Cheetah Preserve and Other Trips

These past 4 days have been very busy.  On Thursday, the morning started early with a run out to Chabelley to oversee more concrete pours.  This was supposed to be a day off for Veterans Day, but we had to go out and supervise this evolution since Djibouti doesn’t exactly stop work for US holidays.  This also meant that we couldn’t get a couple of SeaBees to help us out.  Unfortunately my fellow ED wasn’t feeling well, so he set down in a chair to watch the concrete mixing and I ran around directing the pouring and wetting the concrete as it baked in the African sun. 

As you can see the forms for the columns on the completed slabs were being erected.  One of them fell in the high winds and just barely missed LT Mietus. 

The afternoon was spent driving around Djibouti dropping of some equipment and our translator.  Driving in downtown Djibouti is a special experience… where road rage is a state of mind that must be maintained to fit into traffic.  I got back onto base and quickly closed out the mission so I could get onto the bus out to the Cheetah Preserve.  The trip was supposed to be from 1600-1800, but we didn’t leave base until 1635 and didn’t arrive until just shy of 1700.  That gave us only 35 minutes of daylight.  I ran around and tried to get pictures of what animals I could.  The MWR trip was so limited, so I am trying to get out there on another Sunday with LT Mietus since he speaks French and can act as a tour guide.  

  

A couple of shots of the cheetahs.  I didn’t know that we were actually allowed into their cage, cause I wandered off on a hiking trail.  When I got back the MWR group was in the cage.  I missed out on that, but I will get back there and get some close-up shots without the fence.

Here is a young antelope in a pen.  There were a handful of very young ones in a penned off area.  I have seen them on my drives around recently in the wild.

Here is a tortoise, they didn’t need a fence to hold them, just closely spaced rocks kept them contained.

Unfortunately due to the setting sun, I didn’t have good light for the rest of the shots.