Bush Life Continues...
“Whoever you are…the
world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese.”
~Mary Oliver
 |
| A Herd of Elephants |
I’ve been busy photographing at all hours of the day, the
landscape, birds, animals & people that call Thanda its home. Critiques
& post production with editing also plays a big part of the days. Of course
there’s the community days where we go out to the community to dig waterholes
for the animals along with clearing roads with machetes. Also, reaching out to
the local schools over in Mkuze to interact with kids. Internationalization at
its finest. Funny, how I see similarities when I taught in Japan on how
curiosity the kids are. There’s still the daily struggle of using the internet
& making sure that it’s fast enough to do what you need to do on it.
This past weekend, I went down to St Lucia, which is about
an hour and half drive away from Thanda.
It was nice to escape “home” for like 48 hours. “Rio de Areias de Ouro” (River of the
sand of gold) as was named back in 1554 by survivors of a Portuguese ship Saint
Benedict. The village is nested between the Indian Ocean & the St Lucia
Estuary & is the only private village that is surrounded by a World
Heritage Site. I basically spent
the weekend chilling out, eating delicious seafood, catching up on sleep &
exploring. I discovered the beach that is about a 40 minutes walk from the
village. As I was walking along Beach Road, I felt like it was a never ending
journey. Once I got there, I decided to hike over the sand dunes to the ocean.
The dunes weren’t as bad as the ones in Baja or the Pinnacles, but they were
great. I enjoyed watching the waves crash along the shore along with the fauna
& textures of the dunes.
Sometimes with the wildlife you think that you’re going to
get snuck until you see the thing that you’re seeking. On my night drive this week;
I was feeling that with the creatures of the night not being so active until
suddenly our guide spotted a leopard. I did get to see the leopard, however it
was a wee bit tricky to photograph tho. I did spot the Southern Cross at night
& surprised my guide this week that I knew where “south” was. One of my
other highlights of the week is seeing the most delicious red vibrant sunrise.
Ah, I was in heaven recharging my chakras with the golden radiant life force
energy of the sun. I had a lovely
adventure to Jozini as well. We went on a boat looking for whatever the days
brought us. Elephants, warthogs, ostriches, buffalo & hippos were the
sittings. Overall it has been heavenly & the adventure keeps on unfolding…
