Fence Clearing

So, I was meant to mention something last night which was super awesome what happened when on the game drive! Well, you know how I mentioned that we managed to see the lions whilst on the night game drive, they were quite far away when we first spotted them and yet the driver of the vehicle turned the lights off. We were all so confused as now we could not see anything and obviously, we were excited to see the lions but then that is when something kind of cool happened. He turned the lights back on and the lions were right next to the truck baring their teeth, it is safe to say a couple of us jumped a little bit as we were definitely not expecting it especially considering how quiet they were approaching us as well.

Anyway, that is enough of chatting about the past, time to come to the present, so this morning was such a struggle! We got told we were going to be doing fence clearing which is basically digging out all the weeds from around the electric fence so that it does not interrupt the current. What we did not realise is how there would be no shade where we would be doing it except from in the trucks and it was around 30 degrees Celsius today to make matters worse. Within 20 minutes I was absolutely dripping although one bonus is that today I had 3 bottles of water with me so at least I did not go thirsty. I think we ended up clearing around a mile of the weeds along the fence between the 30 volunteers in the end. Towards the end of the 2 hours, I kept thinking how tanned I was but just turned out it was from where the dirt had stuck to me and therefore made me darker. Once we got back for lunch which was burger and super good tasting chips; I mean seriously they know how to cook potatoes over here! I finally had a chance to have a shower and the amount of dirt that was running off me was absolutely disgusting although also satisfying to watch it running down the drain. This afternoon it was time to go on another game drive as a reward for our hard work this morning and it was good, the goal for it was to find the rhinos and monitor them to ensure they are okay. We set off and found some what we thought to be rhino tracks although it turned out to be elephant tracks as when we followed them, we found 6 elephants. When we were done taking pictures of them, we turned the truck around in a bush so that we could get back on track looking for the rhinos but as we appeared out from behind the bush, we scared a baby elephant who started causing a fuss and trumpeting so that its daddy came charging over also making a load of noise. This was quite scary although equally amazing to hear the noise that they make and see them so close. Everyone was so excited after this encounter and we all had loads of energy which was great until about 5 minutes down the road, Matt in the back row realised that his phone had fallen out of the truck, so we then had to turn around and drive all tracking a phone instead of rhinos which was fun in a strange sort of way. Thankfully, we did

find the phone and as Matt had a big case on it, the phone was still in one piece which he was relieved about as were all of us. We carried on looking for some more game and came across the other groups truck who had a flat tyre after catching it on a rock (this is why road maintenance is important) so we stopped to try and help. The bolts were on so tight though that there was nothing any of us could do to get the tyre off so instead we just squeezed as many of them as we could into our truck and waited for another one to come to collect the rest. We must have been waiting for around 90 minutes, so we were all taking the time to get to know each other a bit better and between them they have decided that I am the stereotype of a 70-year-old British lady whilst Emilia is the stereotype of an average British girl in her 20s which made me laugh. It was quite an eventful day to be fair even though it should have all been quite casual and straightforward. We only just made it back in time for dinner today which was rice with a meat casserole and a type of squash which had been made as a bowl to hold the rest of the vegetables; it tasted rather unusual but unsurprisingly, really nice as well.

So that brings us to now where I am sitting at the hotel on a sofa outside enjoying the night-time sounds as well as the sounds of the water feature in front of me. Oh, and also I forgot that I witnessed a bat burial today which was definitely a first for me.