Turns out there was a lack of hot water in some of the rooms last night. Dana, Lesley and Bailey had only cold water. That was a bummer. For their hair, I guess. After hearing that, I did wonder if I shouldn’t have taken that all-night bath with the hot water running. Hard to say, it’s Africa. We’ll just put them at the back of the bus today; should be fine.
Sports update: The Pretoria Blue Bulls defeated the Stellenbosch Stormers in the championship game of the 14 Team Three Country Rugby tournament. This involves Australia and New Zealand as well as South Africa. That two South African teams were in the final says a lot about how important this sport is down here. If you’ve not seen Invictus, I highly recommend that movie.
The place we had lunch at today was just across the street from where the USA Soccer Team is staying for the World Cup. I talked to an ESPN guy who’s covering the team. There were a lot of police and guard dogs around. I assume they were around for security for the US soccer team, although I can’t rule out that Emma and Vicky are wanted fugitives, needed to flee the US and used this trip as a cover.
We did have another smelly shoe incident on the bus, but this time it wasn’t Tawnya. Apparently Lesley had stepped in something that was….well, we have no idea, but bad. We also got trapped INSIDE the bus for a bit, but luckily Maura was still outside coming back from her room, and we got her to push the secret button to release the door. Whew. That’s good because shopping minutes were at stake. Excitement was high when we got to the wholesale market. I cautioned the kids to not trample each other on the way out of the bus. Still, Shelby pretty much took out Dr. Pope in the parking lot. Let’s just say your kids helped out the South African GNP today. Thanks for your contributions.
We leave for home tomorrow after visiting one more farm. So this will be the last blog. Thanks for tuning in, and allowing us to chaperone your kids. They were a fantastic group and we had no major problems. (I hope I don’t have to retract these statements after one of them tries to smuggle fruit on the plane or calls out to their friend, Jack, “Hi Jack!” See you soon!
DrG for DrP and the Youngsters
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
K-Staters in South Africa Blog - Monday, May 31, 2010
Memorial Day or Mango Day?
Beard growing contest update: We’ve not actually compared beards lately. Evan clearly would be in the lead but he had a head start because I think he had his first beard as a third trimester fetus and hasn’t shaved since. Not to brag, but my beard is coming along quite nicely. This morning I found a couple hornbill nests just below my chin and had to shoo the birds out of there.
On this Memorial Day back home, we went to a mango farm here. It wasn’t mango season, but they were harvesting oranges and grapefruit. We got some free fruit (the rejects that seem pretty dang perfect to us) and it was good eatin’. At least it was healthy. We ate a lot again today. Did I mention the weight loss program will not start until we’re back in the States? I believe I’ve eaten enough to supply all my cell’s lipid bilayers enough building blocks for a few years. I will now say with just a couple days to go, nobody’s gotten sick. Praise the Lord. Dr. Ron was down for a couple days early in the tour, but I’m pretty sure that might have been due to him missing his cows at home. He does miss his cows. Um, oh, yeah, but FIRST he misses his wife…then he missed his cows. Definitely in that order.
We drove to a game lodge and had another game drive tonight. Saw sable antelope, ostriches, a couple jackels (Maybe the same ones we shot at last week. Maybe not. See how everything is coming together in the blog at the end? Not unlike a Seinfeld episode).
A guide talked to us about the game farm and raising animals and poaching. There have been 90 rhinos poached in South Africa just this year. It’s insane. The poachers fly in with helicopters, find the rhinos, dart them to kill them (because it’s quieter than a gun), land the chopper, cut off the horn and take back off. So if they own their own helicopters, or hire folks to do it, you know it’s lucrative. Most of these horns go to Asia and are sold as an aphrodisiac. As a seemingly ‘advanced’ human race, it’s amazing how ignorant we are of some things. People really need rhino horn dust for their problems? Maybe they should try rhino dung rolled in regular dirt dust. That might work just as well and would save a species from extinction.
We pigged out again tonight and retired early. Gotta get sleep tonight because it’s a big day tomorrow: SHOPPING!! (Well, whup dee doo). But again, I’m sure it’s just for gifts for the loved ones. Nothing for ourselves. (And if you believe that, George Strait has some ocean front property in Arizona to sell you).
DrG
Beard growing contest update: We’ve not actually compared beards lately. Evan clearly would be in the lead but he had a head start because I think he had his first beard as a third trimester fetus and hasn’t shaved since. Not to brag, but my beard is coming along quite nicely. This morning I found a couple hornbill nests just below my chin and had to shoo the birds out of there.
On this Memorial Day back home, we went to a mango farm here. It wasn’t mango season, but they were harvesting oranges and grapefruit. We got some free fruit (the rejects that seem pretty dang perfect to us) and it was good eatin’. At least it was healthy. We ate a lot again today. Did I mention the weight loss program will not start until we’re back in the States? I believe I’ve eaten enough to supply all my cell’s lipid bilayers enough building blocks for a few years. I will now say with just a couple days to go, nobody’s gotten sick. Praise the Lord. Dr. Ron was down for a couple days early in the tour, but I’m pretty sure that might have been due to him missing his cows at home. He does miss his cows. Um, oh, yeah, but FIRST he misses his wife…then he missed his cows. Definitely in that order.
We drove to a game lodge and had another game drive tonight. Saw sable antelope, ostriches, a couple jackels (Maybe the same ones we shot at last week. Maybe not. See how everything is coming together in the blog at the end? Not unlike a Seinfeld episode).
A guide talked to us about the game farm and raising animals and poaching. There have been 90 rhinos poached in South Africa just this year. It’s insane. The poachers fly in with helicopters, find the rhinos, dart them to kill them (because it’s quieter than a gun), land the chopper, cut off the horn and take back off. So if they own their own helicopters, or hire folks to do it, you know it’s lucrative. Most of these horns go to Asia and are sold as an aphrodisiac. As a seemingly ‘advanced’ human race, it’s amazing how ignorant we are of some things. People really need rhino horn dust for their problems? Maybe they should try rhino dung rolled in regular dirt dust. That might work just as well and would save a species from extinction.
We pigged out again tonight and retired early. Gotta get sleep tonight because it’s a big day tomorrow: SHOPPING!! (Well, whup dee doo). But again, I’m sure it’s just for gifts for the loved ones. Nothing for ourselves. (And if you believe that, George Strait has some ocean front property in Arizona to sell you).
DrG
K-Staters in South Africa Blog - Sunday, May 30, 2010
Sunday, a day of rest. YES!! This was a great day of hanging out at Henning’s farm which is pretty deep off he beaten track. They have a great deal of land and have taken down the fences between Kruger Park, so the animals can roam right in. We got to drive around in Pieter’s 4x4 trucks which have seats in the bed that are open to the air. This was another up close and personal look at big mammals. Like elephants. We encountered a couple groups of them, and the mom elephant would do these false charges that got our attention enough to jam the vehicles into reverse and get the heck back. It was exciting. I think everyone liked this action, although during the mock charge, Maura went from one side of the truck to the other in less than .01 seconds. I was a bit unnerved being that close to these giants. Off the record I may have had to change shorts upon returning to the farm, but officially, I was behind each and every student to protect them. Way behind them in case I had to get out of there to call for help. This is what leaders do. Really. Ask Patton.
Rhoda and Pieter Henning were just fantastic hosts, and I think it was a consensus this was the highlight of the trip. I mean, we had seen a lot of great stuff up to this visit, but elephant dodging? C’mon, that’s just plain fun. The evening we watched a lake on Pieter’s farm waiting for something to show up. Well something did: about 250 Cape buffalo. They filed in there like they owned the place. Because they pretty much do. Are you going to stop 250 buffalo? No, you’re not. There were 3 hippos drifting in the lake and a couple fish eagles hanging out. Beautiful evening. We all tried to say silent for 5 min just to hear the sounds coming from the bush. It’s hard for 15 college kids to stay silent for that long, but other than the crunch of a potato chip or a bit of phlegm clearing, they did pretty good. You could just imagine lions sneaking up…or as it turned out guineas flying up to roost. (One of those appeared to have been shot in the hiney. See an earlier blog for the tie-in here.)
Back at the farm that evening, Elvis made an appearance; apparently he’s not dead. We knew this because earlier in the week a South African wore a T-shirt that said: “I sat between Elvis and Bigfoot on the UFO”. If it’s on a t-shirt you know it’s true.
That evening we sat around a wood fire and sang campfire songs. Pieter had a guitar on the farm in case anyone wanted to play it. How great is that? So we did a couple tunes for our hosts. “Chicken Fried” was one which we knew the words. Then we did a Kansas classic, “Dust in the Wind”. We all piped in on the chorus, “All we are is dust in the wind”. Unfortunately, the verses sounded something like, “Doo dee doo dee doo dee doo doo doo dee doo”. Hmmm, maybe a bit too far back in time for that one.
DrG
Rhoda and Pieter Henning were just fantastic hosts, and I think it was a consensus this was the highlight of the trip. I mean, we had seen a lot of great stuff up to this visit, but elephant dodging? C’mon, that’s just plain fun. The evening we watched a lake on Pieter’s farm waiting for something to show up. Well something did: about 250 Cape buffalo. They filed in there like they owned the place. Because they pretty much do. Are you going to stop 250 buffalo? No, you’re not. There were 3 hippos drifting in the lake and a couple fish eagles hanging out. Beautiful evening. We all tried to say silent for 5 min just to hear the sounds coming from the bush. It’s hard for 15 college kids to stay silent for that long, but other than the crunch of a potato chip or a bit of phlegm clearing, they did pretty good. You could just imagine lions sneaking up…or as it turned out guineas flying up to roost. (One of those appeared to have been shot in the hiney. See an earlier blog for the tie-in here.)
Back at the farm that evening, Elvis made an appearance; apparently he’s not dead. We knew this because earlier in the week a South African wore a T-shirt that said: “I sat between Elvis and Bigfoot on the UFO”. If it’s on a t-shirt you know it’s true.
That evening we sat around a wood fire and sang campfire songs. Pieter had a guitar on the farm in case anyone wanted to play it. How great is that? So we did a couple tunes for our hosts. “Chicken Fried” was one which we knew the words. Then we did a Kansas classic, “Dust in the Wind”. We all piped in on the chorus, “All we are is dust in the wind”. Unfortunately, the verses sounded something like, “Doo dee doo dee doo dee doo doo doo dee doo”. Hmmm, maybe a bit too far back in time for that one.
DrG
K-Staters in South Africa Blog - Saturday, May 29, 2010
The kids actually saw a hippo at the hotel we stayed in last night. OK, it wasn’t checked to room 34, per se, but it was in the river behind the Hippo Hollow Inn (Turns out they’re not just using that name as a cheap marketing trick). Tawnya says, “Alright, we’re 1 for 5 already! Oh wait, the hippo’s not one of the big 5. We’re still 0 for 5. Crap”. (Tawnya: always good for a quote. She’ll have some more a bit later).
Saturday morning: Wow, wow and wow. What a day: We slept in, laid around the hotel, ate junk food and watched TV. Wait a minute, why would we pay this much money to do that? Well, we wouldn’t because we’re K-Staters, not ChickenHawks. So what we really did was get up at 5am, piled on the bus and headed to Kruger National Park. A day we’ve been waiting for. And since I’m blogging this evening, you know we survived. Well, we had approximately 15 students at the end of the day, but who’s counting? (Well, actually Dr Pope is counting; it’s his job to make sure everyone is on the bus after each stop. This is good because math is not my strong suit. It’s not even strong enough to be my weak suit.)
We had one full day traveling in Kruger (6:30am – 5:00pm), and for all the info I had beforehand from people in the know, they said you really need 2-3 days in this huge place to have the best chance to see the Big 5: elephant, rhino, lion, leopard and cape buffalo. (It’s the Big 6 if you include the PowerCat, which we do. The Jayhawk is actually one of the “Microscopic 5”, not just here but globally. Go ahead and Google it, I’m not making this stuff up). So how many of the Big 5 do you think we saw on this single day? 4 out of 5! Which is quite lucky, as it turns out. Which one did we miss? Go ahead and guess; I’ll wait…………. Elephant? Well, sorry, you’ll have to ask your kids about specifics, but a quick Kruger summary: We drove in the park in our same tour bus. It’s not an open safari-type bus, but that was OK because you can’t step out of any type vehicle anywhere, anytime in the Park. Something about animal attacks and death and lawsuits. (I guess they have the same kind of litigation problem as the U.S. experienced with the woman who won a settlement for spilling McDonald’s coffee on her lap. Down here the lawyer might say, “Well, your honor, my poor client was killed when he stuck a marshmallow between his teeth and tried to feed a lion. We feel the family deserves several million Rand to help them get through the loss of this great man, who sadly won’t be able to increase the size of his family and raise several other ‘bright’ children that could one day become lion bait.”) Anyway, I found out about this ‘don’t leave the bus’ rule when I put a toe down once out of the bus door, and our driver Gerhard said, “That’s a $1000 fine and I’m not going to pay it.” Okaaaay, keeping our feet on the step from now on. (Actually, our bus driver, Gerhard is very good-natured, funny and a superb driver. We haul a luggage trailer hitched behind us and to back up the bus without jackknifing that single axle trailer is quite a skill. I would have wrapped that baby around the back of the bus bumper a long time ago).
I’m not going to go into too much detail here (oh wait, too late!); your kids will have plenty of pictures, but we saw a bunch of cool stuff, including zebras, impalas, (apparently the favorite snack of carnivores of the veldt), mongoose and, of course, the hugely impressive elephant dung. It was fantastic. When we saw something big moving in the brush, we were supposed to yell “Stop!” and Gerhard would stop for us to get a better look and pictures. It’s a good system, but in the heat of the moment sometimes the name of the bus driver is secondary. Like Tawnya yelling, “Please Stop, Harold!” Which is fine except our bus driver’s name is Gerhard. (We’re still not sure who “Harold” is). It does make for a long day and I was trying not to doze off during breaks in the action. I was thinking, “I can’t believe this: I’m in Krugar park for one day, and I’m tired? Where am I, listening to my Farm Animal Repro lecture? Sheesh man, stay focused!” In reality, it was pretty easy to stay focused because someone would intermittently shout out, “Stop, Gerhard, zebras!” Or “Stop, Gerhard, eland!” Or “Stop Gerhard, what you see in the rear view mirror that looks like a weather balloon is actually my bladder!” Stuff like that. We did risk a fine with a couple of ladies that needed to find a pink rock out in the brush.
It’s kind of funny when we hear Marianne use new terminology and then when one of us sees that same thing, we don’t always remember the name correctly. For example, here are these large dug-out holes beside the road, and Marianna says “Those are rhino latrines where the males mark their territory.” So when we see another one down the road, I hear a student say, “Hey, there’s one of those “rhino crap drops”. Or, “Look, another rhino poop zone”.
Several times we thought we heard elephants trumpeting in the brush, but mostly that was Ashley’s belching. Normally, I wouldn’t purposely try to embarrass people in the blog, but Ashley seems quite proud of her talent and wants it to be known.
It was a great day and we then headed to stay at Combretum, a private farm of Pieter Henning’s. More on that later….
DrG
Saturday morning: Wow, wow and wow. What a day: We slept in, laid around the hotel, ate junk food and watched TV. Wait a minute, why would we pay this much money to do that? Well, we wouldn’t because we’re K-Staters, not ChickenHawks. So what we really did was get up at 5am, piled on the bus and headed to Kruger National Park. A day we’ve been waiting for. And since I’m blogging this evening, you know we survived. Well, we had approximately 15 students at the end of the day, but who’s counting? (Well, actually Dr Pope is counting; it’s his job to make sure everyone is on the bus after each stop. This is good because math is not my strong suit. It’s not even strong enough to be my weak suit.)
We had one full day traveling in Kruger (6:30am – 5:00pm), and for all the info I had beforehand from people in the know, they said you really need 2-3 days in this huge place to have the best chance to see the Big 5: elephant, rhino, lion, leopard and cape buffalo. (It’s the Big 6 if you include the PowerCat, which we do. The Jayhawk is actually one of the “Microscopic 5”, not just here but globally. Go ahead and Google it, I’m not making this stuff up). So how many of the Big 5 do you think we saw on this single day? 4 out of 5! Which is quite lucky, as it turns out. Which one did we miss? Go ahead and guess; I’ll wait…………. Elephant? Well, sorry, you’ll have to ask your kids about specifics, but a quick Kruger summary: We drove in the park in our same tour bus. It’s not an open safari-type bus, but that was OK because you can’t step out of any type vehicle anywhere, anytime in the Park. Something about animal attacks and death and lawsuits. (I guess they have the same kind of litigation problem as the U.S. experienced with the woman who won a settlement for spilling McDonald’s coffee on her lap. Down here the lawyer might say, “Well, your honor, my poor client was killed when he stuck a marshmallow between his teeth and tried to feed a lion. We feel the family deserves several million Rand to help them get through the loss of this great man, who sadly won’t be able to increase the size of his family and raise several other ‘bright’ children that could one day become lion bait.”) Anyway, I found out about this ‘don’t leave the bus’ rule when I put a toe down once out of the bus door, and our driver Gerhard said, “That’s a $1000 fine and I’m not going to pay it.” Okaaaay, keeping our feet on the step from now on. (Actually, our bus driver, Gerhard is very good-natured, funny and a superb driver. We haul a luggage trailer hitched behind us and to back up the bus without jackknifing that single axle trailer is quite a skill. I would have wrapped that baby around the back of the bus bumper a long time ago).
I’m not going to go into too much detail here (oh wait, too late!); your kids will have plenty of pictures, but we saw a bunch of cool stuff, including zebras, impalas, (apparently the favorite snack of carnivores of the veldt), mongoose and, of course, the hugely impressive elephant dung. It was fantastic. When we saw something big moving in the brush, we were supposed to yell “Stop!” and Gerhard would stop for us to get a better look and pictures. It’s a good system, but in the heat of the moment sometimes the name of the bus driver is secondary. Like Tawnya yelling, “Please Stop, Harold!” Which is fine except our bus driver’s name is Gerhard. (We’re still not sure who “Harold” is). It does make for a long day and I was trying not to doze off during breaks in the action. I was thinking, “I can’t believe this: I’m in Krugar park for one day, and I’m tired? Where am I, listening to my Farm Animal Repro lecture? Sheesh man, stay focused!” In reality, it was pretty easy to stay focused because someone would intermittently shout out, “Stop, Gerhard, zebras!” Or “Stop, Gerhard, eland!” Or “Stop Gerhard, what you see in the rear view mirror that looks like a weather balloon is actually my bladder!” Stuff like that. We did risk a fine with a couple of ladies that needed to find a pink rock out in the brush.
It’s kind of funny when we hear Marianne use new terminology and then when one of us sees that same thing, we don’t always remember the name correctly. For example, here are these large dug-out holes beside the road, and Marianna says “Those are rhino latrines where the males mark their territory.” So when we see another one down the road, I hear a student say, “Hey, there’s one of those “rhino crap drops”. Or, “Look, another rhino poop zone”.
Several times we thought we heard elephants trumpeting in the brush, but mostly that was Ashley’s belching. Normally, I wouldn’t purposely try to embarrass people in the blog, but Ashley seems quite proud of her talent and wants it to be known.
It was a great day and we then headed to stay at Combretum, a private farm of Pieter Henning’s. More on that later….
DrG
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