Life & Adventures in the South African Bush

I haven't seen any lions yet but I HAVE successfully made it to the Timbavati Mongoza Camp, which is actually a huge deal! It doesn’t sound like such a feat on paper with a flight from Pittsburgh to JFK, then to Johannesburg, South Africa and then to Hoedspruit, BUT unfortunately it wasn’t as uneventful as hoped. I feel like I have to …

Happy Belated 4th of July everyone! I actually had the wrong date on my watch and totally forgot yesterday! I only realized this morning when someone said it was the 5th that I was off by a day. It was actually my new British friend and fellow intern that then said.. "you didn't realize that yesterday was your 4th of July?".. yeah, that …

I think I finally hit my stride today. I felt less like a guest being shown the ropes and more like someone that is settling in for the next 11 weeks. All the interns got up for the daily 6am check this morning, but still not really on a good waking schedule, I opted to stay beneath the covers. Though, I soon regretted the decision after hearing …

Well the last few days have been busy! Many early mornings and even pre-sunrise alarm clocks. For the record I definitely prefer sunsets, but who am I kidding, that is no secret as my Aunt Kim so sarcastically noted. I’ve never pretended to be much of a morning person.. or even early afternoon person for that matter. In fact, for much of my …

As the relationship between the two bosses and EVERYONE ELSE continued to deteriorate, we all found joy in our last few excursions. Sophie and I found ourselves back in Kruger, this time taken by the son of our OTHER two loved bosses and our friend Tehri. To make it gate by 6am we had to leave by 5 so, to make the whole thing that much better, we …

We all hit the ground running with Tehri, Traci and Glen, Traci’s husband and spent our first night sleeping out in the bush in a small wooden hide set beside a dam on Jejane. Jejane is a big five 5,000ha nature reserve ten minutes outside the center of town. We (the volunteers) are lucky enough to stay at Jejane’s bush camp because …

Just a couple hours ago tonight while Tehri, Charlie and I were eating dinner around the fire outside of the bush kitchen, we watched 5 male buffalo bulls drinking at the tiny water hole about 10m away. The fireplace area is surrounded merely by a row of rotted vertical posts but it provides a wonderful false sense of security. The three of us did …