Dear parents and Friends,

For this year we decided to put the students in charge of the blog. The intention is to make it look and sound a bit different from the older ones posted here. Our guess is that it will reflect THEIR perspective of the trip and not the teaching assistant’s or the professor’s. Here you go:

It’s a snake, it’s a slippery snake!

Today we went on a hike around our campsite in the Thakadu Bush Camp. Thakadu is in Ghanzi, a six-hour drive from Maun. Dr. Meyer showed us various plant and tree species and taught us how to identify each one. He led us towards a Leadwood, Combretum imberbe, a tree whose ash has a high lime content. As we all gathered around the tree, Stephanie commented, “Oh man, that’s a big snake”. “Where?” asked Dr. Meyer. “Right there,” Stephanie answered. There was a large African Rock Python, Python sebae, curled up in the shade of the leadwood. Darryl, one of our guides, neared towards it, before the 2-meter-long snake slithered back into its home within the tree. It was quite a special sighting. The African Rock Python is an endangered species, even Dr. Meyer has only seen it 10 times within the past 20 years!

We thought we were just going to see a neat tree…

 Wow, that’s a big snake!