Laundry Day

Napkins and towels.  Incredible!

Another laundry day at Chada.  We did promise to give our blog followers an inside look at what goes on behind the scenes, so here you go.

We wash the dinner napkins and towels by hand, using a rather expensive detergent labeled as a Highly Concentated Biodegradable Laundry Compound.

Please try to appreciate, next time you are here with starched white cloth folded over your lap as you dine in the candle light, that no animals were adversely affected during the washing of this fabric.  Not that any animals come into contact with our laundry anyway.

Day of the Dudus

Now this is embarassing.  You never see the cobwebs until the sunlight hits them at just the right angle.  By then it's usually too late, and the guests are standing right next to you.

Actually...

Magic silver silken strings are hanging from the wild frangipani trees all around Chada, shimmering in the sunlight.  Alliteration gone wild, I know, but only because it is beautiful beyond my ability to capture photographically.

The tree fairies are back.  I wish we could just tell everyone that, and be believed and keep the magical aura hovering over the camp indefinitely.

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Photo Copyright Picker, Griffiths, Weaving

 Soon the camp will be closed for the rains, and while no one is looking, unobserved metamorphosis will spring up and hundreds of small, soft white butterflies will float above the empty camp.  For today, we only see their silken lifelines and the butterflies-to-be who dangle at the ends of them.

When they have finished feasting on the wild frangipani trees of Chada, they will wrap themselves in silken cocoons and drift off into the unknowing dreamworld existence of the once ugly, soon to be beautiful. 



Like commandos fast-roping out of a helicopter, these guys have devised the ultimate escape plan from marauding wasps and cuckoos who prey on them while they feast on leaves.  They dive from the treetops when they sense danger, then they climb back up their silk safety line when the coast is clear.

When they all dive at once, when the sun just happens to be casting rays through the camp at the purest angle,
it isn't hard to understand why we are fascinated by the spectacle of a thousand caterpillars diving for their lives.

Another Day at the Office

The view from our desks

This is ridiculous.  We didn't sign on with Nomad to sit in the office.  We wanted to interact with wildlife and have adventure.

Turns out it's the same the world over, office, office, office.  Should have just studied business and gone to London, New York, Mpanda...

Well, hindsight is 20/20, but for now we're stuck here in the office, dreaming about the days when we used to...wait...where's my camera? 

Life is good.

Hmmm

 

Not too much to say here, except that none of those are rocks, hippo bodies rather.  What a bold little croc!

Extreme Scoliosis

In national parks, vets don't get involved in nature's way very often unless the animal is endangered or has been injured by an outside influence like a car, a wire snare, etc...

So this guy is not on the waiting list for any kind of treatment, but it does make us wonder if he is in pain.  We've seen him many times this season, and the word is he's been seen occasionally for the past 4 years.  Seems to be getting on just fine.

But definitely worth a picture and a long look and a good chuckle. 

We're trying to think of a good name for him.  Any suggestions?

Waiting for the Cubs

Couldn't resist posting a few lion shots.  The season is winding down, they are roaring a lot lately, though a tad harder to find with the rains making everything so lush and dense, and we'd like to show off a few of our most well-known characters.

We are anxious to see how many cubs appear when we re-open the camp in May.  Lions carry their pregnancies for only 3 and a half months, and September was like a month-long episode of the Love Boat in the Chada pride.

True love

So we're expecting births this month, and then we can expect the mothers to keep their newborns secreted away til the end of February before bringing them out to join the pride, giving them a chance for their eyes to open, to learn how to walk and run, play, wrestle.

This picture scares people.  We don't know why.

It's a system that works best for them, giving birth to underdeveloped babies in order to avoid getting too fat and immobile during long pregnancies, which wouldn't be very practical for a predator who needs to be swift and agile in order to feed itself.  So we think there are cubs out there now, but chances are we'll have to wait to see them.

For now then, no cub shots, but stay tuned because we're keeping our fingers crossed that they survive the next few months and show themselves next season.

Paintball for Hippos

The first thing that came to mind, seeing this male hippo standing grumpily in the river was that he is not a very good paintball player.  Loser!  The hippo with the red paint balls definitely wins that one, hands down.  Four-toed huge feet down, rather.

Poor guy actually did get in a fight, or should we say lucky guy.  Can't say for sure but it looks like he lost the fight, since his flanks took the brunt of the attack, meaning he tried to run away while his opponent kept slashing at him.  Even young and female hippos have scarred backs because hippo society can be a rough place to fit into at times, but they seem to recover well in most cases. This one's wounds seem quite superficial, actually.  Sometimes they kill each other.

We've somehow managed to nearly complete a season in Katavi National Park without writing a single sentence about hippo activity (except for the one that was killed by lions in our mess tent), and that just wouldn't be right.  Katavi is known for hippos as much as anything else.  Maybe that's why we've been writing about anything but, because really, there is so much more in Katavi and hippos have been stealing center stage for too long, but...just couldn't do it.  Had to do a hippo story.  After all, they have provided us with some of our best sightings of the year, albeit mostly in their deaths.

Hyenas eating hippos, crocs eating hippos, lions eating hippos, vultures eating hippos.  They must be very tasty.  But they are also tough, these Katavi hippos.  I believe that if we lifted a fat and happy hippo out of Lake Tanganyika and plopped him into Katavi, he wouldn't survive a month (no offense, Steve and Kiri, I'm sure your hippos are tough too).  But here, despite the near drought conditions they experience for almost three months every year, their number one killer is still each other.  The one being eaten by crocs was killed fighting another hippo.

Males especially like to find a personal mud hole, then defend it, kind of like ladies fighting over time slots at the spa.

Katavi hippos are tough, as I said.  They take the full strength of the sun on their backs, a feat which would kill other hippos in a week.  They walk for miles every night eating dried leaves and...more dried leaves.  They "petition" for a slot in the mud bog among hundreds of packed, mud-caked, parched bodies, often fighting viciously, sometimes to the death.  Even when the rains finally fall and the river flows full again, their fighting just intensifies because they have renewed energy and territories to re-establish and ladies to impress and genes to pass on.

Have a look at the kind of mouth it takes to do what was done to the big hippos above.

Hippos are also capable of tenderness, snuggling, mothering...in case you were beginning to think they are all about violence and strife.

An Elephant by the River

This elephant died in Katavi on January 7th.  We found her where she fell, shot in the shoulder.  She was about 17 years old and as a member of a family group we can assume she was with other elephants who were also shot, or shot at.  She managed to escape and make it as far as the tourism zone of the park, where maybe she knew she would be safer, but it was too late for her.

She must have traveled far, wounded and afraid, undoubtedly traumatised by what she had witnessed and experienced.  Had she died near her attackers, they would have taken her tusks, but she still carried them with her as proof that the poachers did not get what they had come for.

When we went to tell the rangers, they already knew about it, pulling on boots and talking into cell phones and radios.   Six TANAPA (Tanzania National Parks) vehicles descended into the central zone of Katavi.  For two days their air patrols flew overhead, searching.  The phrase needle in a haystack comes to mind, but there is more to be done than searching for men in the bush.

Ivory has to go somewhere.  The market can be traceable, and through these networks it is sometimes possible to find out who is involved.  For example, there sits in prison a powerful man who was the leader of a poaching ring last year.  Appeals as high up as Parliament have gone out for his release, but these have been over-ruled and he still sits in his cell, so we are told.  This is encouraging news, that the effort is being made to fight back...

However, for now, there still lies an elephant by the river...

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Chada is a restful place, especially if you have me as your guide. 

Many camp managers are ex-guides, and I am no exception.  When the need arises and the guides are all busy, I am always ready to jump back in the saddle and ride!  As it turns out, "ex" is a very meaningful prefix.

Something seems to be missing lately.  I seem to have lost that certain je ne sais quoi.  

Whether it was the captivating account of the time a mother warthog charged me to protect her piglets, or the monotone drone of my voice, or the number of times I stopped to show them the bark of the chestnut tree, which I find fascinating, I'll never know. What I do know is that after two hours in the bush with these two lucky Chada guests, I had managed to lull them into some kind of deep catatonia.

I keep telling myself it was something in the food.

Staff Scold Manager!

One of the Chada managers has been reprimanded by one of the Chada housekeepers.  It wasn't Kristen, so...

Monkeys got into the kitchen and ate most of the only paw paw we had left.  There is a rule at Chada camp that the kitchen door must be latched at all times to prevent monkey invasions.  Housekeepers also spend some time working in the kitchen because they prepare coffee and tea boxes for wake-up calls.  This is why Tano, housekeeper extraordinaire, walked into the kitchen, to clean some tea cups, only to find a monkey sitting on the shelf, feasting.

Then he went on a tirade about keeping the doors latched, and Kristen showed up and then I showed up and they all looked at me, as the last one to have been in the kitchen.  Then Kristen started chasing me with a broom and we let Tano scold away at me, which is funny to watch because he was actually frowning.  No idea why this bothered him so much.  It's not as if the paw paw was for him, anyway.

Here's a look at my antagonist.  Don't be fooled by that friendly smile.  He's quite dangerous.

Wounded Buffalo

Today it rained so hard we couldn't hear the words to the old John Wayne classic western, Rainbow Valley, that was playing on our laptop as we took a break after lunch.  I think Kristen was quite relieved when I switched it off.

There's nothing like a flash of lightening and the booming CRACK right over your head when you're in a tent under a big tamarind tree to raise the hair on your arms.  There's just nowhere to go.  It's a feeling that needs to be experienced to increase someone's awe of nature.

More than just wild animals and birdsong and the sun on your face, nature is a powerful beast.  Sometimes after one of these big ones you step outside and feel like a survivor of something hugely catostrophic, then you look around and see the sun and it's all good again.

I think that's how the old bull buff soaking in the river this morning must have felt as well.  Happy to be alive.  He stood up to stare malevolently at the me.  He had some deep wounds on his back and flanks, including cuts at the base of his tail and long red scratch marks down his back.  Lions had tried, and so far failed to bring him down.  His wounds might weaken him to the point he will have to face the pride again, or he may be fortunate enough to heal and live on.

Gone are the days when all biologists scoff at the idea of animals having emotions.  Some still try to hold on to that idea, saying animals don't value their lives, but if you watch them long enough it just doesn't make sense to believe that.  The lengths to which wildilfe will go to survive are incredible.  They do not go down without a fight.  Although the lions were nowhere to be seen that morning, the evidence of their failed attack was obvious and his elevated state of agitation was obvious too.  Everything about him challenged me and anything else to dare to try to bring him down.  He was a survivor, for now, and he was happy to be alive.  That is, as much as a buffalo is capable of being happy.

  

Click to enlarge. One of his wounds is visible on his right flank.