16 - Costa Ricans and Cattle

28 Aug 2010

Dirkie’s been back for a few days now, and it’s so nice to have her back. The new lot of hunters are here, a group of 6 Costa Ricans. They are so funny and entertaining to be around, but it’s very crowded here. Tokkie brought in 3 extra PH’s to handle the overload, and David’s been busy nonstop. His client, whose name I’m still not sure of, is a tall, slender, older man who’s always smiling no matter what happens. However, he’s not much of a walker so David’s been sitting with him in the blinds every day, all day. Doesn’t exactly make for great footage, so I’ve been doing more loafing.

Today was the day we were supposed to get started on the last sweep through the cattle but. . . . .

Last night round about 3 am some fool decided to sneak into David’s client’s room and make off with his pants and his wallet. So the whole ranch is being turned upside down to try and root out the culprit. Unfortunately the client didn’t tell anyone until 7-ish this morning, so whoever it is has a pretty decent head start. So the cattle will have to wait until Monday. Oh well.

On a good note, we’ve been having more warm days than cold, although it means that the greenery is more like greyery and brownery now. The 3 extra PH’s here are great fun to be around, always joking and telling stories and fooling around. One of them was attacked by a wounded leopard a while back, and he has the footage on his computer. Verrrrry scary. Luckily he was not seriously injured, but it was a scary sight.

1 Sep 2010

The Costa Ricans are still here. Seems like more things are being wounded than killed, but at least they are having a good time. I’ve been going out to the cattle during the day with Tokkie and straightening out all the tags and making sure I have the right information on all of them. Time-consuming, but it means the end is near woohoo!!

Tokkie was busy one day and we weren’t going to be able to do anything with the cattle so I went out hippo hunting with one of the temporary PH’s and his client. It was a wonderfully hot day, I am SO glad the weather is warm. And it seems like it will be this way for a while. Spent the whole day walking and walking and walking. The client shot at and missed the hippo, so we spent more time walking to try and find the thing, which had mysteriously vanished from the lake after getting a real fright. Other than that, the most excitement we had that day was when one of the trackers nearly stepped on the tail of a 5-ish foot long snake. Screamed like a little girl! Got a little sunburned, a little sore, but it was nice to be outside filming again.

We’ve been without power for a few days, so haven’t been on the internet too much. I’ll use that as my excuse for not writing for so long. David’s client wounded a kudu last night, so he’s out there today with one of the dogs and half a dozen trackers trying to find the thing. From the footage it looked like it was a very nice one so they’re hoping to recover it. Also, it’s just not nice to let animals wander around in the bush with bullet holes in them.

I guess we’ve reached the stage where life here has become fairly normal, because I really can’t think of anything exciting or out of the ordinary to relate. Or maybe that’s the result of not writing often enough, who knows. Either way, will try to have something exciting to say next time!