Diny's World Travels.: 2009 - 2 ; Travel and volunteering in southern Africa

I left the penguin rehab center in Cape Town the end of April 2009. But I still want start the next story of my trip with this cute little video of Rocky the Rockhopper penguin from Antarctica.

On May 4th I flew to Port Elizabeth. I was picked up for the 45 minute drive to “African Dawn bird and wildlife sanctuary”, where I met the owner Percy and the other volunteers

Owner Percy (in the middle) and the volunteers at African Dawn.

“African Dawn” is a bird and wildlife sanctuary. Most of their animals can not be released into the wild either due to injuries or because they were unwanted pets, so they live out their lives in the sanctuary.

I was housed in a little hut which was about a 5 minute walk from the sanctuary and located next to a game reserve.

From my window I could often see the antelope and zebra grazing.

Near my hut was a small enclosure, home of 3 little meercats. These little critters are diggers and had easily tunneled themselves into the outside world. However inside food was placed every day and there was a cozy nest for them. Reason enough to not go too far away.

Charley, one of the little meercats, liked humans and he would greet and follow us like a dog.

The unwanted pets originated from places around the globe. A variety of birds, ostriches, emus, monkeys, wallabies, antelope and more domestic type animals like ducks, geese, a mean black swan, goats, calves, etc. had found a home here. Permanent staff members took care of the more ferocious animals, like the lynx and crocodile.

Some species that are threatened in the wild, were bred, such as servals, cheetahs, caracals and lynx (cat varieties).

Some successful breeding of servals .

The place was set up like a zoo, where anyone for a fee could come to visit.

The volunteers took care of all of the non-dangerous animals. Our days started at 0730 with food prepping. Because of the wide variety of animals and their different food requirements, we followed exact feeding schedules, which were set up into 5 different feeding routes. Because it was all quite confusing for the first week new people teamed up with volunteers who had been here longer. Each team was assigned a route and off we went.

We had several pages of feeding schedules and routes and every morning started with food prepping.

We placed the food inside the cages and we poured fresh water into the bowls. While doing this birds sat on our head and shoulders,

and monkeys crawled all over us. None of my clothing stayed intact.

Wallabies and emus ate out of our hands.

Some of the very young animals had be bottle fed, such as Ron, the Blesbok.

After the animals were all fed, cages had to be cleaned, food organized, repairs and maintenance done. All of this would keep all of us quite busy for about 6 to 8 hours a day.

Fence maintenance the dish cleaning area.

After a week I had 2 days off and together with 2 other volunteers I went on a safari to Addo Elephant National Park + Scotia Game Reserve. We saw elephants, rhinoceros, giraffes, zebras, lions, hippos, crocodiles and many different types of antelopes.

Rhinos, crocodiles, warthogs and wildebeest in Addo National Park.

After 3 weeks I left. I rented a car and I spent 10 days traveling the Garden Route. According to the South Africans this is one of the most beautiful areas of the country. It's probably true as much of South Africa is dry and flat. It is an area of one of the few old forests, that survived the axes of woodcutters, mountains and gorgeous beaches.

I rented a car and spent 10 days traveling the Garden route.

In the mountains I passed through Oudthoorn, the ostrich capital of the world. Surrounding Oudthoorn are big ranches, but ostriches take the place of cows. The ostriches were a blast to watch; I watched them graze peacefully when all of a sudden a group of males would go into a wild run and then start whirling themselves insanely around with flapping wings. Some of the ranches gave ostrich tours with the opportunity to ride one. First a sock was placed over the animal’s eyes, which calmed it enough to be able to get onto its back. Then the sock would be pulled off and the ostrich would take off at full speed. It felt like bull riding in a rodeo.

Crazy Ostriches. Crazy person riding an ostrich.

In Plettenburg Bay I kayaked to a seal rookery. The seals were busy fishing and laying out in the sun. On the way back I had a great surprise, a large school of dolphins surrounded the boat.

I kayaked to a seal colony and found myself surrounded by dolphins.

A few times I rented a canoe and paddled some pretty rivers.

And I did some great hikes along the beaches and in the forests.

Ten days was not enough, but I had signed up for a 1 month professional wildlife film making course in Kruger National Park, starting June 1st. I flew to Johannesburg, where I met the other 8 students, and the course coordinator drove us to Kruger National Park in the North East corner of the country.

I learned wildlife film making in Kruger National Park with 7 other students, our coordinator Kaanu 5th from left.

We stayed in a beautiful tent camp at the edge of the Park and all equipment that we needed was provided.

We had several different instructors who were all experts in their respective areas of film making. We had cameramen teaching us the use of the cameras and various filming techniques, writers to teach us how to write a script and a professional editor taught us how to put it all together into a documentary. Park rangers taught us about the park and its animals.

Everything we needed was provided and various professionals taught us their skills.

For a week we went on daily safari rides to film wildlife.

To complete the course we had to think of a story and make a movie of exactly 5 minutes in length to teach us to work within time constraints given by film producers. It was amazing how many hours it took to make such a short documentary.

Each one of the student movies had a different story, but the end products were quite satisfactory and we all loved making them. The course was very intense; our days were usually 12 or more hours long. In this month we were only given 4 days off, but it was amazing how much we learned in this short amount of time.

On one of our days off we visited Jane Goodall’s chimpanzee rescue center “Chimp Eden”.

Some of the rescued chimps at "Chimp Eden", the two youngsters were best friends, they walked the whole time with arms around each other. (pics by fellow student Rieghard)

Another free day was spent with fellow students Sonny and Fortunate at nearby beautiful Blythe canyon.

At the end of the course we returned to Johannesburg and from there I flew back for a few days visit in Capetown.

It was time for a vacation and I joined a 3-week overland truck trip “Cape to Vic.Falls” with Nomad Tours, which took me through the northern neighboring countries of Namibia and Botswana, ending at the Victoria Waterfalls in Zimbabwe.

I joined a tour through Western South-Africa, Namibia, Botswana, which ended in Zimbabwe.

Overland trips are active participation adventure tours. We were with 12 passengers, a guide/cook and a driver.

The Overland Truck group.

It was winter in the southern hemisphere; daytime temperatures were a balmy and sunny 20 – 25 C (70 – 80 F), but night temperatures were mostly around the freezing point. We camped most nights, big campfires kept us warm and many of the campgrounds we stayed at had little bars to warm our insides.

We camped most nights and made campfires to ward off the cold.

It was a long distance from Capetown to the border with Namibia. Before independence Namibia was colonized by Germans and their influence was very evident in the neat little, western looking towns. Languages were mostly in Afrikaans, English and German, besides the tribal languages. It is one of the least populated countries in the world and the small towns were spread widely apart. The truck drove huge distances and long hours through desert type country, varying between dry grassy plains and large areas with only Sahara type sands. Most days ended with some sort of activity, such as hikes, a little boat trip, encounters with tribal people, etc. We also saw lots of wildlife through the vehicle windows, especially various types of antelopes, zebras and ostriches.

One of the highlights were the enormously tall and orange colored sand dunes. We climbed one at sunrise, it was only 200 meters (600 feet) high, but it was a strenuos hike through the deep and loose sand.

We watched the sun rise on top on one of the many sand dunes of Namibia.

Due to the extremely dry climate there were sections with trees that have been dead for 900 years, but that are still standing.

Sosseivlei with trees that have been dead for 900 years.

We hiked around Fish Canyon, supposedly the oldest canyon in the world, a deep and dark split in the ground.

The pretty town of Swakupmund in the middle of the sandy desert is the adventure center of Namibia. All kinds of activities were arranged here; e.g. skydiving, sand boarding, horseback riding, helicopter rides, quad bike riding, boating trips, etc. The whole group opted for the quad bike ride. It was fun, but also tricky between and over the sandy dunes. The only way to make it uphill was to go at full speed. I went up one of the dunes, expecting it to have a road at the top, but instead it peaked and it went straight down again. The dune was too steep for my quad and it rolled end over end. I landed on my head, but luckily the helmet protected me. However the steering must have hit me right in the middle of my chest, probably bruising my sternum. For a month I could not do any pushing or lifting without a sharp pain. But I really had no choice, I climbed back on the horse uhh quad and finished the trip.

We went quad biking in the extensive Namibian dunes.

A few days later we stayed at a village of the very primitive Himba tribes. Their women spend about 3 hours each morning beautifying themselves by covering their bodies from head to toe with red ochre. They weave false hair pieces into their hair and cover that with ochre as well.

We visited one of the primitive Himla tribes.

In the north of the country is Etosha National Park. For 2 days we did several game drives here, in which we saw a lot of animals, although for some mysterious reason big cats refused to show themselves to us.

The animals in Etosha National Park.

Our last Namibian night was spent in the capital city of Windhoek, where sadly enough, one of our fellow travelers, Choi from Korea, became ill enough to have to be admitted to the hospital. Luckily it was a very modern and clean building and his care was very adequate.

We crossed the border into Botswana; in the Kalahari Desert we camped a night by a bushman village, where the bushmen performed some tribal dances around the campfire for us.

We camped by a bushman village and saw some of their dances.

Onwards we went to the town of Maun, situated at the edge of the huge Okavango Delta National Park. With a small 8-seater airplane we had a birds-eye view of the park, which is covered by water and 1000’s of islands, and where wildlife freely roams.

We flew with little 6-seater airplanes over the Okavanga Delta.

The next morning we cramped ourselves, gear and food into very small and unstable “macorroes” (dug-out canoes) for a 2 days/nights camping trip in the delta. Only two of us could fit in a boat with a local “poler” expertly “poling” it through very shallow water.

In small dugout "macorroes" we were "poled" into the Okavanga Delta.

It took about 4 hours to get to one of the larger islands. Apparently the delta water was at its highest level in years and many of the islands were flooded or had become too small. We stayed on this island for 2 days. In the mornings and evenings we hiked around it with a local guide and we were able to get quite near various animals, such as impala, wildebeest, zebras, and elephants.

The local guides took us on walking safaris on the island.

In the afternoons we did the same as the animals and we relaxed in camp, it was great soaking up the sun next to the water and reading a good book. I attempted to “pole” the macorro for a while, but I found it very difficult to keep it going in a straight line and to keep the boat from capsizing.

On the 2nd evening we were “poled” to a deep lake, which was home to many hippos. We stayed out of the way at the edge in very shallow water. In Africa the hippo kills more people than any other animal. Even though they are vegetarians, they are extremely territorial and aggressive and they can easily knock over one of these little boats. The weather had turned cloudy, which resulted in one of the best sunsets.

In the evening we poled to a "hippo" lake, where we enjoyed our best sunset.

The nighttime temperatures were below freezing, but a roaring campfire kept us warm and it also kept the wild animals at bay. Elephants were breaking branches from trees about 20 meters (60 feet) away and lions were roaring all around us. The sky was extremely clear and covered with billions of bright stars. On the second night we had a big party around the campfire where the Botswana boatmen and my group took turns singing and dancing.

The last morning was very windy and cold and everyone was shivering on our float out. It was nice to get back to the regular campground and take a hot, hot shower. By afternoon we continued our tour.

Close to the border of Zimbabwe is the Chobe National Park. In the afternoon we got on a large river boat for a cruise into the park. This vessel could get very close to shore, where lots of wildlife did not pay any attention to it. A large herd of elephants came to drink at the rivers' edge, including tiny babies, hippos and crocodiles were sunning themselves, a large herd of buffalo was a bit further away and lots of beautiful birds were flying all around.

We saw lots of wildlife from the boat in Chobe National Park, including a gorgeous oryx.

The next day we crossed into Zimbabwe, a country besieged by political problems and poverty. Right on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia are the rightfully world-famous Victoria Waterfalls, where we roamed around for about 3 hours. The falls are in a line of about 1.7 km (1 mile) long and in places they are 100 meters (300 feet) tall. In some areas the spray is so intense, that you are unable to see the falls and it is impossible to stay dry, even though I wore a very good rain poncho.

The world-famous Victoria Falls, it was impossible to stay dry in the spray.

This was our final destination. We stayed in a backpacker’s hotel for the night and everyone in the group made their further travel arrangements. I received a great pedicure in the afternoon and I did a Zambezi dinner cruise with some of my fellow travelers. The whole group enjoyed a goodbye drink in the evening.

We ended the tour with a Zambezi river dinner cruise in the sunset.

Another Nomad truck was leaving the next morning for a 2 day quick transfer to Johannesburg and I joined them at 0600. It was a relatively cheap way to travel, but the truck was crowded and uncomfortable, the scenery mostly very boring and it was a very bouncy trip over the potholed roads of Botswana. With my poor sore bones (from the quad accident) I was sorry that I had not spent the extra money and flown back to Jo.burg. We arrived there late the next afternoon, I spent the night in a backpacker’s hotel and took a bus the next morning for the 200 km (140 ml) trip to Kroonstad.

In Kroonstad I started my next animal volunteer project. I arrived here at a cat breeding center, called Boskoppie, owned by Ingrad Swart and her son Pieter.

Boskoppie has approximately 85 lions,

Twelve Bengal tigers from India.

A pair of jaguars (from Central/South America) and their cub.

1 caracal,

A vervet monkey, named Apie, here together with Bassie, a 3 month old lion cub.

When I arrived there were 2 other volunteers: Kim (Belgium, who left 2 days later) and Aiden (British), a local (African) staff of 8 and a manager Donovan. The place had several cubs;

four lions of 1,5 week old, and the jaguar of 2 months old,

The babies: Kimmie, Aidie, Dino and Titan, in the company of Blessing, the jaguar.

Aiden and the 3 month old lions: Bassie, Thomas and Victor.

and the 5 months old lions Levi, Diesel and the tiger Malakai.

and approximately fifteen lions, including three white lions, and three tigers of less than 1,5 year old.

The "teenage" lions and tigers.

All of the cubs at Boskoppie are hand raised which guarantees a near 100 % survival rate (barring genetic/birth defects) and an animal population that is used to people and therefore much easier managed.

The adults and teenagers were taken care of by Pieter and the regular staff, but we volunteers did the care of the young cubs, except for the jaguar who was living with Ingrad at her house.

The 2-month old Jaguar cub, who was Ingrad's special pet.

Boskoppie does lion tours for a fee (which we learned how to conduct, (I know a bit about lions and other cats now) whenever people request it and it has several very nice guest cottages.

I was placed in the nicest accommodation I had had anywhere so far.

Accomodations were great and I always had great company from Linky, the friendly lab.

The 1st few days I worked mostly with the 3 month old cubs giving them milk and finely minced meat.

Feeding time for the 3 month old cubs,

and I played with them to get them used to me. They had spent most of their short lives with Ingrad and were a bit shy of other people.

and then they tried to eat me.

Better not to wear sandals around them.

Aiden and I played with the 5 month old tiger Malakai and lions Levi and Diesel. However, these guys were already getting too strong and rough, especially Malakai, who was tireless and kept coming back at you, so I would never go alone into their enclosure and only in heavy clothing.

Malakai and Levy in more peaceful moments.

After a few days I also participated in the care for the babies. Many times a day they had to be fed bottles with a special formula.

The babies loved their bottles, after their tummies were full they'd fall asleep.

And they also needed to be stimulated on a regular basis to help them urinate and defecate, a task that is normally done by the mother lion. The care was a round-the-clock job and therefore Aiden and I would take turns sleeping in the same room as the babies to do their night time care.

The baby room, where Aiden and I took We took over mom lion role and stimulated

turns sleeping with the little cubs. the cubs bowels.

During the day, as soon as it was warm enough (also here the nights were quite cold), the babies were placed in the yard. Apie, the vervet monkey, was free to roam around the whole area. She was lonely after losing her mate and she had very strong motherly instincts. In the past she tried to steal cubs and once succeeded into taking caracal cubs into a tree. Every day she sat among the cubs and she spent hours grooming and protecting them from any perceived dangers. One of us (mostly I) would stay with the cubs to make sure that she would not take them up high again.

Apie (the vervet monkey) spent hours grooming the cubs and was very protective of them.

She and I became quite friendly, and even though she never allowed me to touch her, she often sat right next to me and we would share my lunch together, occasionally, like a typical monkey, she stole it.

Apie, the vervet monkey, and I shared lunch. She always kept a close eye on the cubs.

Occasionally Ingrad brought the jaguar cub over and I could spend the afternoon playing with him as well. She called the cub “Blessing” and she was very protective of him, as it was the only jaguar cub that had ever survived at Boskoppie.

Ingrad and her special baby Jaguar. His breed comes from the tropics and he needs a sweater on cold days.

In nature the adult cats only feed approximately once a week, therefore Sundays at 4:00 pm was officially feeding time. Many people came for the special feeding tour, which was usually conducted by big cat expert Ingrad herself. She gave them all kinds of interesting information about the animals. Enough meat had been placed in special feeding areas next to the enclosures, gates were opened and the animals came rushing through. The cats at Boskoppie do not get live animals to eat (in nature lions scavenge and/or steal a big portion of their food supply). Farmers in the area notify us whenever a cow, horse or sheep has died and we pick them up with a small truck. Whenever there is not enough big meat, the cats receive chickens. The volunteers took turns coming along to pick up the dead animals.

The new volunteer Rob is delivering a dead cow to the "4 kings".

Little Aidie stopped eating and was very lethargic. Ingrad took him to the veterinarian and he was diagnosed with pneumonia, a major killer for young cubs. She took him home for the extra care he now required and to give him some company she also took little Kimmie along. Now I only had 2 babies to take care of, luckily after a few days little Aidie got better, and Ingrad brought him and Kimmie back. I was so happy to have all my babies with me again.

Little Aidie caught pneumonia, we put a jacket on him to keep him warm. With extra care and antibiotics he soon recovered.

On that same day two new volunteers arrived, Andrew and Jaquie from England. We introduced them to all the animals and had them take over the care for the older cubs, but Aiden and I continued the care for the babies.

Volunteers Andrew and Jaquie from England and Rob from Holland (who came later) with Linkie, the Labrador in the foreground. They learn to give bottles to the other cubs.

After a week we were taken by Ingrad to a white lion farm about one hour drive away. This farm had about 25 white lions, beautiful animals with a cream colored coat, who look bright white in moonlight. However, in nature this is a problem because lions are night time hunters, and white lions stand out too much to be able to stalk their prey unnoticed.. There are probably less than a 1000 white lions in the world. They are not albinos, but they have recessive genes, that cause the light coloration. The farmer had one young white lion, which was very cute and gentle, fun to play with.

Beautiful and rare white lions.

All the volunteers became involved in building a Jungle Gym for the 6 month old cubs, a job that took us about 6 days.

The volunteers built a Jungle Gym for the 6 month old cubs.

It took the cubs a while to figure it all out, but within a few days they clambered all over it.

We knew that the female tiger “Vickie” was pregnant and Aiden and I checked on her. In all the enclosures are stone huts where the animals can go for protection from the elements and to sleep at night. We noticed that she had 2 little cubs in the hut. When we told Ingrad, she named them Andrew and Jacqui, after our newest volunteers. Because it was very cold at night, the next day the cubs were removed. Mom was lured with some meat into a different enclosure, while Aiden took the babies out and placed them in a cardboard box. They were very small, approximately 1 kg (2 lbs) and approximately 30 cm long (1 ft), but with the full coloration of Bengal tigers. A full-grown adult male can weight as much as 350 kg (770 lbs).

It was too cold at night to leave the babies with their mom, so Aiden took them out

The baby tigers at 2 days old and then a week later.

A little calf was rejected by its mom. It was placed next to the tiger enclosure. Silly little thing would run away when I tried to bring it a bottle, but it was perfectly comfortable right next to a huge tiger.

After about 2 weeks Aiden’s time was up and he left to return to England. It was decided that since Jacqui and Andrew are not nighttime people, I would do all the night care for the babies and sleep with them, and they would do more of the day time care. The next day a new volunteer came in, a Dutchman named Rob. We introduced him to all the lions and the various jobs around Boskoppie.

It was full moon and for a few evenings, while it lit up the area, we went to the big lion enclosures. Those were great times to visit them, as the adults had deafening roaring contests,

and the youngsters were

all roughhousing and playing with each other. The white lions looked like cuddly polar bears in the moonlight.

White lions do not do well in the wild. They stand out too much in the moon light.

But rolling in the mud after a good rain took care of that.

The remaining days were filled with more of the same, we took care of the little cubs, who were getting bigger, older, cuter, more independent and they did not need our full-time presence anymore (they were too big now for Apie to carry them into a tree), we fed all the animals and played with the older cubs, we cleaned the enclosures when it was needed, collected meat for the animals, made sure all the fences were safe and intact, the animals healthy and in good shape, took visitors on tours and rented out rooms to overnight guests.

After 3 weeks Jackie and Andrew had to go home, so only Rob and I were left. That day many people came for tours and we took turns taking them. On the last tour of the day Rob spotted a female lion in the distance with a cub. The next day Pieter took the cub out, we named it Robbie and it became part of the baby group. Robbie was very quiet and refused to eat for about 2 days. However the babies accepted him right away and soon he cuddled up with them. Finally on the 3 rd day he started to take the bottles and was cuddling with me as well. When the other cubs were found, this one must have been missed. It was bigger with a thicker coat than the others and it had been very well taken care of by its mom.

Little Robbie adjusted quick to the other babies,

it took a only a little longer with the humans.

One evening four 6 month old cubs were flown in from a private golf course. The owners had rented them from Ingrad several months ago and they returned them now. The cubs had been tranquilized and were still unconscious when they arrived. We placed them with our other older cubs and Rob kept watch for several hours, to make sure that the other lions would not attack them, while they were unable to defend themselves. They were very groggy when they woke up, walked around drunkenly and occasionally fell over.

Four 6 months old lions had been rented to a golf course and they were returned by truck. The drugs were not worn off when they arrived.

However, by the next morning they were fine and happy. They were very friendly and very well behaved.

Sadly enough after 3,5 weeks I had to give goodbye hugs to all my animal and human friends, it was time to go home. Rob would now be the only volunteer until a new one was going to come in several days.

It was really hard to leave my babies.

I rented a car and drove to Pretoria. The drive took about 4 hours due to all the road construction; about 1 hour out of the city I visited one of the colorful African craft markets.

By evening I drove to a backpacker’s hotel in Jo.burg near the airport to stay for 2 nights.

The next afternoon I took a tour of Johannesburg and Soweto, two places that have played a significant role in the apartheid history of South Africa. Downtown Jo.burg looks very modern from a distance with its tall office buildings. However a closer looks revealed that practically all of the buildings are only occupied at ground level, most of them are empty from the first floor up, victims of the end of the apartheid era.

Many white businesses left Johannesburg at the end of apartheid, leaving most of the office buildings empty above the first floor

In the late 80’s it became clear to most (white) businessmen that South Africa would get a black government. They were fearful that all their riches might be taken from them and it caused a major exodus out of the country to places like Australia, New Zealand and Canada, countries that welcomed the influx of money. The people of the nearby township of Soweto, with its current estimated black population of 4,5 million people, up to that time were 99 % employed by these businesses. The loss of their jobs has created a current estimated unemployment rate of 75 %. There are no unemployment benefits in South Africa, these people still had to feed their families and the end result was that Jo.burg now is known as the crime capital of the world. When we entered Soweto the tour guide pointed out the multitude of fancy high priced vehicles around, as well as many street side body shops. According to him a newly stolen vehicle will lose its old identity within an hour.

The slums of Soweto, where stolen vehicles get converted rapidly on the side of the road.

We drove into the only street in the world where 2 Nobel peace price winners used to live; Nelson Mandela’s small house where he lived before and after his 27 year imprisonment until shortly before he became South Africa’s first black president. Just one block away is the house where Bishop Desmond Tutu still lives today. Nelson Mandela also continues to live in Soweto, but now in a huge, heavily guarded mansion.