Primate Rehabilitation Center

For the kids break, we traveled to South Africa, near the town of Tzaneen, to a primate rehab center.  It was a week of long hours, hard work,  and some hardships. No one ate until the annals did.  We had to polish and clean everything, every day (even the pigs water and food bowl?).  The place was run by an old school South African Boer, with many interesting and, often shocking,  opinions. HE made a few of the volunteers cry!  Nights were hot in our cottage, which was full of insects (to include scorpions!).  One volunteer even found a sitting cobra on her bed one night. They shot it with a rife,  leaving blood and guts on the wall and sheets!  The kids were scared to go to the bathrooms, which were full of flying bugs, and opted to go in the bush.  Regardless, they woke up each day ready to work, and play.  They really loved playing with the animals. I was so proud of their attitudes and hard work!

Here we are enjoying a lunch beneath a fragrant tree on the way to the rehab center. I will not turn the narrative over to Shayne. 

I never knew rehabilitation could be so complicated. Anyway, here's what happened.  When we arrived at the rehabilitation center, (which took about five hours, more or less.) we where greeted by dogs, and the sounds of monkeys. We were given a tour and then went to bed. (We arrived fashionably late.)

Doug and I are sitting to the side of the pool. Just clarifying.

Apparently, I was really lucky to have a monkey use me like a taxi cab from the pool. (The baboon's name was Irenie.)

 When the morning chores where done, (more about that later.) we took the baboons to the pool. (To swim obviously.) The funniest thing was that the baboons either jumped in, or were pushed in.

Here I am with a Boerboel named Penny. Pretty cute right?

After a few more chores, we had dinner. On Saturday and Sunday, we had a braai, (an African BBQ) and potjie. (You put meat and vegetables in a pot, and then stewed them? Whatever it was, it was GOOD!)

Potjie

Braai.

 Anyway, on to the chores! There were enough to go around. Twice. No, three times. You get the idea. The one below is Food Prep. Where you make the food for not just the monkeys, the ostriches, donkeys, and chickens too. You chopped, de-seeded, and sorted the food.

In the one below, I'm just filling up water. nothing special.

This one was my least favorite. Cleaning Monty. It originally housed a python, (hence the name) but now it houses baboons. We cleaned it for a majority of our time at Riverside. Even before we left. To make a long and boring story short, It was something I was looking forward to leave behind. Lots of stinky, monkey poo!

                                   

No, I didn't cut my hair no matter how many times Dad hints it. I just tucked it in my shirt.

This one was part of Food Prep, harvesting. Actually, it was quite easy. You could just cut any plant. Not a specific one. Downside? Blazing heat. Jealous much? I thought not.

On Sunday, most of the volunteers, (including us) went touring around. Doug soon became famous because of his bargaining skills. Soon people were asking him to haggle for them (for a fee!)

This is God's Window apparently. It's supposed to have fog, so it looks like it's above the clouds.

(Douglas is holding Robin, a baby samango monkey.) 

This is the pool. Only a bit of it though. 

Oh, by the way, that shirt is not Doug's. It's a "poo shirt" just in case the baboons... Yeah.

Before/After Lunch was "Animal Time". You could (as we did) go into the Georgie cage, with the baby monkeys and just play and snuggle them. The only downside there, was that a vervet monkey named Toby bit, very hard. The worst thing about that? You couldn't even say "Ow".  You just had to suffer in silence. I got bitten four times by Toby. But I can't complain. Doug got bitten by a baboon at the pool and didn't make a sound. They didn't call him "Ironman" for nothing.

This is Kalisi. You know Robin? The baby monkey? She will grow up to look like that.

Personally, I liked Kalisi best. She loved my "Pajama Pants" (as Dad calls them) And would run in and out of them. She also fell asleep in them. I was sorry to disturb her when I had to get up and eat lunch.

A story of Blossom's ill fated friendship. As a baboon, she was making signs of friendship, (hugging, and flicking her tongue to say hello.) but to Kalisi, a samango, it was not seen that way.  

(Kalisi is in my pants. a favorite hiding spot.)

This is Doug grooming Barney/Blossom, (I can't tell) with Kalisi having a snooze on his lap.

The one on Doug's face is Angel. (A vervet, like Toby.) She's not a baby, but she was rejected by both introduction cages.  She is a very nice, lonely monkey. Pretty sad.

Doug and his mates, Penny, Duke, and Impy. They loved to wait for him in the morning. 

(Personally I agree with the sign but that's just me...)

Now do you still think rehabilitation is easy? If so, reread the whole blog again until you change your mind. We were sad to leave, but celebrated with a huge lunch, milkshakes and air conditions!

Iceland

So we decided to give Iceland another go.  This time in the Autumn. Since we are studying the Vikings, and Earth Science, it seemed like the thing to do. 

It truly is an awe-inspiring landscape. It feels so raw and new. It also feels so wet!  It rained almost everyday.  It made for a cold, soggy trip.  And we are coming from Ireland!

But when the sun did shine, it made for amazing rainbows.  Even Double Rainbows. 

To complicate matters,  we were in a cold, wet camper van.  However, we made it work.  It is a big place, with lots to see. The camper van seemed like the right solution at the time. 

Lots of long, expansive, empty roads. 

So, accompanied by moisture, rotten socks and the smell of mildew, we spent our days wandering the southern coast.  

 We especially liked Vik, a town on the southernmost tip of the county.

We spent one night here, relaxing in the community hot tub and sauna.  (We also used their shower and bathrooms!)  You can see our van in the bottom right corner above. We thought we would meet lots of interesting locals at the community center, but it turned out everyone we met was from outside Iceland.

The next day we woke up and explored a nearby black volcanic beach.

 The waves were powerful and fast, offering the kids a welcome break to play and run.

 Of course they both got their shoes and socks wet (again).  I have never seen such a black beach!

This particular beach is also home to a unique formation of hexagonal interlocking basalt rocks (much like Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland). The result of an ancient volcanic eruption.

However, the sun was out, so we decided to move on while we had the chance, and explore some nearby glaciers and waterfalls.  Did I mention there were a lot of waterfalls?

Because there were. 

 Lots of them. 

One mountain had so many waterfalls - I lost count!

With the waterfalls, came rainbows. They were everywhere.

Even coming out of my son's mouth!  

etc...

 And then you had the glaciers (the source of all the waterfalls).  Actually, we just saw two massive glaciers (one is the largest in Europe).  

 They were impressive. 

We started to hike to the base of one, but came across a man who had just slipped and fallen to his death.  They were still trying to preform CPR when we arrived.

It was quite traumatic for everyone there.  In a somber mood, we slowly turned back and carefully made our way to the car. A reminder of how fragile life can be. 

On a different day, we traveled to a lake full of icebergs, calved from a glacier nearby. 

We brought our Brazilian au pair Amanda, who is living with us while studying English. She was a great sport in the cold, crowded camper!

On either side of the lake were endless barren moraines. 

To make the site even more intriguing, the lake ran right into the ocean.  This meant that smaller bits of ice littered the shore. 

Battered by the relentless waves. 

The ice chunks were really striking, contrasting with the pure black sand surrounding them. 

In some areas the sand stretched as far as the eye could see.  

Of course in other areas, further removed from Iceland's volcanic past, the country was as green as Ireland.  

In fact, because of the lack of trees, they used to build their houses and churches with grass and turf. This is one of only six remaining turf roof churches in the country.

 In other areas, delicate Autumn tundra,  bursting with color, covered the ground.  

 However, it seemed that just below the shallow layer of topsoil, there were rocks. Lots and lots of rocks.

 This being Iceland, you might also find hot scalding water under your feet. This land is truly alive.

 Geysers, bubbling, spurting, and exploding help provide Iceland with a cheap and green source of energy. 

They also make for fun pictures. Unlike Old Faithful, these ones are not regular.  So everyone sits around waiting, camera's in hand!

On the second to last day we traveled to Thingvellir. This is an important political landmark (the original settlers held their first 'Parliment' here, between 930 -1798 AD) but more important to us, it is an fault and fissure zone. 

This is part of the great Mid-Atlantic range, slowing pulling apart.  This is where the American tectonic plate is slowly drifting away from the Eurasian tectonic plate.

The land is literally spreading apart and growing below you. What an amazing place to study plate tectonics!  We are just glad no one fell into the abyss.  I understand this is the land of trolls!  Who knows what is lurking down there.

And with that, we piled up in the camper van, placing wet socks and shoes under a heater vent, and made our way back to civilization.