Lokothula live (another bachelor pride) and were greeted by Ltalo whote then decided trying to reach Neeru's gloves through the cage would be a better use of his time! 2 of the younger male pride at the back of BPG were also keen to introduce themselves - Tsavo and Sango are about 3.5 years old and having stunning blonde manes. Tsavo and I had quite a nice moment through the fence - he leant against it while I stroked his mane for what seemed like ages - amaze balls.
      Anyway, seeing as we'd had quite an unproductive morning we went to help Allison take the bags of offal over to Ltalo and his crew for their weekly feed. Offal is heavy, smelly and generally gross but me and Neeru hadn't done it before so we jsut got stuck in! Particularly Neeru who took a cow fetus from the offal pile for the males (breeding lions shouldn't have fetusus so as it affects their fertility) and went to throw it to Cheeky, a lioness with FIV (lion HIV) although it fell back on her she tried to throw it over which was hilarious - rather her than me!
      Last lunch at AP was cottage pie - WIN! Post-lunch activity was less fun - about 7 of us went up to the Bomas (elephant housing) and shovelled the shit into neat piles .... hmmmm. Although on the way out me and Neeru had a photo with and said goodbye to our friend Gertrude, a legendary crazy woman who works on the gate at AP and sometimes serves soup at dinnertime and sing "Waka waka!!" and dances. It's her 48th birthday on Sunday so hopefully will see her before I leave. 
      At 4pm  we went on a cheeky boat cruise around Ngamo dam and saw the sunset - nice end to my last full day at Antelope Park. Up at 5:30am tomorrow to shower pre-setting off for Hwange National Park.
WOOP WOOP!
Having cuddles with Paza on my last P's walk

Me, Neeru and Caroline with our lion handling friends George,  Ticha, Mackson and Mackay

Tombi being cheeky

Me,the fantastic Gertrude and Neeru

Me and Neeru with the legendary Mr Conolly

Casper having a snooze at BPG

Tsavo looking very handsome


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