Finally able to update this!

So, after 24 hours of travelling, my bag not arriving in Namibia when I did, and a 6 hour drive from my hostel in Windhoek, I finally arrived at my first volunteer placement on Harnas Animal Sanctuary. It was pouring with rain and was literally in the middle of nowhere. Everyone on the bus wondered what they'd let themselves in for. After I was reunited with my bag, we were shown to our cabins which we'd call home for the next 2 weeks. They were very basic, with no electricity and the toilets and showers were in the middle of all the cabins. There was also a communal kitchen and dining area where you could see the wild wilder beast and springbok drinking from the waterhole.

The next day the 7 new volunteers were put into their groups and given induction training. There were 4 different groups and each were responsible for feeding, cleaning out etc different animals. The animals in my group were Duma and Joany the cheetahs, Asem the vulture, Finn the one winged buzzard, Audrey the blind vervet monkey, Mr Neilson the spider monkey, the mongooses, the baby tortoises, 2 baby goats and the food prep dogs.

There were lots of other animals too, the 4 lion cubs, 6 baby cheetahs, 2 baby baboons, the older baboons and 2 baby vervet monkeys, which we were encouraged to spend as much time as possible with.

Day to day activities varied from food prep (whoever was on that for the day had the pleasure of hacking into a fresh donkey/horse leg), farmwork (spending all day outside in the blistering sun pulling grass out of a fence) taking the lion cubs/baby baboons for a walk and game counting out in the Dam House (a house in the middle of the bush where you took 1 hour shifts to sit at a window counting the animals outside.

The best part was falling asleep listening to the lions roaring or the wild dogs making the strange sound they make and being out in the bush, completely isolated, and thinking nothing of Klippie the giraffe wandering past your cabin. The photos will probably explain what it was like better than I can but it's definitely something I'd like to do again.

I left Harnas yesterday morning and got my flight down to Cape Town last night. Been to the beach today with a few other people from the hostel and I'm now going to attempt to upload my photos.