Sunday, a Day Off to Catch Up on Stuff

Vervet monkeys playing in our game truck.

Two Nile crocodiles

Impala watching two southern ground hornbills.

Baboons

It's rutting season, the males are competing for breeding rights.

African scops owl.

A family drinking party.

April 23^rd.

Today was an off day, no trip, no game drive, no responsibilities. Early in the morning I watched several vervet monkeys playing in one of our game trucks. We had a group goodbye circle and hug session for three volunteers who were leaving today. I was up about 8 and spent the day taking care of things that I needed to do: 1) uploading the photos in order update the blog; 2) downloading a firmware update from the Sony website that helps the camera focus on animal eyes; 3) freeing up storage on my Google account so that I wouldn’t be cut off from emails and didn’t have to buy more storage space; 4) reviewing the photos so far and culling the bad ones; 5) uploading my good photos into Lightroom so that I can edit some of them and 6) catching up with emails and messages. That took up the bulk of the day. In the morning on the way back to my room I watched several vervet monkeys playing in our trucks. In the afternoon I found Bruce watching a British soccer game in the pub, so I joined him and we had a beer. Matt joined us too. I WhatsAp-ed John in England and the four of us had a good chat until the wifi dropped us. Later we had another group meeting where we all introduced ourselves and welcomed one new volunteer from Germany. Then it was time for a pork chop braai. After dinner we had an elephant walk through the camp on our driveway! That’s why they don’t want us to go out alone at night. They have had others animals pass through previously, including a pride of lions. The rest of the evening was very chill and we were in bed early for another morning drive.