Windy Day in the Karoo

Today we all woke up at 7:30, had some breakfast, and then half of us went to do some land rehab, and the other half, which I was in, went on a nice long walk to see how many Vervet monkey troops are along the river. It was a very windy day, which is never good when you are trying to find animals, since the tend to smell you from far away, and run off. After our walk, we had some lunch, and then some of the group went to walk around with the Vervet monkey people, while my group went to track down Sabella. While we were walking through the thick brush trying to find her, we ran smack into a huge male White Rhino. The wind was blowing right at us, so he didn’t smell us before we got to him. Luckily we startled him so much that he just bolted through few trees and ran off. It startled all of us, and unfortunately I couldn’t even get a picture of him because he ran off so fast. We searched for Sabella for 3 hours, and couldn’t find even though we were getting decent signal at some spots. I think since the wind was blowing in her direction, she was able to smell us and wasn’t in the mood to be followed, so she just kept walking away. We tried tracking her again once we got in the car, and Alwyn thinks she is heading up the mountain to give birth to her cubs. I hope she has her cubs soon, because I’m leaving Samara next Saturday. So crazy I’ve been here for almost 6 weeks…