King of the Jungle

There are no words to describe the feeling when you stand in front of a wild animal when you are in a Walking Safari, what if this animal was the king of the Jungle?

I still remember the first time I did so in my course in South Africa. There is nothing between us we stood there and looked each other on the eyes.

The whole feeling differs when you are the guide! Here you have to be aware of everything around you, every single move, not only that you have to be ready for the worst, if thee lion decided to attach –which not supposed to happen if you know what you are doing-, and above all give your client the chance to satisfy their lifetime dream.

Little Things in Life

A little Gecko

It is the little things in life that make the difference, the finest details what make the experience. Paying attention to these small details what makes the perfection. It is agreed that everyone will see the beauty of a flower, but it is hard to see the beauty of the ordinary things we face every day in our life, the beauty hidden in every corner.

When I used to guide the people on Safari, everyone wanted to see the big five, they all wanted to encounter a kill, but only few stopped next to line of solder ants going back of their battle carrying their winnings back. It was our job as guides to show them this beauty.

Grounding, a better way to discover the nature

After we finished our afternoon walk in Selati Reserve trying to identify as much animals Tracks and signs, as part of the Tracking Course I was doing in south Africa, we started a discussion with our instructor Colin Patrick, who was one of the best field guides in South Africa, a person with a very high senses for nature.

Colin Patrick, Selaty Reserve, South Africa

Colin started “it is very essential for the tracker to think in a different way, to feel all the components of the nature around him and be open in his explanation of the animal behaviors that left behind the tracks and the signs he is trying to interpret”.

“One important aspect a tracker should not forget, and it can make all the difference between finding the animal you are tracking or not, is the unnatural noise that we make.” Colin added.

He then looked at one of my colleagues, garbed his back bag explaining, “ the bags we carry for example, many pieces  going out of its body, some metal pieces hanging from it, and too much friction, the noise of friction is not natural to animals, though it will scare them away. Even our clothes do make a lot of noise, certain fabrics can make too much noise, though we should be careful choosing our bags and our hiking clothes.” He then asked us to take off our back bags and put them a side.

“One big barrier between us and the wild life surrounding us are these shoes we are wearing. Look how antelopes moves in the wild, he takes the front limp off the ground to put it forward and then moves the hind limp to fall right exactly on the same place the front was before, they recognize that walking can make a lot of noise that will get their camouflage reviled, they avoid breaking more twigs or crashing more dry leaves on the ground, since shoes protects our feet, now we stop paying attention for what we step on, we become less carful in or way, not only that, but it will give you the feeling of the ground,  t same feeling that the animal get when it is walking, giving you a better imagination and understanding for where the animal next step will be.” He added again. We all then took off our shoes.

We went in a small walk around to see how this can affect the acceptance of our existence by the surrounding animals. The results was surprising how close we could get to different birds, and other ground animals without them to flee away, they were no more scared by our close presence, Like if we were accepted as part of the environment and not as a strange body from outside.

This experience left many questions in my mind of our connection to our surrounding environment.

One of these points was the effect of barefoot in hiking or outdoor walking in general, on the park, the beach or even deep in the forest. A small act that removes many barriers to the natural wildlife, I won’t say it in a loony hippie way spouting sounds about being one with mother earth (It is fine if you are one), but it is the innately human feeling of nature that have been forgotten with the rush of the modern life.

Interesting enough there have been many studies conducted on this subject, explaining many benefits giving us all the reason to forget our shoes home next time we go hiking!

Knowing that around 40% of the world population are not wearing shoes makes you feel you’re not odd by doing so, even that the reasons are different in both cases.

Last Day in Mvuu Camp- Liwonde National Park

It is a mixed feelings indeed, a part of me is happy because the time to go back home is getting closer and closer.

But with all the memories through the five months I stayed here in the camp I feel sad, the camp become my African house, my small cottage have the coziness of a home! The family I have in here, the smiley faces in the morning, my little army and dedicated soldiers - who think I am Osama Bin Laden :D-, the naughty Elephants, the laughing of the hippos, the monkeys who alway set there waiting to steal your food, the ghosts of the Rhinos, the lion, and the night drive searching for it in every time we hear it close by, the lovely and the crazy nights of Dancing, listening to music, or just talking pulshit :), my cool neighbors and the story telling in the afternoon, my baboon tree where I used to sneak out from the camp into the bush to watch the baboon and chill out when ever I need time out!, and more and more, each of which a separate story.

The only hope is that I will be back one day!

Will miss all of my big family here, all the friends, all the times we had!
Thank you all for every thing!

Life is Either a Great Adventure or Nothing

I am not sure if it was normal for a little child of a four years or even less to answer the classical question of what do you want to be when you grow up, by “Emperor”, but this was my answer, I even couldn't pronounce it right but since then I learned to dream big.

At the age of five I was fascinated by science, if I may call it science, but I stared to collect pieces of metal, wood and any electrical devices I would find on the street because I was planning to build a spaceship that can take me to space, but in every time I will collect some, my mom will come and throw them away, because it was rubbish J

When I grew up my dreams started to take a more realistic shape, but it is still big. I still remember that TV show about a group who was discovering parts of Africa where no other people has been before, the show was in French but I remember I have watched all the episodes , the images of their four wheel drive cars stuck in the mud still in my mind. It was always nice to see it in the documentaries, about the different cultures and the wildlife. Back then I never knew that my life is going to be the next real documentary.

Mulanje Mountain (1)

Abdulla, Nadia, Osama S, and me –Cori- were still waiting to know where each of us will be spending the five months of our lodge placement which is a part of our year course we were doing in South Africa when the news came that me and Abdulla will be travelling to Malawi to do our placement in one of the lodges for wilderness company in there.

With the very little I knew about Malawi –indeed in my mind it was a group of islands in somewhere that I wasn’t sure where exactly- I started searching the internet for more information about this country and the surprise came when I found it was a landlocked country with no access to any sea or oceans which was the complete opposite of what was in my mind.

Republic of Malawi:

Or Nyasland as it was formerly known sets on the south east part of Africa and bordered by Zambia on the North west, Tanzania to the north east and Mozambique on the east, south and west.

Even though it is a landlocked country but one fifth of the total area of the country which is 118,484 Km² is covered with water.

Lake Malawi

Malawi is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by one of the largest lakes on earth, Lake Malawi or Lake Nyassa –the old name-.

Lake Malawi is considered the southernmost lake in the Grdeat Rift Valley system, the 3^rd largest lake in Africa, the eighth largest lake in the world, the 2^nd deepest lake in Africa and above all it has more fish species than any other lake on earth.

The Warm Hart of Africa

Maybe it is not only the wild life, nor the lake, neither the mountains of Malawi that made it to be the worm hart of Africa but the worm hearted people above all, their great hospitality and the warm smiles on their faces all the time.

Even with it’s being one of the world’s least developed and most-densely  populated countries (almost 15 million with 128 person/Km²) with more than 80% living in the rural areas with a low level of education and health care but people are still the greatest treasure of Malawi.

These was the information I found about the country but for me the most interesting piece of information I found was about Mount Mulanje, with its Peak Sapitwa the second highest peak in the African continent with an elevation of 3000 m with the mountain itself is globally considered as an Ecologically important area, not only that but with the many streams that descends from the mountain with the pools and the waterfalls all makes it sounds a great next adventure to be done.

I will Start my trip to there today and i will be adding more blogs telling you about the Mountain and the spiritual believes on the mountain which i found so interesting.