Today was our last day of hard jobs at the park. Apparently cutting grass, corn and planting grass are the more difficult. Our group was fortunate enough to get switched from cutting grass to cutting corn. With machetes! Can you imagine this accident prone one with a machete?! If they only knew! After breaky both groups (18 of us total) loaded in the back of the animal transport truck and headed to our work sites.
Loading another truck with grass shoots for the A team.
View out the truck of the park
We're like cattle in here!
This is Can, our leader for the day and obviously he is quite mischievous. Tying boots together and backpacks to the truck rails.
We dropped the A team off then travelled to our field of corn.
Unloading the cattle
Field before. The locals have already harvested the corn to feed their cattle. They then donate the stalks to the park for the elephants to eat.
Yes, this did happen and no blood was shed! Miracle!
Our team. Back left to right: Jaime, Sarah, Stephan, Hannah, Tom, Barbara. Front: Sally, Ann and myself.
After. We cut about 300 bundles of corn in less than 2 hours. The elephants will eat this in 10 minutes.
We filled that truck! We were about 30 minutes from home, walking wasn't an option.
So we loaded the back of the truck! Best ride of my life!
The views were incredible from so high.
Proof I'm alive! We had to duck many times for overhead branches. This girl got pegged in the forehead a couple of times.
Is this real life?
Proof of speed. Don't panic, I'm alive to write this! The corn sank as we drove and I had a nice little groove my booty sank into.
Down the hill to the park.
Ann (Pennsylvania), Stephan (Holland), Jamie (England), Sally (England) , myself, Sarah (Australia) and Hannah (Holland).
Just a little high. Back at the park.
After returning, Sarah and I headed to the dog area.
In route we spotted a baby bum!!
Navaan. Some others had a chance encounter with him when he attempted to run up the stairs of their building. I was off unloading a pineapple truck at the time and missed it. Tomorrow we have our walk around the park to meet the elephants and see more of the park.
At first I had thought it sad of these dogs being in fenced areas, until I saw their palaces! There are several of these buildings for them, complete with pond (in background).
Sarah made many friends.
Not so bad! Two stories and a pond in the jungle. Prime real estate.
This guy stole my heart. His eyes got me. He has some sort of skin disorder and is losing his fur as well as has sores. Thankful this is so far from home or I'd be tempted to bring him and pirate (the one eyed cat) home!
This guy was eyeing some elephants within the park after my return from the main dog area. Made me think of mom and Riley boy, the three legged pup I watch at home & adore.
After the dogs I took a leisurely cold shower (again) then headed to a talk about the elephants and their behavior on the skywalk with Jodie, an American who had been working here for 11+ years.
View of the platform (where we fed the elephants the first day) from the skywalk. The rain came pretty hard this afternoon then let up a bit before dinner. Just after dinner it returned and hard! Roofs were leaking (there are buckets everywhere), thunder was crashing, lightning flashing and lights flickering. It was awesome!
After dinner I had a one hour Thai massage for $5. It was so good and felt like heaven after the last two days of back breaking work. Massage is found upstairs where we had the welcome ceremony, so it is open air. I was lulled with the pouring rain and sound of thunder. Post massage I returned to the dining area, which is also on the platform, and enjoyed some good laughs. We have been having a blast exchanging cultural tidbits and slang. I learned the Aussie word "suss" today which means figured out. As in, have you got it sussed out? I'm truly enjoying meeting so many like minded people and getting to know them. This is so different from previous trips I have done and I wouldn't trade a minute of it!
I'm so enamored with the beauty of the jungle. I saw so many beautiful flowers today. Just a few...
These remind me of lanterns.
The snails are huge! This isn't even a big one. That is a soccer ball, for comparison.
There is a beautiful spider that spans bigger than the palm of my hand, but unfortunately I can not capture a decent picture of it. She (Jamie and Sally, the vets, informed us the brighter spiders are female) is gorgeous. Thankfully she resides a few doors down from our treehouse.
I'm exhausted after two days if hard labor in the humidity and heat, add in a terrific massage. To beddy by I go under my mosquito net, lulled by the rain.
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