Everything you wanted to know about cheetahs and a couple of other animals

Today I broke out my new best friend, Garmin, and went on my first adventure.  I am totally a Waze girl, but I have to admit, the newer GPS devices are awesome.  She tells me exactly what lane I am supposed to be in, she shows me a split map - one side shows exactly what the lanes look like while the other gives a broader picture of the map.  Waze is great if you know generally where you are going.  When you are in a totally new environment, I vote Garmin.

I drove about 1 hour north of Sandton to Harbeespoort Dam.  That's a lake to my friends in the Americas.  I visited the Ann Van Dyke Cheetah Center.  The center opened in 1971 to help preserve the cheetah population and has expanded to help grow the population of a few other animals.  They have about 100 cheetahs now.  Cheetahs did not breed well in captivity until the early 80s.  Since 1981 they have produced more than 800 cheetahs and introduced many back into the wild.

The day started with a cheetah run at 8:00am with a couple of the "cheetah ambassadors".  These are cheetahs that have been raised around humans and have good tempers.

Cheetahs are sprinters - they stalk their prey then when they feel like they have a good shot at taking the prey down (in this case a red and white plastic pompom), they go for it.  They can only run about 400 meters or so.  After the kill, they need about 10 minutes to catch their breath.  If another predator comes along during this recovery time, the cheetah will give up their kill.  Cheetahs are fast, not strong.  And they have a preservation mentality, so they are not going to go toe to toe with a lion or hyena.

How fast are cheetahs?  They are the fastest land mammal.  They can run up to 120 kilometers per hour.  They can accelerate from 0 to 100 in 3 seconds.
(By the way, none of these things have been fact checked - I am just taking the guides word for it.  Please don't harass me if it is factually incorrect)

The South African Air Force uses cheetahs to keep down the bird population on their air strips.  Maybe this would be a good idea for JFK?

Cheetahs make 11 different sounds.  I just thought that was cool so wanted to throw that in.

Cheetah cubs have long grey hairs running down their back when they are born.  This is to mimic the honey badger.

Honey Badgers are nocturnal so this is all I got

Honey badgers are bad dudes.  If you haven't watched "Crazy NastyAss Honey Badger", stop reading right now, go to YouTube and watch it.  I'll wait.  OK - Here is why predators stay away from the Honey Badger.  Honey Badgers will grab a lion by the scrotum and rip it off.   This is why lions and other predators steer clear of the crazy, nastass honey badger.  I think cheetah cubs disguising themselves as honey badgers is pretty smart.  No lion is going to mess with them.

We visited the meerkats.  They only have 4 of them - mom, dad and the two kids, Stumpy and Mischief.

Stumpy was born with half of a tail

Heathcliff is a king cheetah.  They originally thought these were a different species but discovered the different spots were caused by a recessive gene.  If any king cheetahs are born in captivity, they will not release them into the wild.  Hunters would kill (literally) to get a king cheetah skin.

Barney is a caracal.  He is going to be eating a snack of a baby chick so you may want to look away for a minute.

This is a Cape Griffin.  Cape's are #2 on the Endangered Species list (which one, I am not sure - there seem to be so many of them)  Most of these birds at the center were poisoned by poachers.  When rhino poachers made a kill, the vultures would circle the area and this would alert the wildlife authorities something fishy was going on.  Poachers caught on and decided to go in a couple of days in advance and drop an animal carcass filled with poison to kill off the birds.  These birds did ingest poison but they were able to flush their system with water and save them, but still they are unable to fly.  Their wings can no longer hold their body's weight.  

This Cape Griffin is 60-80 years old

The center takes most of the eggs laid by the Cape Griffins to a university where they are incubated and hatched.  They introduce the bird into the wild and the baby cape griffin is adopted by another cape griffin family.  Everybody wins!

These water birds were hurt badly during a hail storm.  Most of them had part or all of their wings amputated.

The female hyena has 2X the testosterone of a male hyena.  She grows a "she-penis" which covers her own genitalia and swings quite a bit lower than her male counterpart's own member.

sorry, no photo of "she-penis" but you can google it

Our last animal to visit on the tour was the wild dog.  It is the 2nd most endangered carnivore in Africa - behind the Ethiopian wolf.  According to our guide, you don't hear anything about the endangered wild dog because no one gets excited about seeing a wild dog.  Everyone has dogs at home.  They want to see lions and cheetahs.  She wants us to raise awareness of the plight of the African wild dog. So here I am, raising awareness.  Send the African wild dog some love!

When we entered the enclosure the dogs started "hunting" us because they could smell the food on the jeep.  (we could too, it smelled like Alpo).  They darted back and forth between the two jeeps barking and yelping.  I'll post a video on Facebook because it was CRAZY!  That is a diversion tactic developed by the dogs to confuse their prey.  It really did sound like there were more than 4 dogs in all the confusion.

Our last stop on the tour was to do a final feeding of the cheetahs.  There are 5 males in this enclosure.  I was able to get a good shot of 4 of them.

Here are a few more photos from my adventure today:

Cheetahs have to sit before they can get their reward.  This smart cheetah kept "catching" the prey in a ploy to get more food

Zora gets to visit schools because she doesn't view humans under 4ft as dinner.  Notice her laser focus on the treat bag

Hanging with the cheetahs!

 No this isn't dinner, its Chew-baaah-ka and Darth Vader

Lining up for the cheetah run

I'm not sure this bag would be any help if something happened during the cheetah run, but she went and got this bag specifically for that event.

Until my next dispatch from Jo'burg, totsiens & mooi loop!

She's Driving on the Wrong Side of the Road!

As you know, I took on the challenge of driving myself to work this week.  The adjustment wasn't as hard as I expected it to be.  There were only a couple of times that I found myself confused as I was turning, or pulling out of a parking lot.  I did manage not to cause any accidents and no one "hooted" at me, so that is success in my book!  Also, almost exclusively using the turning signal now instead of the windshield wipers!

I did figure out a few interesting things.

Not surprising, but the slow lane here in South Africa is opposite the US.  It has been really hard for me to drive in what I have always known as the passing lane.  To remedy this, I stick to the middle lane as much as possible!

Parking spaces are tiny!  I have a really small car - a Toyota Tercell.  I feel like I am barely squeezing into the parking spaces.

As a solution to lack of public transportation, there are minibuses that run certain routes.  Many people rely on these for transportation to and from work.

Many of these buses are in horrible disrepair.  There appear to be 10-15 people piled into each bus.  They will stop anywhere and everywhere.  Seriously.  You can be driving down the highway at 100km/hr and the bus will swerve over to pick someone up on the side of the road.  Rule number 1 from Dave during my driving lesson, was try to avoid following a minibus, and if you have to be in the same lane as the bus, leave plenty of room.

I ventured to the mall after work.  I also learned that you need to pay for the parking BEFORE you leave the mall.

It says CARWASH!

There are some ways that South Africa seems so far ahead of the US.  The reason I went to the mall is because I get an electronic voucher for the per diem of my living expense sent to my cell phone.  I visit an ATM and enter the voucher code and the last 4 digits of my phone number and cash is dispensed.  Now I am getting used to paying for as much as possible with cash.  I cringe thinking of all the AMEX points I am giving up! 

Counterpoint to this advancement, they can only send whole Rand amounts.  My stipend is not a nice round number.  They wanted to round up and have me go to someone in the office and pay them R12 to make up the difference.  That is $0.90 folks.  When I called to ask for my money this week (yes, I actually had to do that), I told them we can just let those odd amounts ride and we could settle up at the end of the month.  Second counterpoint, either the bank or the office (I'm not sure which one) had sent their max funds for the day so I could not receive my electronic voucher until the next day.

We also use biometric sensing to access the office and enter through the security gates into the office park.

You place your finger on the pad and you are granted access to the office park grounds.

I had my fingerprint captured the first day I was in the Colgate office.  Last Friday I had lunch plans with a new co-worker and she informed me after lunch, we would go to another office to get my biometrics done for the entrance through the security gate.  After lunch, we meandered over to the security gate around 1pm.  I was informed that the biometric sensing was only done on Friday between 11:00-12:00.  I had just missed it.  When we got back to the CP office, I told the office admin that the window was 11-12 only, she said she knew that but I had lunch plans with said co-worker.  AARRRGGHHH!

Today, I set my calendar and promptly marched over to get my finger sensed.  When I arrived, I was informed I was at the wrong gate.  Huh?  There is ANOTHER gate where the biometrics were taken.  They didn't mention that last week when they sent me packing because I had missed the window.  I found the second gate and learned the gentleman had been delayed and would not arrive until 11:15.  I have been in South Africa just shy of 2 weeks, but I have already learned about "African Time" so I didn't plan on going back until 11:30.  I walked back over at 11:30, there were 10 or so people hanging out waiting at that point and the gentleman had not yet arrived.  

Around 11:40, biometric man arrived and began processing the masses.  I was back at my desk around 12:00.  A most unproductive hour out of my day, but now I can come and go as I please!

It's hard to see, but yes, he is packing heat!

Finally, on my drive home, I decided I was up to the challenge of multi-tasking.  Driving and listening to the radio at the same time!  I realized I don't know any radio stations so I thought, I'll just check the pre-sets.  Usually people set those in the rental cars - I know I do.

If you have presets . . . 

My rental car is pretty basic . . .

On deck for tomorrow?  A massage and mani/pedi at a spa near my apartment.

Until my next dispatch from Jo'burg, totsiens & mooi loop!

Week 1 in South Africa

My first week in South Africa was quite busy.  Lots of meetings and meeting people and trying to remember names.  And these are names that I have never in my life heard.  It's not like trying to remember Tom or Susan.  I hope no one give me a pop quiz on pronunciations or spellings!

I had my security briefing on Tuesday.  Against my better judgement, I did leave the hotel again on Wednesday morning.  Seriously, the security guy sent me 15 pdfs containing all the ways I can be swindled, robbed or sold into human slavery.  It was a reality check when he described a basic conversation to me and told me all the ways bad people could use that information against me.  I told him that conversation sounded like every conversation I have ever had with the person sitting next to me on an airplane.  (Where are you going?  Business or pleasure?  etc etc).  He said he does not speak to people on airplanes.  My take away was, act confident and be very suspicious of anyone you don't know asking you questions.

The week was pretty boring - lots of trips to the gym in the hotel/apartment and watching nature shows on BBC Earth and Nat Geo.  Robyn, Stacey and Carol - I saw a program about Skye and they took the turntable ferry that we took too!

I did make it to Mandela Square and one of the large shopping malls in Johannesburg.

I have been told that the many shopping malls in Jo'burg popped up post-Apartheid as a way to create cultural inclusion, aka  "Mall Culture".  A couple of google searches did not turn up much but I am going to keep digging to see if I can find more information on this.  The black, white and colored people (yes, it is OK to say those terms in South Africa) had been kept apart for so long, they wanted to be together,so shopping malls were one way to bring together all the cultures and races.

Just in case you were worried I would be missing too much food from home, in Sandton Mall / Mandela Square, they have a Hard Rock Cafe, McDonalds, KFC and Krispy Kreme.

This weekend was kind of a bust.  I came down with a stomach bug on Friday night and ended up laying on the couch and groaning for the majority of the day.  Fitbit seemed to think I was sleeping the whole time.  I actually watched some very interesting programming about the airport in Dubai and about people trying to smuggle drugs through the airport in Colombia.  I did not hit my fitness goal running to the toilet and back.

Sunday shaped up to be a better day.  I made a 2nd trip to Mandella Square via the hotel shuttle to stock up on some fresh fruits and veg at Woolworths, or Woolys as it is called.  Woolys is the Whole Foods of Jo'burg.  There is a Pick&Pay by my hotel that I will be doing most of my shopping at.
Dave had been shuttling me back and forth to the office every day.  He decided it was time to push his little birdie out of the nest.  We met up at 2pm for my second driving lesson (the first being Friday during rush hour).  We drove from my apartment to the Colgate office 4 times.  I still turn on my windshield wipers 1:2 ratio with my blinker.  I feel certain this will get better since Friday it was a 1:1 ratio.  He went over what lane I need to be in, what landmarks to look for, he told me when I did certain things that people would "hoot" (honk) at me.  After I completed the journey to his satisfaction we were done.  At 4pm.  Which is the same time all of the shops close up.  My plan to go back to the grocery store close to my apartment after the lesson was foiled.  Dave told me the stores stay open late on saturday.  "Late" being 6pm.  It is going to be hard to come from the city that never sleeps to the city that rolls up it's sidewalk at 6pm.  Not that it would matter, since I am not supposed to drive after dark and right now, sunset is at 6:10pm.

Here's Dave and I both looking relieved after my driving lesson.

I found a Yoga center down the street from my apartment I may give a try this week.  The elliptical and treadmill are getting old.

Next weekend I am going to a Cheetah Rescue (rescheduled from today) so I hope my post will be a little more exciting!

Until my next dispatch from Jo'burg, totsiens & mooi loop!

So what's it like to travel for 25 hours?

To begin my South African adventure, I had first had to get here.  This involved 25 hours of travel time.  I left my apartment at 1:30pm on Friday and I arrived in South Africa at 9:30 on Saturday night.

First stop at the airport was to pick up some light reading.  I already had 3 books and 1 other magazine in my bag but I always have to have options.  Sadly, I have subscriptions to Vogue, InStyle and Vanity Fair but because I forwarded my mail to my office, there appears to be about a 2-3 week gap before you start receiving mail at your new location.  I received my first piece of mail this week and I put in the forward notice on August 21.  Luckily I was able to put my magazines on hold until the first of the year.  A few stragglers will come in over the next month or so.  I will owe our department admin a nice gift for dealing with all my mail for the next 4 months.

Second stop was Shake Shack.  I was busy running errands before the flight (nothing like waiting until the last minute!) so I needed sustenance.  I will assure you that I was nervous, scared, excited, insert any other adjective that gives you butterflies in your stomach so I seriously considered the bottle of wine.  I won't tease you with the photo of my meal but will tell you it was absolutely delicious!

Normally you don't need a visa to visit South Africa but since I will be working there, I had to go to the SA Consulate to apply for one.  After a little back and forth due to some paper work issues, I was finally able to pick it up on Thursday.  And they are already tracking me!  My boarding pass indicates I need a visa to visit.

The first leg of my flight was JFK to Amsterdam.  I settled into my seat, grabbed a mimosa and checked out the Business Class swag.  This comfort kit is to help make your flight less painful.  It comes with an eye mask and ear plugs, toothbrush, lotion, etc.  The hoarder in me gets excited because this is something else to store stuff in.  You can use these to pack things inside your suitcase or backpack like electrical cords, jewelry, pill bottles, etc.

 (included a 15% off 1 full price Tumi item)

The 7.5 hour flight to Amsterdam was pretty uneventful.  The most exciting thing was watching Wizard of Lies.  This is the HBO movie about Bernie Madoff staring Robert Dinero.  One day last July, a ran out for afternoon coffee and they were putting up a Christmas tree in our office lobby.  I thought it was a bit early but didn't think much else about it until leaving work that day when we were funneled out through the loading dock because the movie was being filmed in our lobby.  It was maybe 5 seconds in the movie.  Crazy!

 Landed in Amsterdam at 6am.  I walked around and killed time until my 10:30 flight.  I put about 5000 steps on my FitBit.  Took the typical selfie in front of the Amsterdam sign.

The flight from Amsterdam to Johannesburg was almost 11 hours.
Here's the KLM swag bag.  They have peach colored for women and dark green for men.  I swapped with the guy next to me so he could give his as a gift.  I wanted to call him a cheapskate but I wanted the green bag more so I kept my mouth shut.

I drank a lot of water to stay hydrated.  I read a couple of my magazines.  I watched the movie "Baywatch".  I felt like a dirty old lady admiring the amazing physique of Zac Effron because all I could think about was High School Musical. But, I googled it and he's 30 so its all good.
"Snatched" with Goldie Hawn and Amy Schumer was cute and heartwarming.  The only problem is the premise.  They travel to Ecuador and Amy meets a cute guy at a bar at their resort and he ends up being part of a plot to kidnap them.  Where am I going in February?  Ecuador.  Guess I won't talk to any cute boys at the bar!

At the end of the flight KLM presented each of us with a blue and white Delfts house with Dutch Genever.  According to the website there are 96 different houses.  I tried to pick one that reminded me of my trip to Amsterdam - the typical dutch house.  Here you can read all about the tradition.
https://www.klmhouses.com/houses-history.html

Finally I arrived in Johannesburg around 10pm.  I was picked up by Dave.  Everyone at CP loves Dave.  He has ferried me around Johannesburg on each of my 4 trips.  It is very comforting seeing that familiar face waiting for you when you come out of customs.  Sorry, no picture of Dave -remember, its been over 24 hours since I have showered.  He talked to me about driving in SA, pointed out where the office is related to my hotel / apartment and delivered me safely to Capitol 20 West.

That is the not-so-exciting story of my trip over to South Africa.  I hope everyone had an amazing weekend.  Until my next dispatch from Jo'burg, totsiens & mooi loop!

Learning what it is like to travel with a toddler

Embarking on a 21 hour journey with a high strung, car hating dog is not something to be taken lightly.  Banjo is a rescue.  He came from Alabama and sometime in those formative months he had a bad experience with a vehicle.  He has always been a bad car rider, panting and shaking and crying and whining.  Every time Banjo gets into a car he is going some place FUN!  He is visiting his people that feed him table scraps (you know who you are!) or his dog friends in Boonton.  We WALK to the Vet for Pete's sake!  So I blame it on his formative months and definitely, probably not the 2-3 times that he may have slammed into the dashboard or back of my seat when I had to come to a short stop.  Anyway.  I had 21.2 hours according to google maps. We were closer to 26 when all was said and done.  That is when I decided that traveling with a dog is like traveling with a toddler.

I remember stories from my sister-in-law of 5 hour drives to Oklahoma with Kadie in the back seat screaming the entire ride (note:  do not bring this up to 7 year old Kadie, it makes her 'uncomfortable".  When did 2nd graders get so in touch with their emotions?)

Portable DVD players do not work with 4 legged fur children, so I decided to go a different route.  Googling "how much lorazepam to give a dog" provides encouraging words on how it is so much better for the dogs liver than other anxiety meds.  I was feeling hopeful.  I figured out the correct dosage for my little precious, got the soft treats I could hide the pills in and prepared to medicate.  I took away two learning from my trial run:  administer the dosage 1.5-2 hours before the trip and 1 pill takes Banjo from a 10 to a 7, my hope was 2 pills (still in his dosage range) could take him from a 10 to a 4 and he would spend the 15 hours of day one slumbering in the sun in the back seat.

Day 1 I set my alarm at 4:30 to administer the proper dosage and allows time for it to kick in.  I finished packing for my trip, tried to get Banjo to eat breakfast, walked him around the block a couple of times to secure the pee / poop that needed to happen before getting in a car (success was 50/50).  I went to get the car already loaded down with almost 80 lbs of dog food, 10 bags of treats and added my passenger and his new seat belt.

The graphics of the seat belt show the dog calmly sitting up gazing out the window while safely strapped into the car.

In practice, the seatbelt pulls the strap down to where the belt latches and leaves the dog in an awkward half sitting/ half laying pose.  This lasted for about 10 minutes.  I hadn't even left NYC and my dog is bouncing all over the car.  I had reclined the front seat so it would be easier for him to go back and forth.  He won't stay in one place and the drugs do make him mildly woozy so if he is afraid to jump into the back seat he just cries and whines more.  Oh and there is the panting.  Anxiety in dogs manifests itself in panting.  He panted and panted and whined and cried until our first stop near Harrisburg, PA for gas.  This started the vicious "panting, drinking, peeeing " cycle.  Banjo would drink a 20 oz bottle of water during a stop because of the anxious panting, which meant a stop at the next rest stop 2-3 hours down the road where I would wrangle him out of the car, walk up and down the sidewalk at the rest stop, because animals are not allowed back in the picnic areas where there is actual grass, and I would beg him to pee and poop.  Depending on how long since his last dose of drugs, a new "treat" may be administered, but not the 2 of the initial does.  Only one.  I didn't want to kill his ass, just make him sleep. Oh, yeah, then more water.

 (He didn't even notice the beautiful view of the Blue Ridge Mountains!)

Arriving at the La Quinta Inn in Nashville, TN (shout out to LaQuinta and their AWESOME Pet Policy) I was finally able to convince Banjo to have something to eat. He drank another 20 oz of water, which required another walk but we both collapsed on the bed and I did not wake up until my 6am alarm to administer the little white pills.  Banjo was in the exact same place he started.  He did not want a cuddle or a snuggle - he wanted to sleep.  I would want to sleep too if I had paced and jumped from front to back seat for 17 hours!

Over 25-26 hours in the car, we made about 10 stops.  On my own,  I would have driven Nashville to El Do with one stop for gas/pee/food, but we ended up making stops out side of Nashville, before Memphis and in Sheridan.  By Sheridan, all of the drugs had worn off so I just turned the radio up louder

He was very glad to arrive at Daddy's house and find a bean bag chair just like they have at Dog Days of New York - a comfort of home.

Between the multiple bathroom breaks, begging him to eat, begging him to please take a nap, strapping him in and out of his gear, dragging him around the truck stop while he tries to pull me out onto I-40 and turning up the radio so I don't have to listen to him cry and whine, I figure I got a pretty good dose of what it would be like to travel with a 3 year old.  Once again I have a newfound respect for all parents, especially those of the 2-legged variety!