Kilimanjaro Bush Camp – Day 24 – 4/17/11
The morning routine of breakfast, packing lunches, and gathering equipment was the usual rush and WM DR was on our way by 8am. Today we were going to Montikangu Wildlife Sanctuary and we each had to cover 3.24 km2. We took a familiar dirt track back into the community from the main road and crossed into Montikangu. Driving along the track, we were planning how to split groups up to get people as close as possible to their starting points when the car shut off. The cruiser was still moving but the engine was not running. Once we coasted to a stop Chui Kubwa (Shem’s title if you forgot) tried to start the engine numerous times but the engine would never turn over. And so we sat waiting for Ernest to drop the guides and askaris and come back to get us. When he got back to us Chui Kubwa decided that only Kipepeo and Shem n’ Ms should go with Ernest to their start points. Shem-anigans and Gerenux were suppose to go to the other side of the sanctuary and someone from camp was already on their way to fix the cruiser and for Ernest to come all the way back would waste time and gas. Kipepeo was dropped off with our guide for the day Steven and a new askari names Teresa. The walk to our start point was only 700 meters away and an easy walk since the day was clear leaving Kili very visible and the grassland we were walking through had two herds of gazelles and impala, as well as about twenty zebra and seven hartebeest. Most of the habitats we walked through today were open bushland or wooded grassland. There was much more vegetation covering the ground and the shrubs and trees were not browsed to near bareness like yesterday. We were laughing as we counted the wildlife and livestock we spotted as we strolled across the gorgeous areas. We had decided in the cruiser that the whole WM DR would go by the name of Wachezaji which means players. Therefore Ernest (who is badly in need of a DR name) would be the coach with Shem remaining Chui Kubwa and the manager. So now we all had code names to talk to each other on the radio. There were times when we could hear Shem but Shem n’ Ms could not so we got to relay a lot of info back and forth. Our second transect took us directly across a large grassy area and we had terrific visibility on either side so we were able to cover over 2 km2. The last transect went through the middle of someone’s shamba (farm) and we ended up jumping across the deep gullies to complete the transect. The cool part was that this last transect had gone within 300 meters of where our cruisers now stood parked making for an short if difficult walk back to Shem and Ernest due to dense and prickly bush. Back at the cruiser we sat down and ate lunch before beginning the endless task of removing all the prickers and spiny plant parts that had stuck to our pant legs from walking through lots of bush and grass. Loading up we got GPS coordinates from Shem n’ Ms and went in search of them to pick them up. It took us a long time since they were really far out there and the road winds about instead of going in a straight southwest direction like we needed it to. On our way to find Shem-anigans and Gerenux (they had ended close together and walked to meet each other) I was reminded of why seat belts are so important here. Yes the roads are dangerous but in our experience the belts are to keep you down not inside the car. The bumps are so big out here that unless you are driving or in the passenger seat, you will hit your head repeatedly on the unpadded metal roof unless you tightly strap yourself to the seat. Eventually everyone was in the cruiser and we started back to camp. Most people were so tired (the Shem-nanigans climbed a very tall, steep hill three times during their transects) that they fell asleep despite the rough terrain but I listened to my ipod and watched Kili out the window. Wachezaji had another wrap up meeting upon return to camp, planning on making the GIS map for tomorrow’s transects and begin discussing the proposal tonight after dinner. The rest of the afternoon was free with most people doing laundry.
Kilimanjaro Bush Camp – Day 25 – 4/18/11
I was up in good time this morning and managed to make the lunches for our guide and askari and begin gathering all our Kipepeo equipment. It was a good thing I did since Christina came up to me shortly afterwards to tell me she was sick and staying behind today to rest. Wachezaji met for waterfall at 7:30 and we were driving down the road by 8am. Today we were covering the Kilitome Wildlife Sanctuary which is right next to Amboseli National Park. The quadrant Kipepeo was assigned is literally sharing a long border with Amboseli so I was very hopeful we would see lots of animals dispersing from the park. The usual splitting of the groups into two cruisers went smoothly and Jess and I were dropped less than 1 km from the park gate. Today we had Steven as our local guide again and Ramon as our KWS askari. Ramon is older and has been working for KWS since 1983. He is very knowledgeable about wildlife and pointed out all sorts of small things in the bush I was not noticing. We walked about 500 meters northwest to our starting point through much overgrazed areas mostly large dust patches. The nice thing was that there were many paths to walk on which made our progress very quick. Starting our first transect by walking straight east, the bare ground continued and we saw large herds of cattle, shoats, and donkeys. The walking paths and numerous tracks of cars, bicycles, and motorbikes gave further proof of heavy utilization by the local people. Besides the domestic animals, we saw impala, two giraffes, and Grant’s gazelles. Unfortunately we did not continue on this transect for very long because a family of elephants were getting a bit close and our askari insisted we turn and go around them. We walked north for about 1km to create a buffer and began our second transect. By now we had left the cluster of local houses far behind, and were in true bushland. On this transect we saw another gathering of Grant’s gazelles, zebras, a single wildebeest, and lion tracks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Crossing this were elephant prints so we were able to look very closely at both of these. Ramon told us the lion tracks had probably been made this morning while the elephant tracks had probably been made within the last 4 hours. Our second transect was really long so on our third transect we only needed to cover about 500 meters since we had such long ranges of visibility. It was only 11:30 and we were finished! We headed for a shady tree and tried to radio call the rest of Wachezaji. We were so far out that only Gerenux could hear us and they relayed our message to Chui Kubwa. Under our chosen tree we plopped down in between the roots and ate our lunch while a beautiful giraffe slowly walked across the open area and disappeared into the dense bush where another giraffe was browsing on acacia leaves. The temperature in the shade was perfect and we had a slight breeze every now and again to cool us off. We drank lots of water and waited while Steven talked to Shem on his cell phone. It was decided that Arnest (Yeah I found out this afternoon I have been misspelling his name as Ernest) would come get us if we would walk the 1 km to a rough dirt track. Well rested this was fine and we set off. Earlier Ramon had discovered Jess’s ipod, and been fascinated by it. SO now Steven, Jess, myself, and Ramon were walking through thick dense bush singing Bon Jovi and Cher songs while surrounded by about a dozen perplexed giraffes. It was easy to walk toward the car since it threw up a huge dust cloud and we just aimed for that. The other askaris and guides were in the crusier and made room for us to pile in. We joined the other groups under another tree where Shem held a short meeting. Due to some personal family business he was leaving for a few days starting on Wednesday so he wanted to thank everyone now and take a group picture. The picture was a bit interesting to manage. Being a bright clear day we wanted Kili in the background but this put the sun in our eyes. Also how to get everyone in it? Well we decided we didn’t care about the sun and Nicky luckily has a timer on his fancy camera. He opened a roof hatch, borrowed Liz’s lunch Tupperware and zoomed in on everyone (we were already assembled) as much as possible, turned on the timer and scrambled out of the back seat and raced to get into the picture within the ten seconds the timer allowed. It was pretty funny but the two pictures we took looked pretty good. We drove back to camp and were the first DR back. Sitting on the porch chatting and sewing were two girls none of us knew. They turned out to be SFS alumni (one from fall ’08 and the other from spring ’09) that were visiting for a few days here at camp. Caitlin (’09) is currently managing a research project in northern Kenya on Blue Monkey social behavior. Mary (’08) just finished working at an orphanage. We had our usual wrap up meeting while removing as many pirckers and stickers from our pants and socks as possible. Tomorrow is non-program day so my feet will get a small break from walking and there will be opportunities to go to the market.
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