Welcome To Lajuma

We reached park station nice and early (7am) and chilled waiting for the 8 am bus, at 8:30 a person came to talk to us and said the driver had not turned up to work that morning and wasn't sure how long it would take, he said it would take 15 minutes. 3 hours later we were eventually on the bus on the way to Louis Trichardt.

All the way the scenery was the same, Savannah woodland punctuated with singular purple trees, what suppressed me the most was when the bus stopped about 3 hours out of Johannesburg it was Hot, compared to within Johannesburg which I found actually pretty cold… this is the weather I expected. I was so happy to reach the camp after  60 minute drive along tarmac roads and then 30 minute drive down a dirt track (I would say road but that would be overstating it greatly), bouncing all over the place bruising everything, it was only 7.5km down the road. When I got to camp I saw my house… well tent, my house for the next 9 months is a huge safari tent.

My home for 9 months

The first day in camp after arriving the night before at 9pm at night, we had an introductory talk and learnt techniques involved in phonology the study of trees, on the walk we heard rustling in the trees and after investigating we found scar and his troop of samango monkeys.

Scar looking handsome as usual

As we got back to camp there was a leopard tortoise chilling by my tent. 

 

Hello Mr Tortoise 

The second day we had a health and safety briefing letting us know what to do if we bump into a leopard in the bush, the key is apparently to make yourself visible and back away slowly. After we took a GPS and headed out alone into the bush to find trees for phonology, I heard rustling and after a while of staring into the dense bush seeing nothing, out of the corner of my eye, a pair of warthogs stumbled into view just ten meters away.

The next morning I was woken at 7 by our troop of 80 baboons clambering over the tents, taking the phrase wildlife on your door step to a whole new level. Later I was informed that I was going to be working with these baboons and it will be hard work.

I woke up at 4am to find the baboons, during the hike, we saw eyes looking at us from the side of the road, as we got closer we realized they were 5 lesser bush baby’s staring us in the eye. 

We reached the sleeping site at 6:00 am ready for the baboons to wake up, What a stunning view to have our morning coffee.

Looking down on sleeping sites 13 and 14

At around 7:30 am we finally found the baboons, they were lazy as it was a cooler day. It was so amazing to be surrounded by so many gorgeous animals including a mother and baby, the baby being hours old, Fat Face who seems to be an amazing first time mother came up to us and showed us her infant, who we promptly named funny face.

Proud new mother Fat Face and her baby Funny Face

After a few hours they disappeared down a cliff we could not follow, so we ended the day. Just following them for a few hours I realized that I am going to get so fit as following the baboons over rocky ground at almost a running pace for 12 hours a day 3 days a week

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