GVI SANParks Program March Visit

As SANParks Coordinator for GVI I get to travel to various South African National parks, where we have interns (for 6 months or 12 months) on the GVI SANParks Internship Program. Interns get to work along side the People and Conservation (P&C)supervisors at the various parks. The P&C department is involved in educationg the local communities surrounding the park about the history of the park, the local fauna and flora, and why it is important to have national parks in South Africa.

On this trip I visited 3 of my countries national parks: Mokala National Park, Augrabies Falls National Park and Tsitsikamma National Park, which forms part of the greater Garden Route National Park. Each one of these parks differ greatly in their special beauty and history.

Mokala National Park is situated in the Northern Cape, close to Kimberley (the capital city of the Northern Cape province). I have never been to Mokala NP and I was absolutely blown away by the amount of antelope species they have there. The first 15 min in the park was full of gasps, and me exclaiming “OSTRICH”, “GEMSBOK”, “RED HARTEBEEST”. All of these species, and more, could be seen on an open plain on the way to reception. Mokala NP was awarded with “The Best National Park of 2013”, and I was there to see the proud employees receive their special new shirts and caps. I also saw the most beautiful and spectacular sunset EVER at Mokala NP (see below).

Mokala National Park: Best Sunset EVER!!!

Augrabies Falls National Park is also situated in the Nothern Cape, close to the Namibian Border. Augrabies is known for its spectacular 53m waterfall. The reason for it being so special is the fact that it is in a semi-desert area. It is absolutely breath taking to walk in the semi-desert park and then to see the waterfall in all its glory. 

Augrabies Falls National Park: The Falls

While I was at Augrabies Falls NP, they were also running their yearly Kids In Parks program. Kids In Parks is a great program where local schools go into the national parks and stay over for 2 nights. During this time they learn about the different National Parks, the fauna and flora of the parks, and they play various educational games. It was very fun to be a part of this amazing program, even if just for two nights.

Augrabies Falls National Park: A Group of Kids Getting Ready to go Home

Tsitsikamma National Park forms part of the three Garden Route National parks. Tsitsikamma is situated near and in the small town of Stormsriver. What makes this park really special is the contrast between indigenous forest on the mountain slope, and the sheer drop to the ocean. You get the best of both worlds. If you are lucky you might even get to see the Knysna Turaco in the forest, or the dolphins playing in the waves. Tsitsikamma is also where the well-known “Otter trail” begins. The forests and areas that are in the Garden Route NP have a lot of history linked to it. Tales of elephants once roaming amongst the tall trees, people living in the depth of the forests, and gold being discovered in the heart of it all.

Tsistikamma National Park: Suspension Bridge over Stromsriver Mouth

My trip was truly amazing, and it made me realize what a privilege it is to live in a country with such vast differences in natural beauty. 

GVI SANParks Program March Visit

Cheetah Habituation Has Begun

Since the arrival of the new cheetah boys six weeks ago the GVI Karongwe staff have been working with them on a regular basis to habituate them.

The ‘Tswalu Boys’ are quite used to vehicles, however have had very little experience of humans in close proximity on foot. In order for us to continue collecting valuable data on cheetah, as we have done for years with Jabu and Djuma, we need these boys to become habituated to our presence and in particular with us walking in on them.

Whilst they are still in their holding boma ‘acclimatising’ to their new surroundings, it gives us a good opportunity to start to the habituation training. The training consists of a number of stages, each time trying to decrease the distance that the animal feels comfortable in our presence. Habituation training is not an exact science, not only is every animal different but each individual will react differently every day depending on a large variety of factors, most of which you won’t know anything about. However the principle is always the same, we want to ensure that the animals have only neutral interactions with us and therefore are not imprinted with any negative associations in our presence but also, and just as importantly, they do not associate us with positive interactions. This is important because we need the animals to behave naturally and not in a way that is affected because of our presence. These are wild animals and we certainly don’t want them running up to us when they see us, like pet dogs, just as much as we don’t want them running away from us prohibiting us from collecting data. We want to be able to record natural behaviour.

In the beginning, while the boys were still settling in, we just approached them in the vehicles from outside the fence. The cheetah, having spent time in a holding boma on Tswalu before coming here, are used to being fed from a vehicle. We wanted to make sure that they do not associate our vehicle with being fed. Initially when we drove up they were hiding from view in the long grass, obviously still nervous about being moved to a new home, so we spent a lot of time just sitting in the vehicles close by them, talking in normal voices and having the radios on. It is important for them to get used all the different sounds they will hear during game drive times and in particular to our voices so we can alert them to us approaching them when walking through thick bush, so as not to startle them. As funny as it might sound, I personally spent hours reading books to them, just so they learn the sound of my voice.

After a while the boys stopped hiding in the long grass and we would find them sitting close to the fence, once they were used to the vehicles we started walking up to them talking gently the whole time, but still on the other side of the fence. For the most part they did not react at all, just sat watching us intently. On a couple of occasions when they have been particularly hungry they have snarled and mock charged us. At times like this we just walk away again and return after they have been fed. We don’t want to push them and for them to have a negative imprint of a time when we harassed them when they were feeling hungry and stressed.

Once we were satisfied that they were comfortable with us on the outside of the fence we started going into the boma with them on foot.  We were pleasantly surprised to find they were fairly relaxed and after a few encounters we have now got to the stage where we can walk within 10 metres of the boys with them just sitting looking relaxed, even starting to fall asleep with us standing nearby.

Over the next few weeks we are hoping to start taking the volunteers into the boma with the cheetah, as they now need to get used to having groups of people walking with them, not just one or two people at a time.

Once they are released from the boma we will carry on with the habituation process, tracking them every day and walking in with them. Once we are satisfied they are well used to the presence of groups of people on foot, the game drives from the lodges will also be able to walk guests in like they used to with Jabu and Djuma, such a special and unique experience.

Rosie Miles

Base Manager GVI Karongwe

Cheetah Habituation Has Begun

Mmakadi Creche Community Outreach

In the local village, The Oaks, close to GVI Karongwe hub, there is a little crèche with the name of Mmakadi. The founder and owner of the crèche, Gloria, is a very warm and friendly lady always welcoming people with open arms. Gloria’s goal is to give children, from the ages of 0-5, a safe place to stay during the day while their parents are at work.

It is at this crèche that a batch of GVI volunteers got to help out, for the first Wednesday of many, and make bricks for a new building that Gloria is in dire need of.  The crèche houses about 70 children on a daily basis, with very little infrastructure. The ladies working at the crèche are cooks, teachers, nurses and ‘day mothers’ to these kids, so there is very little time to pay attention to painting of walls or making of bricks.

Our volunteers are all to happy to help out, especially if it means they get some play time with the adorable local village children. We are in the process of making the playground more fun and educational. One of our current staff Interns, Kathryn Anderson showed a lot of initiative when she asked her friends and family at home in Australia to donate any children’s books they could spare. Now we have a very well stocked pile, or library if you must, of educational children’s books.

Thanks to all of the volunteers for your amazing work and willingness to help. 

Mmakadi Creche Community Outreach

Marulas, eles and me

Mid-summer in the Lowveld is marked by the sudden flush of ripe Marula fruits falling from trees all over the reserve. For those that don’t know, the marula fruit is a small golf ball-like fruit, green when unripe and on the tree, turning pale yellow and falling to the ground when ripe. I say golf ball-like not just because of the size and shape of the fruit, but because the noise they make as they hit the tin roof above my head every two minutes is very similar to the sound a golf ball would make! 

The vast majority of the fruit is made up of a large, hard and virtually impenetrable stone, within which are seed kernels. The stone is the wrapped in a sour but juicy pulp and covered in a tough skin. Once the skin is removed you can suck on the pulp like a gobstopper until you get down to the stone. It might not sound that appealing to you but they really are delicious and good for you, with around 4 times the Vitamin C content of an orange! The pulp is used to make all sorts of things like jam and jellies, beer and even the famous South African liquor "Amarula".

And it’s not just us humans that enjoy them, virtually every fruit-eating animal on the reserve goes nuts for them…especially the elephants!

At the GVI Karongwe base we are blessed with a number of large and fruitful marula trees in our garden. It is not an uncommon occurrence in mid-summer to be woken up to a strange slurping sound outside my bedroom window, the sound of elephants sucking up the fruits from the ground using their trunks and squelching them in their mouths. This is what I woke up to at midnight last night and I instantly felt a giggle burst from my mouth. I jumped out of bed and peeked out my window to see in the bright moonlight a gaggle of six female elephants and their calves peacefully enjoying the marulas less than five metres from my window. Now awake, I then became aware of a less peaceful flurry of activity going on at the front of the house. One of the bull elephants was squeezing himself between two of our parked research vehicles in the driveway to get himself to the best marula tree in garden. But much to his consternation there weren’t any fruits waiting for him on the floor (because I had already gathered the fallen ones up that morning to make jam) so he took it upon himself to shake the tree hard enough to cause all the ones still attached to fall to the floor. The chaos that followed involved branches cracking and snapping and falling with a crash on the cars, marula fruits flying and banging on the car and the elephant trumpeting and huffing and wheezing in the effort and joy of his success. Needless to say he managed to detach far more fruits than he intended to eat and we woke up this morning to find the cars and surrounding areas littered with debris from the tree, making walking to the vehicle a treacherous and ankle-twisting activity!

Just one of the perils of living in the African bush I suppose!

Rosie Miles

Karongwe Base Manager

Marulas, eles and me

New Year, new website and blog platform

New Year, new website and blog platform

We are already well under way with the new year and champing at the bit of 2014. We bet our khaki-clad bottoms that it’ll throw at us more than our fair share of adventure, discovery, drama and challenge!

Please also take note that GVI’s new website will be going live very soon and together with it a new blog platform to replace this Blogspot one. So please keep an eye on our Facebook and Twitter accounts as well as the website and we will provide details on all of these when the new pages go live.

We wish all of our GVI vols and other GVI peeps a truly great year, and we look forward to welcoming our new volunteers to base over the coming months. 

The GVI Limpopo & KZN Team

New Year, new website and blog platform

Meet Flat Eleanor

Meet Flat Eleanor! Flat Eleanor is one of the most recent, and favorite additions to the GVI Karongwe family. She hails from Powhatan, Virginia and was created by the nine year-old cousin of long-term intern, Jessie C. Flat Eleanor is the creation of a long-standing tradition amongst many children all over the world to recreate the timeless story, Flat Stanley.

             Flat Stanley, written by Jeff Brown, tells the tale of Stanley Lampchops who was flattened by a large bulletin board. He uses his flatness to visit friends all around the world in an envelope, learning about the different cultures and traditions while going on crazy adventures. Children read this book now and create flat versions of themselves to be sent around the world to friends and family where the recipient takes photos and write a letter back to the child, helping to spread knowledge and culture to a younger generation.

            When Flat Eleanor arrived, there was a huge fuss as everyone argued over who got to take Flat Eleanor out on research drive or reserve work first. During her first drive, Flat Eleanor got to hold a Leopard Tortoise, see many giraffes, use the game radio, identify leopard tracks, and many more! It was during this drive that we realized Eleanor would not make it in her paper form and was quickly taken to town where she was laminated. It was good that we did because soon the rains came, and she has been able to endure so much more. Eleanor has now been on many drives, and has seen Elephants ring barking (the removal of strips of bark from a tree), walked with cheetahs, identified hyenas, learned how to track animals using telemetry, and assisted in bush clearing.

            Flat Eleanor has taught many lessons to everyone here on base. She exemplified the perfect housemate, quiet, does not eat much, clean, and never complains, as well as excelled in each task set before her. Flat Eleanor brought another method of motivation forth to find the perfect angle of an animal for her to be photographed with, as well as how to get them both in focus (a challenge still not completed). She is a fun, spirit lifting presence here on base. She always has a smile on her face. Now that we are in the first quarter of 2014, Eleanor is classified as staff and loving helping the new volunteers learn their animals. Though the true purpose of Flat Eleanor is to travel the world to share more knowledge and culture, so soon she may be mailed off to another GVI location somewhere else in the world! Keep your eyes open, she may 

just visit you next!

Meet Flat Eleanor

Rescuing a Cheetah Cub

Just before Christmas Shutdown we had a bit of a stressful time with our favourite cheetah family. Research Assistant, Nico, found the foursome on the Northern Fenceline but when the family got up and got on the move it became immediately apparent that the male cheetah cub was unable to put any weight on his front left leg and struggling to keep up with the rest of the family. Fearing a broken leg, the Reserve Manager, Simon, called our local Wildlife Vet, asking him to come take a look. Whilst we waited for the vet to arrive GVI staff and volunteers took turns to follow the cheetah to keep track of them. It was quite distressing to watch as Ketswiri (the mother) was continuously on the move, looking for something to eat, and the little injured cub was lagging further and further behind. Whenever the family did stop he would just collapse to the ground and not move again until his mother was nearly out of sight again when he would drag himself to his three good legs and bunny hop after her. His sisters were torn between staying with him and following their mother.  Over the few hours that we followed them they covered close to two kilometres and crossed the flowing Makutsi River, and the little cub was deteriorating with every step.

After a few hours, in the intense afternoon heat, the little cub collapsed under a raisin bush and did not look like he was going to get up again. His mother was now out of sight and the sisters halfway between the two. But just then we heard the telltale sound of Ketswiri on the hunt, her thundering footsteps and alarm-calling from impala. Moments later we heard Ketswiri making her “come here” call to the cubs, which sounds more like a Velociraptor than something that would be made by a cheetah. The sisters immediately ran in the direction of the call and we waited with baited breath to see whether the little boy would get up. It was a great relief when we watched him stir and slowly make his way over to his family, and it was an even greater relief for us to see that Ketswiri had been successful in bringing down an impala. It was only a tiny baby impala and would not fill the family up, but it would at least mean that they would stay still for a few hours, the timing had been critical for the now exhausted cub that was literally on his last legs.

We watched for another hour while the two sisters tucked greedily in, even slapping their own mother when she tried to grab a morsel. Sadly though the little male cub did not have the energy to eat and just lay in a heap next to his mother. Fortunately the vet arrived while they were still eating.

The cheetah family is so habituated to our presence with them on foot that it was surprisingly easy and stress-free darting the cub and removing him from his family, Ketswiri barely battered an eyelid. Whilst it is impossible for us to know what was going through her head, no one can deny how much this completely wild cheetah trusts us, even with her cubs, something that I still find truly remarkable.

We gently lay the now asleep cub on the tailgate of the bakkie for the vet to examine, Ketswiri and the two sisters just sitting calmly watching five metres away.  The vet advised that he couldn’t feel a break but could see the elbow joint was very swollen so made the difficult decision to take him back to his clinic for xrays and a proper examination. At this point we had no way of knowing what the result would be and therefore what the future would hold for this little cub.

In the morning the vet contacted us to advise that the leg was not broken and it was just an abscess, possibly from a bite wound or scratch. The wound had been cleaned out and he had been given slow-release antibiotics as well as anti-inflammatories, pain killers and some injections to help boost his immune system. He said the cub was ready to come home and the decision was made to try to reintroduce him back to the family. Reintroducing the cub to the family was potentially risky because Ketswiri might reject him, but we felt the risk was small because he had been gone for only just over 12 hours and the family were well bonded now the cubs are over 6 months old.

Simon brought the cub back to Karongwe and GVI staff and vols assisted with locating and following Ketswiri, keeping track of the proximity of the lions who were in the neighbouring block and the biggest threat to the cheetah, collecting a meal of impala for the family and transporting the cub back to the family. It was a huge operation that required teamwork and every member of the GVI and Karongwe Team put in 100% to ensure it went smoothly.

Once we had located the cheetah family, we gave them the impala in the hope that they would appreciate the free meal and would then stay still for long enough for us to reintroduce the cub. They took the bait gratefully having only had the very small impala the day before and whilst they were distracted feeding we brought the cub to them in a crate. Ketswiri and the sisters did not react in any way to our close proximity to them with the strange crate, they just continued eating. Simon opened the door to the crate and after a few seconds the cub ran out. One of his sisters spotted him first and ran over, jumping on him and licking him. Then Ketswiri made a call to him and he wobbled over to her where she immediately started licking him. What a huge relief! There were then a few minutes of him standing looking bemused whilst his family sniffed and licked him all over, before everyone went back to tucking into their dinner, including the little boy who still had not had anything to eat for a number of days.

 Myself and a couple of the other GVI staff then stayed with the family until dark to keep observing the reunion, in case Ketswiri decided later to reject him, and also to protect them as the little cub was still very wobbly on his feet. Over the course of the next 4 hours the family did a lot of licking and bonding as well as eating. His sisters visibly pleased to see him and playing with him a lot. He, as usual, choosing to cuddle up with mum the majority of the time, he has always been a little mummies boy. He continued to give out loud contact calls for the rest of the day despite being curled up with his mum, it’s hard to say why, whether he was still confused from the drugs or he was just excited to be back with his family and letting the whole world know it. He was also very wobbly on his legs due to effect of the drugs wearing off and also from weakness and from being sat in a box for hours whilst at the vets. But his strength and stability improved over the course of the 4 hours we watched over him. He ate well until his belly was as round as a balloon and he was putting full weight on the injured leg by the time we left them at dark.

We went straight back to find that at first light. The little cub was looking stiff but not in pain and otherwise quite mobile. Over the course of the following week his leg improved each day and now he is back to his usual tree-climbing, rough and tumbling self.

The whole process was quite an emotional one for everyone involved and raised a lot of questions as to the ethics of us intervening rather than letting nature take its course. There is no question that if we had not taken the injured cub that afternoon he would not have survived the night. Cheetah are the bottom of the hierarchy when it comes to predators, particularly at night, and are permanently on the run from the larger carnivores. The family has already lost one female cub last month to the lions, and in the state he was in he would have been unable to run away from anything, even a jackal would have taken him. When working with wildlife we usually say we only intervene when the situation has been brought about as a result of human impact. However, everyone agrees that we should also not let an animal suffer, the cub was clearly suffering and I doubt anyone could have sat by and watched him deteriorate as we did without wanting to help. In addition, as we discussed in our previous blog about the Cheetah Metapopulation Project, the conservation status of cheetah is in a dire position, and this is largely due to human impact. We strongly believe this justifies our decision to intervene and give our cheetah cubs every chance possible to remain in the wild and contribute positively to the cheetah population of Southern Africa. This is why we made the potentially risky decision to try to reintroduce the cub to his family, his only chance to remain a wild cheetah rather than to condemn him to a life in captivity as so many cheetah in South Africa have. Thankfully the reintroduction was successful.

The fact is cheetah need all the help they can get. The population of wild cheetah in the Lowveld Region is in decline. In the past few years there has been only one cub survive and go on to breed in our area, this is one of Ketswiri’s cubs from a couple of years ago, and she was the sole survivor of a litter of 5. Another one of our female cheetah, that is now deceased, raised two male cubs to adulthood but they were later killed in poacher’s snares. Ketswiri lost an entire litter earlier this year, probably to leopard. The father of these cubs was killed by lions in July. This litter started with four but one female was killed by lions. The two remaining sisters were separated from their mother and brother during the lion attack and had it not been for our intervention in that instance they would also not have survived. So the sad reality is without our help cheetah would not be able to sustain their population again this year. On Karongwe, we would have gone from 7 cheetah to 2, thankfully due to everyone’s efforts we currently still have 5 left; Ketswiri, the three remaining cubs and their uncle Djuma. These cheetah cubs are so precious to the Metapopulation Project that we will happily help them in the struggle to survive whenever we are able and we feel it is appropriate.

Rosie Miles

Base Manager GVI Karongwe

Rescuing a Cheetah Cub

Counting Spots

Most nights, here at GVI Karongwe, we fall asleep to the sound of hyena calling but we don’t often get the opportunity to spend time observing them for extended periods, as a result we sometimes lose track of the hyena activity. Recently hyena have been sighted in the northern part of the reserve more frequently than ever before, therefore we thought it was about time we did a bit of a hyena census just to see who is still around and maybe work out which hyena are utilising the northern part of the reserve. When a sick giraffe died we thought this might be the perfect opportunity for us to observe our reserves notorious scavengers making use of the carcass.

We set up 3 camera traps at the carcass, two taking photographs and one with video and we also parked up by the dead giraffe (preferably upwind!) for a couple of hours a day at dawn and dusk, and waited. It wasn’t long before we got what we were wishing for.

Over the course of a few days using our own visual sightings and the photos and videos caught on the camera traps we managed to identify 9 different individual hyena.  These included the most recent pup who has already grown exponentially since we first sighted her at the den earlier this year, and the two males Makalali and Darkey who, more often than not, are seen away from the rest of the clan. Using their unique spot patterns the volunteers matched the hyenas we saw with hyena we already have ID kits for, a skill that takes a bit of practice but is greatly satisfying when you make a positive identification.

We are still collecting photographic data of the hyena being seen in the northern parts of the reserve before we can make any conclusions on the current hyena population and movements, but so far everyone is really enjoying spending time with our favourite nocturnal neighbours that are so often heard but not seen. 

Rosie Miles

Base Manager Karongwe

Counting Spots

GVI Karongwe hosts important meeting on cheetahs in the Lowveld

This week was the annual meeting of the members of the Lowveld Cheetah Metapopulation Group organised by the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT), and we were lucky enough to be the ones to host it this time.

 Cheetah had been largely removed from the majority of South Africa until recently when they were re-introduced to over 40 game reserves. There are now approximately 300 cheetah existing on these small reserves throughout the country, however due to the small size of these reserves and the presence of electrified fences, these animals form small subpopulations and are fragmented and unable to move and interact freely.

Therefore the aim of the Cheetah Metapopulation Project is to develop and co-ordinate a National Metapopulation Management Plan for cheetahs in smaller fenced reserves. In particular the Project coordinates and facilitates the movement of cheetah between reserves to ensure genetic integrity is maintained and collects and analyses genetic samples to assist with a long-term management plan.

On the agenda for the meeting this year was a discussion on ways to address the current population decline in the Lowveld, identifying potential cheetah movements within the Lowveld reserves, and a discussion on whether cheetah should have a financial value.

We discovered that the main causes of the decline in cheetah numbers in our area is the lack of breeding reserves (i.e. reserves that only have single sex cheetah, females that are on contraception or infertile cheetah) and a lack of female cheetah in general. The group discussed ways to improve this situation by proposing movements of cheetah between the various reserves. We also discussed the possibility of bringing some new females into the metapopulation from outside sources. Everyone in the group is keenly watching our 3 cheetah cubs on Karongwe, in particular the two females, hoping that they are going to grow up and contribute to the cheetah numbers in our area in the next couple of years.

It was really satisfying to see that all members of the group present agreed that the cheetahs should not have a financial value, it showed that everyone was in the group for the right reason...conservation of the cheetah. Everyone agreed that by adding financial value to a cheetah would result in cheetahs being sold to the highest bidder rather than to the best reserve genetically-speaking. This results in some of the smaller reserves being out-bidded despite being a more desirable location for the cheetah and in some areas of South Africa it has resulted in the selling of wild cheetah into captivity. No one in the Lowveld Group wants to see that happen.

Overall the meeting was really interesting, in particular, for our new volunteers it was a great introduction for them to the issues of cheetah conservation in South Africa. It was fantastic to meet and talk to like-minded people from all over the Lowveld that are trying to help conserve cheetah and to see that we are making progress in the right direction.

Big thanks to EWT for giving us the opportunity to host this important meeting!

Rosie Miles

Base Manager Karongwe

GVI Karongwe hosts important meeting on cheetahs in the Lowveld

A volunteer's perspective - Claudia Lifton-Schwerner - In between earth and sky

Trevor Garrod of Tea Leaf Green sings about “living in between the earth and sky”.  While spending this past week in the pristine, 1,945 meter high Mariepskop Mountains, I felt as though I was doing just that.  The Mariepskop Mountains are an ecological hotspot with several endemic species living in its stunning forests.  It is an important area to protect; however, many years ago the government allowed the natural forests to be cut down in order to plant Pine and Eucalyptus trees for timber production.  Since neither Pine nor Eucalyptus trees are indigenous to the area, there has been a severe drop in the variation of species present in the areas of the mountain which have been altered.

 Since 2004, GVI has been doing research on the population of rodents present in both the altered and non-altered forests.  Rodents are an important part of the food chain, and are therefore a good species to study in order to indicate the health of an entire area.  By setting up an equal number of rodent traps in both altered and non-altered forests, GVI has proven that there is an obvious loss of biodiversity in the unnatural forests.  Through this research we hope to prove to the government that the unnatural forests are detrimental to the health of the eco-system, and therefore should be replanted with trees indigenous to the area.  I have never spent very much time learning about or working with rodents, so it was very interesting to learn about such an important part of the health of our environment.

While the research was very interesting, the thing that made this past week so special was the mountains themselves.  It was such a quiet, lovely get away with only eight people from the GVI team staying in small, wooden cabins.  We woke up to a dream-like view every morning, and ended the day with a spectacular sunset over the mountains every night.  In between trappings, we visited a river running through the forest and took advantage of the rope swing that had been set up by previous volunteers.  We ate dinner by candle light, followed by star gazing under the completely uninterrupted blackness of the sky.  It was an idyllic scene and an amazing experience.  

Claudia Lifton-Schwerner - GVI Volunteer Round the World Competition Winner

A volunteer's perspective - Claudia Lifton-Schwerner - In between earth and sky