7-29-14 South Africa Cutenss (Part 2 – The Bush)

                The bush sounds exactly like what it is, large areas with an overgrowth of grasses, trees, and bushes. It refers to all areas of this type, but in particular we stayed in Sabi Park, just adjacent to Kruger National park in South Africa. Here the animals have a large reserve to wander about from Mozambique to Swaziland.  It really does have all animals too; We found the Big 5, named for being the most dangerous animals in Africa: Elephant, Lion, Leopard, Buffalo, and both Black and White Rhino. We also found Giraffes, Hyena, Zebra, Baboons, Vervet Monkeys, Bushbabies, Cevets, various birds including the go-away bird who’s call sounds like a high-pitched GO AWAY and vultures and parrots, 4 different types of Antelope (Kudu, Impala, Nyala, and Eland), Hippos, Crocodiles, Wildebeest, and more.

                The time we spent in the Bush was absolutely amazing. We got to know our resident Tracker, Albert, and Ranger, Simon. They explained the intricacies of the ecology of the bush and spent 3 days tracking a Leopard for us. When we finally found that Leopard, it was a truly magical experience. The animals in Lion Sands have been accustomed to seeing the Range Rovers all their lives, so the Leopard just continued to hunt as if we weren’t there while we followed him.

                The awesome thing about the Range Rovers, that I know the Stollmeyer’s will appreciate, is the ability to just go anywhere. There were rudimentary dirt roads that simply existed because they are the frequented routes of the Rangers. But when we found the Leopard we went where the Leopard went. We drove through a sandy river bed as if we didn’t require traction, we went up the verticl side of the riverbed as if gravity was no big deal, and we went through dense forests as if the trees did nothing to block our path (we drove over them and they spring back up behind the Rover).  Driving around in that Range Rover (Which had seats for 11, plus the tracker who sat on the hood of the vehicle) would have been fun all by itself, adding the surrealism of the wild animals was just double the fun.

Arriving to the Bush. This is the Skukuza Airport.
Smaller than even the SLO Airport! 

Right away we got to get into the open top Range Rover
to head to the Lion Sands Reserve.

This little guy was part of our first elephant sighting.
Right when I took this photo he trumpeted, and it was absolutely adorable.

African Sunset

African Sunrise. We  had 2 game drives every day.
One at 6:00 am and one at 3:30pm.

ZAZU

Vervet Monkey, this guy was actually plotting to steal our lunch. 

Giraffes. We asked our Ranger if we could find some Giraffes and he explained that
Giraffes are like Leopards, if you are looking for them you will never find them,
but if you are looking for something else you will see them everywhere.
Sure enough, we saw these 2 Giraffes when we were tracking the Leopard.
And the day after we found our Leopard, another Leopard
crossed the road in front of us as if it were no big deal. 

This is the rare White Rhino that our vehicle alone had the privilege of seeing. 

Hippo in the River, we hiked down to the river to see these guys. We didn't get too close (this is with my 200 mm lens).

Laney in the Bush

Marc in the bush.

We happened to stumble upon a herd of about 500 African Buffalo.
Since they are used to the Range Rovers, they don't feel threatened by us.
Our Ranger, Simon, said that the way that
the buffalo look at you is like you owe them money. 

Madi enjoying the Buffalo. 

Dad enjoying the Buffalo. 

A hyena. The trackers say that the hyena will always follow
the Leopard or the Lions so if you see a Hyena, it means a big Cat is close by. 

Wildebeest, the only one we saw. 

We saw so many Antelope that I really didn't take that many pictures of them,
 but these are some Impala feeling threatened by a nearby Hyena.
Their tactic is to look at it and make a loud snort, signifying that they know it is there.
Leopards and Lions will give up if the Antelope spots them because
 they require the element of surprise to make a successful kill.

Madi and Laney feeling giggly on an early morning game drive. 

 

Sunset (one of many beautiful Lion-King-Esque sunsets and sunrises)

Laney showing us the toothbrush tree. (A skill she learned in the kids class).

Jill makes her own toothbrush.

Finally after 3 days, we found this Male Leopard.
We followed him around in the bush for about half an hour. 

The Leopard. You can see the tracks from our Range Rover in the riverbed,
while the other Rover behind him shows the crazy hills we were able to scale. 

We found these 2 male Rhinos fighting in a watering hole that we
had played in earlier that day. Male Rhinos are quite territorial,
but it was somewhat exhilarating and we tried to keep our distance
from these angry Rhinos. Their fight was so intense they were knocking down trees
and trying to stab the other in the stomach. Very scary. 

During our last evening Game Drive they set up sunset cocktails and
appetizers under a large Amarula trees. At this point I was pretty certain
they were trying to make us cry from the cute. 

Madi beneath the African Sunset. 

Dad and Jill in their seats in the Range Rover. 

Male Lion after an unsuccessful hunt. 

Lioness regarding the other vehicle. 

Male and Female Lions greeting each other. They're almost just like house cats.

Baboon, we found this male and his group of baboons
because they were yelling warnings about the Lions. 

Madi, Laney, and Candace, one of the kid counselors. 

All of us out in front of the Lion Sands sign. We're sad to be leaving! 

When we were done with our time in the bush, we headed back to Johannesburg, where there was a closing ceremony over-the-top party waiting for us. Our flight left at 11pm so we had to leave the party early. It included tearful farewells to the friends we had made on the trip and it was terribly bittersweet to leave. We definitely fell in love with South Africa while we were there, and on the bus to the airport we promising ourselves that we would return and get to visit Cape Town and our New friends.

Our flight from Johannesburg landed in Amsterdam, where I then said goodbye to my family. I then immediately met Miki (Mikayla) in the baggage claim to start Part 2 of this wild crazy worldwide adventure! But more on that later.

Some cool facts that I learned in the Bush:

-The Acacia tree is a tree that is famous for coevolving with the Giraffe. (Giraffe ate the tree, the tree grew thorns and got taller, the Giraffe became better at eating around thorns and got taller, the tree got taller, the giraffe got taller, etc. We now have very tall Acacia Trees and Giraffes with long necks). But what I bet you didn’t know about the Acacia tree is that it speaks to other trees. When an Antelope or Giraffe starts eating the leaves off the Acacia tree, the tree emits hormones that travel downwind to other trees to warn them about the approaching herbivore. The tree then immediately transfers large amounts of Tannins (the bitter taste in wine) into the leaves. The antelope or giraffe doesn’t like the bitter taste and will then move on to a different tree. As a result, Antelope and Giraffe have learned to always eat upwind, that is they take a bite and the next bite is upwind. Thus, the herbivore gets to continue eating, but not enough to kill the whole tree. Interesting stuff!

-What is the most dangerous animal to encounter in the Bush?

I bet you think it’s a Lion or a Leopard. While it is dangerous to encounter these animals, they usually run away from humans, and you will have a very difficult time even seeing one. There is so much antelope around that they do not feel the need to hunt humans and instead are simply scared of them.

The real answers that we got from our Ranger about what he is most scared of are African Buffalo, Elephants, and Snakes.

 African Buffalo go towards anything they don’t understand, and once they encounter something they consider a threat they will charge it and stamp it out. Thus African Buffalo is very terrifying to encounter and when we went on a bush walk with one of the Rangers we rounded a corner and saw the helmet of the bull and were told to immediately run in the other direction.

Elephants, while generally nonchalant about human attention, can suddenly change their mind about something and charge at it. A few times in the Range Rover we would find elephants and our Ranger would refuse to stop because he could see that the elephant wanted to charge.

And snakes, which are good at hiding and usually have good displays before they strike, can hide in small crevices. If you are standing near a rock where a Black Mamba is hiding, he may display his black mouth at you in warning, but you will be unable to see him and he may strike. The venom will kill you in a matter of hours.

Now those  of you who know some stuff about Africa may have heard that actually the Hippopotamus is the most dangerous animal in all of Africa. This is more or less true as it has killed the highest number of humans. But the thing that is important about this is that it is purely because humans encounter Hippo’s more frequently in Africa than they do any other animal. Most Africans do not have access to clean drinking water and thus must make daily trips to get water from ponds and rivers. This is where Hippos live their lives, and their massive teeth can pierce a hole straight through the human body. And when they bite, they bite multiple times.  Even in South Africa, where the government is arguably the best in the entire continent, 30% of its citizens still do not have clean drinking water.

A Hippo Skull we found after the sunset,
 our trackers said that it had been eaten by Lions a few months ago.

Anyways, I wrote this on a train from Interlaken to Basel, Switzerland. (I missed Corey by 1 week!!!). It’s amazingly beautiful here and I feel very fortunate to be able to go on this trip.

Emily

7-26-14 South Africa Cuteness (Part 1: Joburg)

Hello Everyone!

So as promised here is the famed South Africa post!

For those of you who don’t know, me, my dad, my step mom, my sisters, and my brother had the amazing – most – likely – once – in – a –lifetime opportunity to travel to South Africa and get treated like royalty by YPO, the Young Presidnets Organization.  YPO does above and beyond events for CEOs who made their company a certain size before age 45, which dad qualified for when he was 44.

It’s difficult to describe the level of detail that our South African hosts put into this trip. But you’ll probably see in the pictures and descriptions the detailed, VIP, and amazing experience we just had.

SO, lets start from the beginning.

To get to South Africa, we had about 30 hours of travel. We first drove down to LAX, then got on a flight to Amsterdam, then got on another flight to Johnnaesburg. When we finally arrived at 10pm we were so delirious and jet lagged we probably looked a hot mess, but we found out immediately how hospitable our hosts were. We walked off the plane and there was a man holding a sign for the Stollmeyer family. He then proceeded to take us through all customs and security, cutting everyone else in line. We found that Dad's, Jill's, and Laney’s bags did not make it on the flight to Johannesburg, and would not arrive for another 24 hours, but our hosts quickly organized a pickup service and they were in our rooms when we came back from dinner the next day. Uri, Aviva, and their children (our South African hosts, and our new friends) were so gracious the entire time, and when we got in the bus to go to the hotel, Uri was a chatterbox full of happiness of excitement asking us how we all were, and telling us about how much fun we were going to have.

The next morning we awoke to see where we were, in Melrose Arch, a hip, safe shopping center and downtown area of Johannesburg. The festivities that day began with age segregated introductions, the 18-25 young adults were housed in a bar, where our icebreaker was to say our name, where we were from, our age, tell an embarrassing or interesting story from our lives, and then take a shot. That was the beginning of a huge opening ceremony  party, we then went back outside to meet up with the other age groups, and then were lead by dancing chorusing Africans, people in spandex suits, and an African drumline to our event venue. I don’t know how they pulled off taking over the entire downtown, but everything in the area was for us, 420 YPO’ers. The venue (literally called The Venue) was a large theater with the adults on the bottom floor and the kids on the top floor. The young adults basically took shots all night and then after a beautiful show, a group of drummers came out on the stage and told us to pull out the bongo drums under the tables so we could all play drums and get a lesson. Even Marc got a bit drunk, so it was just a wild and crazy night talking to amazing people from all over the world.

Our drumming lesson (see Laney center stage) 

Drumming away!

The next day we had an early morning (very difficult given the previous evening’s festivities), where we separated to do various activities that we had signed up for prior to the trip. Madi and Laney got a lesson in street art and decorated a wall in downtown Jozi, while Marc left for a trip out to some amazing caves to learn about Africa as a center for anthropology and listen to a head anthropologist explain their work. Dad, Jill, and I opted for a day of history, learning about Nelson Mandela.

We started our Mandiba  day (conveniently the day before his birthday) by visiting Constitutional Hill which includes the prison where Mandiba spent 27 years and the new constitutionl court (Similar to US supreme court), literally built with the bricks of the black men section of the prison to remind the court that South Africa is built upon its violent history. South Africa today now has a constitution with 28????? Described freedoms, with a court built upon transparency and equality. The court literally has windows so that any passerby can see the happenings inside the courtroom. All court proceedings are also filmed so they are accessible to anyone in South Africa. Learning about their court and the struggles they have overcome in the last 20 years alone was heartwrenching and had us falling in love with South Africa on day 2.

Our next stop was a visit to Nelson Mandela’s house, where his wife stil lives so we did not go in. instead it is a tradition to write a note to Mandiba on a stone and place it in his garden so he may see it and have it brighten his day in some minuscule way. This idea is so adorably African, it such a small priceless token that doesn’t take up any space or require removal, but still translates their gratitude to the man who helped free South Africa from oppression.

Our next stop was a visit to the Nelson Mandela foundation, the organization that Mandela worked for in his last years. They gave us a tour of their archives which include all of Mandiba’s awards and presents including world cups exact replicas, gifts from the Obamas, and so much more. Then we went back out into the event room where Mandela’s chef catered the African food that Mandela and his family ate on a daily basis. During this event, a trendy painter painted a portrait of Mandela for to be silent auctioned off for a teddy bear charity. So you may see this painting in our living room in the near distant future, as dad couldn’t help himself.

Our fourth stop was a visit to Lilliesleaf, which was the hideout (farmhouse façade) where Mandela and his companions hid when they were plotting revolution and where they were eventually arrested from. Denis Goldberg, one of Mandela’s companions who also spent 22 years in prison for high treason, came to talk to us. He was so kind and joyful, I thought he was someone’s jubilant grandfather until he sat down in front of us to start talking. It was an experience that can only be called conversing with living history.

Needless to say the entire day, from 8am to 5pm was so amazing, and arguably the best YPO-only experience.

Walking through the prison

Exhibits dedicated to Nelson Mandela and Mathama Gandhi, both imprisoned in these walls. 

The Constitutional Court of South Africa. Note the Windows,
which promote transparency (everything is also recorded).
The bricks are from the black men's section of the prison reminding all citizens
of the horrible history South Africa has had to overcome,
while the cow hides remind the people that everybody, all colors and races,
 are different but equal. Not that you can tell here, but the ceiling has slats to create shadows similar
to trees which references tribal times where disputes would be settled under trees. 

Our tour guide, placing his message stone in one of the planters outside of Mandiba's house. 

Jill with Mandela's cook, who was so wonderful and shy,
and cooked us an amazing meal madeup of Mandiba's favorites. 

This artist painted this portrait of Mandiba in 10 minutes while we ate our lunch.
You may see a similar one hanging in our house very soon... 

Denis Goldman, Mandela's fellow revolutionary who spent 22 years in prison for treason against the Apartheid.

That night we had dine around’s at various South African YPO-er’s homes. We were separated by age group, but our hosts (whose home btw looks like it’s out of a cool chic pottery barn magazine) had set up Braii (South African BBQ), cocktails, fire pits, a magician, and had rented out Limo’s for everyone to travel in to get there and back to the hotel. We were a little wiped out from the evening prior, but we enjoyed the conversation and the David Copperfield-esque magician.

Inside the Limo with some of the 20+ young adults.

The next day we grabbed some breakfast and left for the bush! (see next post)



..................................>

7-19-2014 Global Adventures

Hello Everyone!

So I believe it’s been a few months since I have last posted, but I am off on the adventure of a lifetime!

As I write this now I’m sitting on the deck of our Bungalow at Lion Sands Resort and Reserve in Sabi Sands, Kruger National Park, South Africa listening to birds with the coolest butterflies and luminescent beetles, and tiny lizards joining me. It’s winter here in South Africa so on our Game Drive this morning we were bundled up in 2 jackets, hats, scarves, and blankest while drinking hot coffee so that we could enjoy the early morning collections of wild Elephants, Antelope, Giraffe,  attempted tracking of leopards and lions, and so much more. It’s now warm enough to enjoy the deck with a tank top and sweat pants, so life really couldn’t get any better.

In June I finished up my 4^th year at UCSC with Marine Ecology Field Study (my senior thesis/senior exit class), Biology of Marine Mammals, and Introduction to Photography.

My Marine Ecology class was probably one of the most challenging things I’ve ever accomplished, but we did manage to carry out an entire scientific observational experiment.

We looked at river sculpin (a small bottom fish) habitat distribution (where we found the fish) throughout the San Lorenzo River in Santa Cruz. We managed to prove that river sculpins in the San Lorenzo are found more frequently with more rock fragments and in deeper (0.5 meters to 1.5 meters) water.  It was challenging in that we had to come up with an original study, collect all the data, write a scientific 15 page paper, and present our findings to our class and professors. I’m glad to be done with it!

My Marine Mammals class was relatively boring compared to similar classes Invertebrate Zoology and Fish Zoology, but we did have some fun times out whale watching and hiking Ano Nuevo to see elephants seals.

Introduction to Photography was probably one of the best classes I had the privilege to take at UCSC. I learned how to operate my Nikon DSLR completely on manual and ended up with some pretty amazing photographs. It’s strange to see my improvement throughout the quarter, but I think I’ve gotten pretty good now! I really enjoy taking good photos so I think this is a hobby that will follow me throughout my life. 

I spent the rest of June trying to get as much California in as I could because on July 14 we departed for South Africa!

In a few days we will fly out of the bush back to Johannesburg, SA where we will have our closing ceremonies. Our visit to South Africa is only half over and we’ve completely fallen in love with everything about this country. While it does still have social and economic issues, South Africa has grown so much in these first 20 years of it’s democratic government. The people are so kind here, so while I was feeling awkward about being a relatively rich American being served by probably very poor native Africans, they surprised me with their kindness, hospitatlity, and joy to show off and share their country rich in culture and wildlife. I can and will go on, but hold on until the next post. My next post will be all Africa, so sit tight for a few more days! 

After we say goodbye to South Africa I will say goodbye to my family in Amsterdam where they will transfer to their flight back to LAX and I will meet my friend Miki for our European adventure!

We will be spending 2 weeks traveling around the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, France, and England by EURail.

After those 2 weeks I will say goodbye to Miki and will start my Study Abroad at University College Maastricht in Maastricht, Netherlands where I will study and travel until December. I'll be home in time for Christmas, and should be graduating from UCSC in either March or June. (Definitely walking in June). 

Overall, this adventure is so much more than I ever thought I would have the opportunity to do in my entire life and I feel so grateful and happy for it.

Thank you so much for reading!

Love,

Emily