Week 1 (sort of)

The first week of my internship adventure in South Africa went amazingly already… storm Ciara held The Netherlands in an iron grip which lead to my flight to London (I had a connecting flight) to be cancelled. Due to this I couldn’t arrive at the Mogalakwena Research Centre at the planned date of February 11th. Luckily getting a different flight went smoothly and before I knew it (Thursday the same week) I was on my way to South Africa, my new home for the next 21 weeks.

The flights went pretty well (very long though) and there I was: Polokwane Airport. This airport was the pick-up point for me and a friend I made on my study who was also going to Mogalakwena. Tanja, the lead researcher, picked us up from the airport and after putting our luggage in the “Bakkie” (Afrikaans word for a pick-up truck) we went to the Polokwane mall. At the mall we met up with two of the other 3 students that were currently in the research center: Toni from the U.K. and Romkje from the Netherlands. After a nice lunch and coffee we went grocery shopping for the next week . Having done that we went on to the next leg of the trip: 2 hours drive to the Mogalakwena River Lodge. Our “Bush Camp” is located right next to the Lodge. Eventually having arrived here, we met the last 2 people that shared the camp with us for the time being: Quirinda, another intern from the Netherlands and Grietjie, the research assistant and game driver. This was our 6 man club for the time being.

Friday was started with the weekly student meeting where all the interns share the results from the last week with each other. Not long after we went on a “welcome game drive” that all interns receive when they arrive at the research center. On this drive we saw our first (and what seems to be some of the many) giraffes, blesbok and impalas. This reserve doesn’t have the “Big-5” in it so we won’t be seeing these here!

On Saturday we went track searching with Grietjie in the morning on which we found tons of tracks from all different kinds of animals like ostriches and giraffes. I also spotted a Hinge Back Tortoise (apparently pretty rare) and a baby Leopard Tortoise. The Hinge Back Tortoise is pretty special as it can slightly bend the rear part of it’s shell down when he’s retracted it’s hind legs to protect them even further.

On Sunday we went to “Sunset Tower”, a small tower on a hill in the very corner of the reserve to watch the sunset (who would’ve thought). The sunset was very beautiful as the sun disappeared behind the mountains in the distance. When we headed back we did a little night drive, where the chances of spotting carnivores is way higher than in the day as most carnivores are nocturnal. Looking for the animals with our flashlights, we woke up some Waterbuck (sorry!) and we spotted some impalas, disguised as a herd of green eyes in the dark and the centerpiece of attention: an Aardwolf! The first carnivore of the internship has been spotted! Apparently seeing an Aardwolf is a rare occurrence as well!

With Sunday rounded up, we head into the next week where I start exploring my choices for research projects!