Weekend in the Bush

      This weekend I went on a camping trip into Chobe National Park. It was organized by Birdlife (groups camping in the park can’t be just individual, they must be part of an organization), and was meant to be a bird count. There were about twenty of us that went out into the ‘bush’, driving almost four hours on Saturday to reach our campsite. It was near a water hole that was having water pumped into it to attract animals during the dry season, but the animals must have missed the memo! We saw barely any wildlife on the way out, but got to see some pretty neat birds. There were a lot of Red-Billed Hornbills (Zazu’s!), and we learned many of the common birds around here. It’s pretty funny (kind of sad…) how I started to relate everything back to Lion King! A bird made the same sound as a zebra and I was like that sounds like a zebra! Then realized that was entirely based off of Lion King. Made me want to watch that movie!

     Me, Kristen, Megan, and Nikki stayed in a heavy canvas tent that was loaned to us. It kept most of our body heat in for the night, which was good because it got pretty cold. Thanks to my sleeping bag (and Laura for giving it to me!) I stayed very cozy the whole night. I was mostly afraid I would have to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. It is quite dangerous to walk to a tree in the middle of the night just because of all of the various animals that could be passing through and hiding behind the nearest bush! But, luckily I made it through the whole night without getting eaten by a lion (but I did hear some roaring in the distance).

    The next morning I woke up in time to see the sunrise. Sunsets and sunrises are the one thing my old camera did better than the new one, or I just haven’t figured out the right settings yet. But they are simply beautiful rising over the flat horizon. We had tea and toast then packed up and drove for a few hours into the bush to a hideout where we made egg and bacon sandwiches. The people we were with were very experienced campers and knew all the ins and outs and had all the right equipment. On the way in and out we saw a lone giraffe in the distance, some zebras, and lots of elephants. My favorite landscape was towards the end when it was grasslands with older, bigger trees interspersed throughout.

     Everything is extremely dry right now, it is winter here so it gets into 30/40’s at night and I’d say the 70’s during the day. It’s a bit strange because I keep expecting it to get warmer, but it’s not! It is just beautiful spring weather during the day, and very dry. I think my nose may finally be starting to adjust, it isn’t quite as painful as the first couple days we were here. Otherwise, everything is going wonderfully, we should be getting to work today and meeting to sort out what I need to start working on for the school program.