On Tuesday, February 27th, we went on the Living Desert Tour. A living desert tour, is when you look for animals from the small 5 in Namibia. The small 5 are, gecko, chameleon, spider, snake, legless lizard. First, we got picked up in the truck and drove for about 10 minutes and saw some camels getting ready to go on a desert tour. We then entered the Darob National Park. We drove for a few minutes and met up with the rest of our group. There were some Germans, South Africans and us. We met our guide, Chris, who was very funny, taught us about animals, their enviroment, the park itself and looked for animals.
First thing we found was a gecko. It was beautiful. The gecko normally comes out at night and lives in a burrow. We were able to see a gecko because the sun was blocked by some clouds. The gecko was very pretty. You could see all the different colours on its body. Gross fact, the colours in the gecko's stomach was actually what the he ate.
Next, we saw a legless lizard. It looks like a shiny worm, but it isn't. I got to hold it. It felt smooth glass and not slimy. The legless lizard was slow in the cold sand but if it was hot (we went in the morning) he would have gone 10 times faster and we wouldn't have been able to catch him.
Next , we saw some dancing lizards. The reason why it's called a dancing lizard is because it lifts its feet up really high while it is running.
Then, we saw a side winding snake. This type of snake doesn't move like a normal snake, it moves up sideways. If you got bitten, it is would be very painful, but you would have to go to the hospital so you could get some medicine so you wouldn't die.
After that, we saw a horned viper. The horned viper has a flat head with two horns on top. He is very dangerous. If you got bitten you shouldn't die if you get the medicine but you could get paralyzed. It has a very cool pattern. It had just eaten a mouse....you could see it in his stomach.
Finally, we saw a chameleon. It was on a short a tree. We could kind of see it on the tree. It was the same coulour as the bark of the tree and you could only see its eyes and a tuff of dry skin on its chin. Chris fed him some grubs on the sand. The chameleon, came down off of the tree and onto the sand. Almost as soon as he touched the sand he changed colour to the same shade the sand.
After that, we looked at landscapes. The dunes. We went to the top of a dune and Chris explained what the black stuff on some of the dunes were. It is called Iron Oxide Magnitite. He grabbed a magnet and put it in a cloth and rubbed it in the sand. It pulled all the black out of the sand and made some black fluffy stuff.It was very soft and fluffy. We got to play on the dunes. The sand was super hot and burned our bare feet.
Then Grant our diver took us 4x4 on the dunes. It was soooooo much fun. Finally we went back to our place.
WOW
ReplyDelete