Entry #031: Tuesday, August 27, 2013 (Johannesburg, South Africa)

I wish I had a scarf I could throw over my shoulder, because if there was ever an appropriate time to say "And that's the end of that chapter," this is it. Yes, after eight legitimately amazing weeks, I am no longer doing the Askari Wilderness Conservation Program. Final thoughts in the entry proper, but right now I'm back with Lynn, my Johannesburg CounchSurfing host, and tomorrow I'll be hopping on a train to go to Cape Town. Lemme tell ya, it never ends. Well, not until April.

Entry #030: Friday, August 23, 2013 (Pidwa Wilderness Reserve, South Africa)

Well, it sure has been a hot week here, in more ways than one! Actually, mainly just one...fire. And lots of it. My last week at the Pidwa Reserve has been a fairly eventful one overall, though, with the prescribed burning of a portion of the reserve being a major part of it. And as part of that, I had probably the single most exciting (and somewhat surreal) moment of the entire trip thus far. Also, there are nachos involved. So, going out with a bang and all that jazz! Let's get started, shall we?

Entry #029: Saturday,August 17 2013 (Pidwa Wilderness Reserve, South Africa)

So, I think I can safely say at this point that my whole "let's post a short blog every night" plan for my time at Askari has been a sound failure. Honestly, if we didn't have as much time as we do on weekends, I don't know if I'd be able to even give you the weekly updates. But that's good, because it means the days (and nights) are full. And Lord Almighty, was that true this week. In some ways, it seems like the week rushed by, and yet still managed to be really long. Lots of things happening, so let's get to it!

Entry #028: Saturday, August 10, 2013 (Pidwa Wilderness Reserve, South Africa)

I'm gonna level with ya, folks. I'm not much in the mood for doing much writing at the moment. I think it's been a combination of having multiple late nights waiting for a brown hyena to enter an enclosed are (which means long-hours, no talking or moving, and then coming back and needing to go to bed), uploading more of my travel pictures, and a general bit of lethargy. I guess you could say in some regards, I've just not been in the mood this week. So, apologies, but I'm going to cheat a little bit today by combining some quick what-we-do's with some metapost information. Yay!

Entry #027: Saturday, August 3, 2013 (Pidwa Wilderness Reserve, South Africa)

Wow, has it been nearly a week already? Time can seriously fly around here. Though to be honest, the main reason I haven't had any updates in all this time is because I've been doing updates in another way - posting pictures to my Facebook account. Now, this may seem like the worst excuse, but keep in mind, we're not talking a couple pictures - we're talking upwards of over a thousand when all is said and done. And then take into consideration that it's a slow upload speed here, and then take into consideration the fact that I need to (or at the very least, should) write captions for each of them, and then take into consideration the fact that sometimes Facebook messes up, forcing me to start over, and you have yourself a slow-going process. It ends up just exhausting me, making blogging seem less desirable.

But enough with excuses, let's cover some of the stuff that happened this week. (Oh, and I think I'll be posting links to all my photo albums up once I've gotten the first couple South Africa ones done. Though you could always just follow me on Facebook to keep up to date on it.)

Entry #026: Sunday, July 28, 2013 (Pidwa Wilderness Reserve, South Africa)

Well, the sleepout I mentioned before has come and gone, and I'm still here to write about it, so it's fairly safe, I'd say, to assume that it went off at least partially successfully (in the sense that we weren't eaten in our sleep). While that was the main crux of activity the last couple days, there has actually been quite a bit of interesting things going on, the kind of stuff you can only get at a place like this.

Entry #025: Wednesday, July 24, 2013 (Pidwa Wilderness Reserve, South Africa)

You want to know where the most annoying place to get a splinter is? Well, I don't know for sure, but I'd wager one of the top contender is just on the top knuckle of one of your index fingers. I would know, as I have one right now, and every slight movement with that finger is an annoyance, even after digging out most of the wood. I'm telling you this because...um...

Anyway, this weekend went...differently than I had anticipated. Not in a bad way necessarily, although I don't know if I'd call our activities adventures or misadventures. I'll tell you one thing, though - I've been involved with vehicle incidents three times in as many days. But we'll get to that.

Entry #024: Friday, July 19, 2013 (Pidwa Wilderness Reserve, South Africa)

Well, it's been an interestingweek. New people, new experiences, decapitation. I tell ya, you never know what's gonna happen. But I might as well start from the beginning. Or at least from Monday. That works too.

Entry #023: Sunday, July 14, 2013 (Pidwa Wilderness Reserve, South Africa)

Okay, Week 2 of Askari is done and dusted, and things are going...

Ah, who am I kidding? The big news of this entry is actually that of another entry. Specifically, the Kilimanjaro entry is finally, finally done. Most of the time was spent uploading the 2-hour video to YouTube, but that's all done now, and I've posted it in the past, so that future generations will never know that there was an issue.Check it out here!  But only if you have a lot of time/patience/tolerance for my voice. Otherwise, you, um, you may want to skip it.

Anyway, onto the last couple days!

Entry #022: Thursday, July 11, 2013 (Pidwa Wilderness Reserve, South Africa)

Cripes, has it been a week since I last made an entry? Sorry about that. I think the main reason for the delay is the fact that this place makes me really tired. Like, physically tired. Normally, I can stay up until 2am or so without issue, but here I'm lucky to get past 11pm without nodding off. The fact that we have to wake up at 6:30 every day (or 5:30 today for an early drive) doesn't really help the situation. In any case, I am not always in the mindset to make long entries when I'm done for the day, and then when I start, I tucker out. Like, a good part of this entry was started on Sunday, but then I just fell asleep at the keyboard. It's probably only going to be worse when I get roommates next week. So I'm going to plow through what I haven't already done, and then experiment for a while with shorter, more frequent entries. We'll see how that plays out.

Entry #021: Thursday, July 4, 2013 (Pidwa Wilderness Reserve, South Africa)

Well, we've come to the start of a new major chapter - that is to say, a new significant length of time where the location on the blog entries all reads the same thing. This time, it's going to be the Pidwa Wilderness Reserve. And lemme tell ya, it's been an interesting start. Let's just straight in.

Actually, no, first, let me give a big "Happy Independence Day!" to all my fellow Americans. Enjoy those barbecues and fireworks extra hard for me. Unless you're reading this after the Fourth, in which case...I dunno, light a few matches and eat a burger?