Tag: Artenschutz Elefant

It’s great to be back in Namibia! Kristina and I went out for a drive around the study site yesterday. We found a baboon caught in a cheetah trap…

Construction work is still going on at base camp. The huts are being painted and the furniture will be delivered soon (we hope) while Kristina and I have taken two more Land Rovers to Windhoek to be fitted with new tyres and batteries. It’s all the usual last-minute African mayhem, which for us Krauts is hard to deal with 😉

Trailblazers in group 1, please be prepared for teething problems at camp and everything else you can imagine. Here’s the first thing we’re throwing at you: there will be limited electricity at base camp for the first couple of days (or weeks). We are still waiting to be connected to the main electricity line and while we wait, a generator will be used to feed our power-hungry equipment, so don’t bother bringing your hair dryers 😉 And by the way, plugs at base are type D (see http://users.telenet.be/worldstandards/electricity.htm for more details), so bring an adaptor.

The days are sunny and warm (25 deg) but it gets chilly once the sun has set. There will be a fireplace to sit around in the evenings, but (as per the dossier) bring an additional warm fleece or jacket.

I’ll let you have more details once we have moved into base.

Continue reading “Update from our working holiday volunteering with leopards, elephants and cheetahs in Namibia, Africa (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/namibia)”

I’m packing up for Namibia & Peru.

Best practice is this. Step 1 (accumulation) – throw it all in one place, step 2 (selection) – what items do I really have to take??, step 3 (packing) – make it fit in the bag somehow. I have completed steps 1 & 2 (see picture) and am confident I will master step 3 before tomorrow evening.

Note for rest of the team: please do not try and pack as much as I do! The picture scenario is “packing for a seven-week trip and preparing for two expeditions on two different continents”.

On Monday morning I’ll meet up with our scientist Kristina at Windhoek airport from where we will go straight into town for extreme pre-expedition shopping and picking up one of the Land Rovers that has been serviced and equipped with new tyres. I’ll write again once I have made it to base.

Good luck with your very own packing

Malika

Update from our working holiday volunteering with leopards, elephants and cheetahs in Namibia, Africa.

Hello my name is Malika and I will be the first of three expedition leaders for this expedition. I will lead group 1 and then fly off to Peru to our expedition there. Kathy, our Strategy Director, will lead group 2 and then go back to the UK, and finally Jenny, who is currently chasing snow leopards in the Altai, will take over from Kathy to lead the rest of the expedition.

As you can see, this is will be a total girl power expedition. There’s a short welcome video featuring yours truly (and more pictures of base camp taking shape) on WordPress now.

Our scientist Kristina is a German TV star on http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/beitrag/video/1477312,

Kathy is one on

and Jenny you can “meet” at Frankfurt airport jetting off to the Altai

There will also be a few men around, such as our esteemed Jörg Melzheimer, but they obviously come much lower down the pecking order 😉

Anyway, the scene is set and I will fly off to Windhoek on Sunday to be met by Kristina and Jörg, and together we will be going through the final preparations for the expedition, including putting mattresses on the beds and stocking the bar, if you are lucky.

The official expedition leader mobile number in Namibia is +264-81-8339507 and this will be active as of next Monday. Remember, though, that this is (a) for emergency purposes only, for example missing assembly and (b) that mobile phones do not work at base and around much of the study site, so sending a text is best.

I’ll write again from Namibia with a weather and preparations update. I hope yours are going well and I look forward to meeting group 1 at Casa Piccolo in due course.

Best wishes

Malika Fettak
Expedition leader group 1

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Update from our working holiday volunteering with leopards, elephants and cheetahs in Namibia, Africa