28 June 2010

piers-griesemers.jpg

 

Sister Mann posted this on her mission blog. They will be leaving 4 days before the Griesemers gohome and a week before we do. For some reason the same picture taken on the day we arrived does not come up in our arrival post. I guess it was censored so not to scare anyone thinking about coming here. Now it is safe because we are leaving.

 

28 June 2010 – Monday

We were up early so Mary could get her incision re-dressed before we headed off to St Lucia and the hippo boat ride. While she saw the nurse – they have become great friends – I got gas and some supplies to take with us. Although the sky looked threatening and the weather report said there was a good chance of rain the weather ended up being perfect – cool but not really cold.

Before we went for the ride we stopped and took pictures of the pod of rhinos that hang out near the boardwalk down to the beach. They were all in the water so I did not get any really good pictures but I did take a video that captured some of the sounds they make.

The boat ride was made more interesting by the fact that we had FIFA film crew along taking video of the attraction that will become part of a 10-15 minute clip that will be shown during half-time or between games later in the week.

The animals co-operated nicely with a number of crocodiles actually being out of the water. This was surprising to the skipper of the boat who said that since the water was warmer than the air, the crocs would probably not be found on land. We got to see a really big croc and a number of smaller ones. One of them was fully out of the water and just sat there while we happily took pictures from about 6-8 feet away.

The three hippo pods were all in the water of lumped together near the shore of islands. But we did get to see two hippos come out of the water but at a distance. The best part of the ride for me was the birds. We got to see a fish eagles – the main road that passes near our boarding is called Fish Eagle Flight – some Egyptian geese, and the best of all some small kingfishers. The kingfishers can hover almost like humming birds as they stare down into the water until they see something interesting and dive down and nab their prey. I tried to take some video but who knows what it will look like.

After the ride we went back to the boardwalk area and found almost all the hippos out of the water but on the other side of the lagoon. There was a really young hippo – probably less than 3 months old – that was fun to watch and hopefully the pictures will turn out.

After that we had lunch in St Lucia before going on our last game drive there. Although we did not see anything spectacular – none of the leopards that they swear are somewhere in the park – we did see red duiker, common reedbuck (not sure we ever saw these before), waterbuck, bushbuck, kudu, and of course blue wildebeest. So we saw a wider variety of antelope than we normally see. We also saw the normal zebras and warthogs. We did not see a single impala which was rather strange.

We stopped outside the gate and went to the crocodile exhibit where Mary bought a coffee table book on Africa to take home. Then we bid goodbye to lovely St Lucia and drove back to our boarding for the evening.

We had been trying to contact our replacements the Nuzmans by e-mail and I tried to call them on Saturday but without luck. Mary suggested I give it one more try so I called them and luckily caught them at the airport waiting to fly off to visit their daughter. We had a good talk and I answered some of their questions. I suggested they make a list of questions and call us when they had more time to talk. Hopefully we will be able to see them when they are in the MTC and have them over to our home some evening.

I worked on cleaning up the garage and making hard decisions on what to keep for the Nuzmans, what to give to others and what to throw away. When in doubt, I just left things so the Nuzmans can decide if they want it or not.

For some reason the day at the park pretty much wore Mary out so she was not up to doing much before going to bed. I am sure a good nights sleep will restore her to her healthy best.



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