Zulu Nyala Game Reserve, September 22
After a couple of cases where I was out too late to get help from the desk clerks with signing on to their Internet computers, I asked if they could give me my sign-in information. They were happy to do so, and photocopied the page with my reservation number and the other stuff their sign-in procedure requires ( Read more... )

Zulu Nyala Game Reserve, September 21, circa 10 pm local time
Today started entirely too early. Kyle's group agreed to set out at 6:30 am today. That's several hours before my natural waking time, but with jet lag I figured it wasn't entirely impossible. And I discovered that they have wake-up calls here, so last night I set one for 5:30 am. ( Read more... )

Zulu Nyala Game Reserve, September 20, circa 10 pm local time
Today started abruptly. My room phone was ringing. I hadn't really even noticed that I had a phone in my room, but it was ringing. I answered, and it was Kyle. It was 8 am, and our safari group had planned on an 8 am departure for the Saint Lucia Estuary. Since I didn't have time for a ( Read more... )

Zulu Nyala Game Reserve, September 19, almost midnight local time
As we were loading ourselves onto the truck for our afternoon safari ride, we were visited by a particularly tame animal, an ostrich. It's the only one at the lodge; they had another but it died. It seems this one has gone tame, perhaps seeking company and getting it from humans. ( Read more... )

Zulu Nyala Game Reserve, September 19, circa 11:30 am local time
The morning safari ride finished not too long ago. It was another good one, but I'll stick to writing chronologically.
I seem to have found a solution to the mosquito problem. I'm not sure it's a reliable solution, but it worked for last night. I left the windows open all through the ( Read more... )

Zulu Nyala Game Reserve, September 18, circa 9:30 pm local time
There was a show before dinner, with dancers, drums, and some other music. It was quite cool. I wasn't ideally positioned to watch; I was off to the side in the lounge finishing up some e-mail I'll send this evening when I upload this. But I still got a decent side view of the dance, ( Read more... )

Zulu Nyala Game Reserve, September 18, circa 6 pm local time
I woke up today around 8 am, right about the time the morning safari ride was scheduled to start. My cold was pretty bad just then, and I felt pretty drowsy, for a mix of reasons. Continuing jet lag was part of it, but I made that worse by writing rather than just trying to relax. ( Read more... )

Zulu Nyala Game Reserve, September 17, circa 6:30 pm local time
I just got back from a wonderful safari ride, but jet lag and the cold are really dragging me down. I was going to write about the day, but I'll get to it later.
after midnight local time
I never really got back to sleep in Johannesburg, even though the bed there was amazingly ( Read more... )

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Today I started with a nature walk, which also served as a work-out. I brought along my camera to take pictures of things I might encounter along the way.
I started the walk at a jog, all the way from my doorstep to the top of a very steep hill a few blocks away. The hill is ridiculous; I was already working hard halfway up, and by the top I was ( Read more... )