the cobra and the red toad

We have been travelling and static, busy and idle, social and solitary, content, conflicted and then contemplative, and lo the time passes.  There is a whisper of winter in the air although we have had some late summer showers.  The tadpoles in the waterholes have all become little active frogs and somehow manage to find their way into our house at night.  I spend a good hour every evening trying to catch them and put them out side, feeling a little like the Flintstones ejecting that dinosaur to no avail.

But my motivation is snakes.  They follow the trails of the happy little frogs, and I am not mad about snakes in the house - especially at night.

So yesterday there was a mozambique spitting cobra in the kitchen. We didnt have time to catch it as we had to go out, but we left all the doors open and hoped it would find its own way. When we got back, there it was on the stoep.  It had obviously zapped a red toad who was lying there with one leg sticking out.  The snake moved away when i came outside but soon came back to claim its kill.

There is something grotesquely fascinating about watching a snake swallow a prey item that is way way bigger than its own head. So i thought i would share a few pictures with you.  Not all the pictures are sharp - sorry - but I hope you can see enough to get the story.  The cobra is about 1 meter long.

(Not for the squeamish)

approaching the problem

the snakes body is very active at this point, and the tip of his tail keeps seeking for cracks and crevices in the wall behind

however sideways was never going to work

manouvering around to a more manageable position

head first and the swallowing begins; the snakes body is more calm now

down the hatch all the way to the pelvic region

the last view of the toes before the licking of lips commences

bon appetit!

Sunday

python vine and termite mound

Sunday afternoon. The heavy heat is broken at last by the pounding strength of an electrical storm. The air is cool and fresh and water lies in pools on the ground reflecting a grey sky.  The air is now pungent with smells - ozone rich, with a hint of damp soil and kraal manure. Green leaves pump out oxygen and the giraffe resume browsing on the hebaclada bushes.  During the storm they stood straight up. I wondered if they were ever struck by lightening.  Ostriches, I know, tend to sit down and lay their long necks on the ground during a lightening storm.

The storm has moved on accross lake Zibidianja towards the spillway.  Distant crumping sounds trail in its wake.  The rain was gentle this time when it came. It was calming, cooling, soporific. It made me want to lie down and snooze. So instead I am making tea, eating a shortbread biscuit (from the stash reserved for visitors) and thinking about the storm. This too shall pass - the squashing heat, the turgid air, the lazy bones - and it has.

this acacia tree has been visited over the years by elephants

particularly the young elephants that like to eat the bark

it reminds me of those lovely drawings by Arthur Rackham entwining tree spirits and fantastic creatures

an imagination running free

sunday parkoff

under cover of darkness

Last night I couldn't sleep. Insomnia ruled the moonlit hours. The candles were not enough to read by, nor was the moonlight.  I lay and listened to the soft night noises. There it was - a gentle sporadic swishing of grass. Another  sound  like a canvas sail unfurling.  I sat up quietly and stepped through the mosquito net onto the creaking floorboards.  Moving as quietly as possible - trying to remember which were the noisy floorboards i made my way out onto the deck. Just below where i stood, a young bull elephant was grazing on bunches of lush grass, swishing them against the ground to loosen any earth or unwanted sticks.  With the wind in my favour i stood and watched him slowly move along, the moonlight washing the skin on his back with silver.

Further along the floodplain there were more dark shapes, both large and small. A breeding herd of elephants had moved into the island of trees under cover of darkness to reap the harvest of shrubs and herbs that they cannot access in daylight because people live here.  In the dead of night they can move in peace.

Recently I subscribed to receive newsletters from a group called www.elephantnews.org  if you would like to sign up contact groo@elephantnews.org  Every news report that involves elephants in Africa and Asia lands in your mailbox.  I had to unsubscribe from the Asia list purely because the tsunami of news reports was overwhelming.  Elephants truly are newsworthy!

Yet most of the news is saddening;  elephants killed by poachers here, and there, in their hundreds.   Crateloads of ivory from poached elephants are uncovered in major sea ports and airports across east and southern Africa.  These tons and tons of blood ivory, lead to houses full of ivory processing machines and more and more cases for shipment. All destined for China and the Chinese market.

It leads me to wonder if there is still room for free ranging elephants amidst our land hungry species.

Tonight the elephants are moving further into the forest, content with their moonlight browsing. By morning they will be gone.

storm breaking

The air is like an oven door open - a steam oven.  Normal activities like walking from A to B are like swimming in invisible water.  The white heat from the sun chases us into the shadows. Everything is still, waiting, slow.  Even the monkeys hang in the trees, watching us through heavy lidded eyes. Tails hanging, limbs hanging loosely mingling with the branches.   A loop of vine makes a convenient arm chair in which to snooze. I envy them their ability to climb and live in a tree. There is no coolness - everything i touch is too warm.

Late afternoon and the softest baby breath of a breeze touches my arm. Distant sounds like someone walking across a wooden floor could be thunder. We watch the sky hopefully. A few downy soft cumulus clouds loom behind the house. In the west a dark smudge of sky draws slowly closer.

elephant crossing the road in heavy rainstorm

As darkness falls, a quick flash of light that could have been a torch, flits past the window.  We wait and watch.  There is another, and another. Definitely lightening. A few seconds later, the sound of celestial furniture removals confirm our hopes. Here it comes.

No soft pitter patter this time. The rain comes hard and fast, strobe lit by lightening and celebrated by a triumphant percussion section.  Delicious, mouth watering, skin tingling cool ozone packed air, swirls into our lives and around our sweat caked skin. Body temperature normalises and lethargy slips off our shoulders like a heavy blanket.  It makes you want to dance - truly. Get out there and splash some mud around. But this time we content ourselves with watching the light show that skitters all around us.

nothing to do with this post really

just a lovely sunset visit with a peaceful elephant

the moon in leo

There was a full moon a couple of nights ago. A big amber cheddar coloured beaming thing that climbed steadily up the trees and high into the dark sky.  I learnt recently that each full moon, in the northern hemisphere at least, has a different name. February's full moon is called Wolf Moon, or Hunger Moon, implying deep midwinter, long cold nights and food supplies running low. Keep the wolf from the door until spring ok?

Here in the southern hemisphere we could also have names for the full moon. Every full moon could be called Poachers Moon anyhow, as the monochrome daylight that the moon illuminates our world with, makes it so much easier to get around at night for those with poaching intent. Farmers and Game Scouts across the continent are often sleepless at full moon, for more than biorhythmic reasons.

How does the full moon treat you? I am always spell bound with wonder and feel a deep kinship. It irks me to think of miscreants poking about for water and minerals up there. Surely somethings should be sacrosanct? will future generations look at the moon and see smokestacks?

This month the moon is in Leo.  The constellation of Leo will follow the moon across the night sky, if only we could see it.   We were woken by lions calling as they travelled through the koppies.  In the morning we found their tracks - clear imprints in the soft brown sand.

Rain Check

adventure map full of potential

A week later and our world is drying up fast. The waterfalls around the house finally ceased to flow yesterday. The mud is still saturated and slippery, but the plant life is flourishing and the early sunlight glows through a festival of green.

flooded road to Machampane

Sadly we had to call a rain check on our planned adventure to a remote bush camp in mozambique but in the Kruger Park, repairs are in progress at camps, and roads.  Rivers and streams are babbling brooks innocently sparkling in the sunlight as if they would never ever dream of that outrageous behaviour they showed us all last week. The only telling signs are the vegetation detritis hanging high in the branches of bushes on either bank.

bushbuck in Letaba camp

At Letaba camp it is business as usual and the border post to Mozambique is open again.  We drove through to Massingir with our friends from NYC - as a compromise and to make up for our mudshyness. Looking at the pools and wetlands on either side of the road confirmed our decision.

women with fish on their heads walking the Massingir Dam wall

The Massingir Dam was full of the brown water that flowed through SA in the past week.  As we arrived all the sluice gates were open. We drove around the small township and finally came to rest at a hotel type place with a view of the Dam. The warm aroma of bat guano seems to emanate from every place with a ceiling here but the ambiance was friendly and there were some ice cold beers.  

Massingir Dam swollen with floodwaters

tiny fishing rowboat center right, between island and shore

We had booked into some self contained chalets at the Park Entry gates - charming log cabins with thatch roofs and gauze windows.  The midday was sweltering hot . We decided to investigate the back roads a bit, and visit the other camp site and lodge.  The back road had been little used by anything other than cattle and firewood sleighs since the rains. Some villages had ploughed their new lands over the tracks, and another had sited their football pitch right across what was once the road. So its not suprising really that we missed the turn to the camp site.

the notch on the tusk suggests this elephant uses his right hand tusk for most of the work

Our evening drive  became rather longer than planned but we did see one bull elephant and some lovely woodland scenery. The sun was setting and we had forgotten to pack the cool box, so all aboard became a little quiet and focussed until we found the main road back to camp. There was a moment of tension when I thought I had lost the keys, but soon all were smiling again and the night sky was clear and spangled with those glorious stars.

beauty in the eye of the beholder

Rumour has it there is another tropical storm or cyclone off the east coast but so far we are looking at clear blue skies.

Letaba Camp view

flood water fun

A tropical storm blew in two days ago from mozambique. It rained so much that our world became a moat around the house. The rain guage overflowed so we don't have accurate figures, but we have had more than 200mls rain in 24 hours.  At first it was calming, cozy to watch the rain from a dry house - and above all else it was cool after the melting heat. 

 We slept to rain hammering on our tin roof. In the morning we were surrounded with babbling brooks, waterfalls, and torrents of clear water gushing out of the koppies behind the house. When you live in a seasonal rainfall area, you can never be sure when or if it will rain. Even if you are not a farmer, you keep a wary eye on the landscape and see when it is suffering, parched and dry. There is always rejoicing when rain falls. And when it is heavy enough to make dry rivers fill with flash floods it is exciting to go and see what is happening.

So there we were, driving into Kruger Park with the rain slashing down - into the eye of the storm.  Every tiny creek and crease in the landscape was pumping milky brown water under and over the road;  sheets of water lay on open plains forming a miniscus at the roadside waiting to tip. In places it had tipped but  was shallow enough to drive through.  In other places the water had lifted platlets of tar off the road surface as if they were scales. They lay in tumbled jigsaw pieces on the verge.

Waterholes we know that are traditionally serene pools of reflections and hippo heads, were transformed into swollen angry forces, storming over their dam walls, and racing in furious frothy torrents over rocks and between the dark wood trees.

We made it through to Letaba camp. In the restaurant, groups of sodden looking tourists gazed glumly at the torrential scene. We snapped pics and revelled in the excitement of watching the river rise. In 2000, the river flooded right into the restaurant area - for now it was still well under control.

We decided to head home. In that short time, the river had crossed the small bridge on our exit road and was rolling and tumbling through the gorge with great gusto.  A tortoise washed up on the edge of the fray. It was being caught by the waves that swirled in from the rocks.  I broke the rules and lifted him to higher ground. It was the cleanest tortoise i have ever seen.But we could no longer cross the bridge so we turned back to Letaba camp to wait for the water levels to subside. Sometimes Africa just makes you wait, and it always reminds you who is in ultimate control of the situation. These days its not just Africa that does this.

Back in Letaba the water had flooded into the parking area to the extent that normal sedan cars could not drive through certain areas.  Things were changing fast, and still the rain came slashing down.  The best thing to do is stop and wait so we did. Strangers started chatting, sharing road reports. We heard that the road south was closed, and the road north was blocked by floodwaters. 

After lunch we tried again. Luckily for us the floodwaters had dropped below the bridge and, although the crash barriers were torn and twisted over the road, we were able to drive through. 

We made it home through the rain slashed park.  But this wasnt enough. We decided to drive to the Olifants River to see the floods there. Rayson came with us this time.  I love how, in this area, all the locals turn out to look at a flooded river. Even the police were there taking pictures with their cell phones.  The brown swirling waters raced under the road bridge carrying huge tree trunks and debris that now and again thunked into the bridge supports.  Rayson is our man about the place.  He  thought we were mad to stop on the bridge and headed straight for the other side to watch from there. He had a point.   Watching the racing flood waters certainly made you feel dizzy and sick.  We saw a hippo out of the water on the other side and wondered if the marooned trees were full of snakes.

Back home we decided to quickly check if the lions were still on the open lands.  We drove along the fence line and slipped into a mushy hole of mud.  We were instantly stuck!   Having assessed the situation we decided not to dig due to the waterlogged soil, but rather to walk home and fetch the other vehicle and pull this one out.  It was about a two kilometer walk and I tried hard not to think about the two rangy male lions we had seen just that morning.   Rayson found a terapin turtle on the road, and there was a giant African land snail moving slowly along.   The road was a delta of  flowing streams and pools.  

We picked up the other vehicle and returned to the fence line.  A tow rope was hooked up but the road was way too slippery and the other vehicle was just too stuck .  Traction was not happenning.

We reversed to try and approach from the other side and lo, this vehicle also sank into the mud.  After numerous attempts to dig and push, and put logs under tyres we decided to walk home again before it got too dark to leave.  Now we must wait for the road to dry out even a little, and try again.