Chris Reviewing Reserve Maps

Finally, after all the training and preparation, we were ready to go out on game drives. I'll never forget the first time we loaded up in the Mahindras (open air jeeps used for the drives--pictured below), I had the nervous excitement of boarding a huge roller coaster. I couldn't imagine actually seeing the animals of Africa outside of a caged exhibit.

Kim and Rachelle, two of my besties on drive

Venetia is magical and teaming with life. It's difficult to drive around the 35,000 hectare reserve without seeing giraffe, zebras, impala, various antelope, elephants, hyena ...you name it. I rode around in the back with my eyes peeled for anything and everything, camera at the ready in case we were to encounter something. For this post, I think I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Impala

A Male Cheetah During a Night Drive

Adult Female Elephant

Guinea Fowl

Six Bathing Hippos and an Ox Pecker
African Wildcat
Mother and Baby Giraffe
Sweet Baby














Old and Young; The Darker Colors Mark Age


















Gemsbok Oryx (Pronounced Hembsbok); Adult Male

Horned Adder

Zebra Mother and Young

Adult Male Kudu
Our Dusty Trail

Week one at Venetia was similar to Patagonia in that it was an intensive training week. We spent many hours of each day in lectures about safety, animal identification, and training on the telemetry equipment and triangulation methods. At the end of the week we had exams on all we had learned in lectures and had to perform our newly honed telemetry skills with mobile tracking and located a radio collar that had been planted in the bush. It was a bit intense and we all wanted to do well with what we had learned.


Following test day we had our first party night. One of the great things about Venetia is that once a week, usually Thursday or Friday, we have party night. We'd get cleaned up, buy our cash of beers (10 Rand each which is around $1 for a 20 ounce), and let our hair down. We played plenty of drinking games and usually found ourselves sprawled out under the stars in the sandy pass in front of the gates. Party nights are revered and gracious in that we usually would have the next day off. No drives, no duties, just recuperation. Much needed recuperation.

One of the many ways we found ourselves recuperating...did I mention that we have access to a pool?

Fortunately I grew accustomed to the night chorus of the African bush and with the exception of having a tent mate who talked in her sleep, saying things in a low, grumbling voice like, "What is it?!", I learned to sleep through the night. (She scared the hell out of me on a few occasions) I began to have more vivid dreams, similar to those I'd have under the open sky in Patagonia. I also began the same routine of trying to stay awake so that I could hear as much as possible. I remember crawling in my bed and feeling the excitement I sometimes feel when I take my seat in the theater, anxiously awaiting the story that's about to unfold before me on the big screen. Though instead of a screen and actors the entertainment would come from a pack of black-backed jackals, squealing and whining as they communicated their hunt. Some nights it would be a troop of baboons, marked with the loud, low barks of the dominant male. Other nights it would be Blade, the huge male lion of the pride, calling out a long territorial roar, followed by four short grunts to call the pride back to him.
Every night was exciting because I never knew what it would hold or which sounds would stir me from my dreams.
(This is the view from my bed; it's a mesh window that looks out to the dry riverbed.)





These are fresh hyena tracks that we found early one morning after we woke to hyena calls. They were just outside the gates of camp.