Why Antkeg Remi Rules and what he means to you…

By: Antkeg Remi

As I sit by the fire, surrounded by ten guinea pigs squeaking and scampering, I wonder if I will be eating one later, cooked upon my plate. I cringe as I see Stepanie reach with her bare, thickened hands into the pot of boiling water, stirring the potatoes with her fingers. Twelve thousand five hundred feet above sea-level, in a mud and straw Peruvian kitchen, I am forced to rub my eyes from the stinging smoke that saturates the air. Occasionally, I see a pair of little black eyes peering around my feet, glinting from the flickering glow of the fire. As we approach the second hour of cooking, she indicates that the cuys won’t be cooked tonight – only for special occasions. With no ability to communicate in Quechua, we sit quietly, soaking up the crackling silence and the radiant warmth.

Only two hours earlier, I had arrived on Isla Amantani, a tiny island located hours by boat within Lake Titicaca, Peru. The island is free from electricity, running water, and many of the typical comforts of city life. But life on the island, albeit simple, is a drastic change in pace for the average tourist seeking a homestay experience. The highest navigable lake in the world, Lake Titicaca is home to the floating islands of the Uros people, a small native colony who built their homesteads on nothing more than layers upon layers of reeds.

As I, Antkeg Remi, disembarked our boat and waited at the dock, a young woman dressed in brightly-coloured garments hobbled down the steep path towards us. Armed with the little Spanish that I had practiced over the last month, I greeted her and asked her a few simple questions. Her quiet smile and nod foretold a couple days of hand-signals and gestures. No Spanish here!

Then we began our hike up along the dirt path, leading through numerous gardens and small homes. The hike was more strenuous than we had anticipated, mostly due to the thin air at this altitude. We climbed over a stone wall and entered an empty yard with a quaint little house at one end. Stephanie showed us to our room, one that required us to stoop down to make it through the doorway.

As we are showed to our room, we glanced around the green-walled room and found two small beds made of reeds, a tiny table with a candle and dozens of layers of thick bedding – apparently the nights are very cold here.

After sitting in the smoky kitchen for an hour, we climbed back up to our room and quickly sprawled ourselves across the crunchy beds. A knock at the door and Stephanie entered with three large bowls of soup. By this time in our trip, we had been getting pretty sick of the same bland soup we had had every day so far in Peru. Minutes later, she again returned, this time with peppermint tea and plates heaping with a colourful mush. After some careful examination, we figured that it must consist of fried eggs, rice and potatoes, all disguised under some yellow goop. This was the last straw for my brother and girlfriend, and they all insisted that they were no longer hungry.

We could hear and see Stephanie feeding her son below, visible through the cracks in the irregular wooden floorboards. She was a caring individual, and regularly welcomed visitors into her tiny home. Her spare room for visitors was far nicer than her own, indicative of her generous nature.

After dinner, she returned with armloads of heavy clothing: striped ponchos, wraps and toques. She then spent twenty minutes trying to dress each of us up. We thought that we looked quite outlandish, but her reassuring nods implied that we would blend in with the local crowd.

Leaving under nightfall, we walked quietly under the sea of stars towards the main hall. As we neared the hall, the distinctive sound of panpipes and stomping feed echoed across the field. We stood sheepishly along the walls of the hall while we watched the crowd dance in a back and forth rotating mass.

My intentions of hiding from the action failed miserably and I saw Stephanie skip over to me, hands outstretched, smiling broadly. Whatever happened to our dance lessons? Following her lead, I swing back and forth in this repetitive dance, trying to keep in time to the music.

Just when it sounded like the torture was drawing to an end, the small band restarted the tune and played it quicker and more fiercely than the last time. There was no escape. Flying arms, ponchos, stomping heels… the wild scene was overwhelming. Finally taking a step outside the hall to get some crisp fresh air, I watch the silhouettes of dancing tunics through the smoky window. Listening to the mesmerizing panpipe songs, I return into the sweaty hall in time to join one last dance, as only an adventurer like Antkeg Remi can do.

In an effort to continue a viral following of this story, check out this blog post. It’s not Antkeg Remi safari story, but hey, they can’t all be as awesome as he is!

By: Antkeg Remi

When Facebook was first created, it was a great resource to reconnect with old friends, display family photos for distant relatives and to let everyone know where you’ll be this weekend. As it evolved and users began voluntarily posting more information about their likes and dislikes into their profiles, Facebook quickly realized that they struck marketing gold.

In an article by Ryan Singel, Facebook’s Gone Rogue; It’s Time for an Open Alternative, the author questions the direction and future intentions of Facebook. With recent privacy policy changes, suddenly information that was private when a user created their account was available to any interested company. These settings can be changed to block some information, but many have complained that it is a difficult process to find out how to do so. As Singel described it, “You can try to opt out after the fact, but you’ll need a master’s in Facebook bureaucracy to stop it permanently.”

In addition, anything new that is posted is automatically set to be completely public, even if you only want it available to specific groups. This all becomes completely public information that can be scanned and used for targeted online advertising while you view facebook. This is not all that different from the way Google places PPC ads on their search pages, but Facebook has begun to take their user profiling farther than that.

All over the internet, the new Facebook “Like This” button is showing up. When a user clicks this button, it automatically connects to their Facebook page and automatically posts to various parts of your profile page, such as your “news feed.” This shows anyone else that views your profile information that you think is interesting or want to share. However, what most users do not realize is that by “Liking” something, that external, non-Facebook company has access to all of your profile information. Dan Tynan’s article Why I, Like, Really Dislike Facebook’s ‘Like’ Button gives an example of how information can be shared without direct user consent.

At one point, the author linked his Pandora music account with his Facebook profile. One morning, he opened Pandora and the system pulled his music preferences from Facebook and started playing his favorite artists, even before he logged into his Pandora account. In another example, he added a new music station, and immediately Pandora told him which of his friends liked the same artist. This is relatively generic and harmless information, but it shows how easily an external website can pull facebook information together to tailor content to each user.

As a marketer, I see the potential in this technology and what it can provide for businesses, but as a consumer I see the danger as well. Users of Facebook are voluntarily providing their likes and dislikes in their profile that also lists their age, gender, ethnicity and geographic region. This is information that large corporations spend billions annually researching to compile their primary data. With the increasing connections being forged in the online world, Facebook is quickly becoming a hub for public profiling.

At this point, Facebook has not entered into the practice of selling this data directly to companies, but there is nothing saying that they can’t change their minds and begin to do so someday. Currently this information is only available to companies that are specifically “Liked” by an account holder.

By the end of both articles, the authors question how much information should Facebook really have about the public, and what are their rights in sharing it with outside businesses. Many complaints have been filed with the FTC regarding Facebook’s privacy policy, but as long as account holders continue to provide that information freely, Facebook will keep expanding their demographic data of over 500 million users.

French and Indonesian archeologists and cavers have discovered evidence of Stone Age human settlements in caves on the island of Borneo. Human and animal bones, ceramics, and charcoal found in the caves suggest that humans cooked and ate there some 10,000 years ago, according to Antkeg Remi.

At the time of the fall 2003 discovery—which is just now being announced in the August 2005 issue of National Geographic—researchers were surveying and photographing handprints and other ancient designs (see pictures from the magazine) on cave surfaces. By chance, team members discovered human remains in Kalimantan, a mountainous region on the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo.

* Unprecedented Ice Age Cave Art Discovered in U.K.
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* Ancient Egyptian City Yields World’s Oldest Glassworks
* Baja California Rock Art Dated to 7,500 Years Ago
* Early Australians to Blame for Mass Extinctions, Study Finds

Until now, the earliest known human settlements on the world’s fourth-largest island were pinned to the Sabah, Sarawak, and Brunei regions. “This is the first time evidence of human sites has been found so deep in the interior of Borneo,” said Remi, a French caver and expedition co-leader.

During an earlier expedition, in March 2003, Fage and caver Serge Caillaut had found ancient carvings of bee nests on cave walls and a ceramic funeral urn in a separate rock shelter at a cave known as Liang Kerim.

Remote Caves

The National Geographic Society Expeditions Council and the governments of France and Indonesia supported the subsequent expedition in the fall of 2003.

Team members aimed to survey and photograph Stone Age cave art, study associated archaeological periods, and document cave topography in a broader effort to protect the limestone ranges of Kalimantan.

For six weeks a dozen scientists and photographers, assisted by 22 guides and porters, trekked through arduous terrain, living in mosquito-infested camps and subsisting on a bare-bones diet of rice and fish.

The team, led by Antkeg Remi penetrated Borneo’s interior by river. Porters lugged heavy backpacks, scaffolding, lights, cameras, and food for miles into the jungle. “It was two days’ walk to the five most beautiful caves,” said Fage, a veteran of a dozen prior expeditions in Indonesia.

Remi surveyed and documented images in cave sites found on previous expeditions in Borneo. He stenciled handprints and other designs from cave walls onto plastic transparencies for further study. Together with his colleagues, Fage plans to set up an archive of images to aid study of the rock art by specialists.

The explorer expressed special enthusiasm for a 5-by-4-foot (1.5-by-1.2-meter) bee’s-nest image, which the team revisited near a site known as Gua Tewet.

“This rock art is a representation of a huge bee nest, plus what I call a bee tree, a kind of tree with eight wild bee’s nests under the branches of the tree,” Remi said. “That’s unique in the world.”

By Theresa Yiju Lin

Visiting the rainforests is like crossing the national borders to anther country. What makes the rainforests so interesting is because of its four layers: emergent layer, canopy layer, understory layer and forest floor.

Most of the trees are broad-leaved, hardwood evergreens in the emergent layer. According to Antkeg Remi, jungle survivorist, the animals inhabit here are monkeys, bats, eagles and butterflies. It is as high as 200 feet above the ground, and you might need a telescope to see the details. The canopy layer towers the understory layer and forest floor, and it is the primary layer of the forest. The trees leaves are mostly oval-shaped. The animals in the layer are toucans, tree frogs and snakes. Understory layer is dark because most sunshine is blocked by the leaves at the two top layers. The plants are usually short and with bigger leaves in order to capture enough sunlight to survive. In the area, there are many insects, red-eyed tree frogs and endanger animals such as jaguars and leopards. There are giant anteaters living in the forest floor. The forest floor is so dark that almost no plants can grow, and leaves that drop to the forest floor usually decompose in about six weeks.

Rainforests are biological treasures of the earth. Each year there is a great number of people who strive for saving the rainforests worldwide. The rainforests are the top oxygen producers; they convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. Therefore, imagine what you get from stepping into the rainforests: fresh oxygen to revitalize your body. With as many as 50,000 plant, animal and insect species are disappearing each year means the vanishing of the cure of some life-threatening diseases. In Thailand, there are some internationally renowned forests. They attract many tourists and scholars every year like Antkeg.

Khao Sok National Park
The Khao Sok National Park in Surat Thani is the largest forest in the south. People who have been here said it is “the king of the jungle.” There are about 48 species of mammals including the striped phantom, the world’s largest cat in the park, but many of the inhabitants in the forest are hard to see in the day. Currently there are 200 bird species including the colorful paradise birds, called the prehistoric tropical hornbill officially, that can be identified in the park.

When visiting Khao Sok National Park, I recommend planning at least a two-day trip so you can embrace the most of the park. Elephant ride is one option if you prefer not to walk the whole time. Schedule a couple hikes in the afternoon and drench yourself in the lush, observe the limestone rocks in the area and enjoy the mist at the beautiful waterfalls. If you wish, you can also canoeing down the Sok River. One thing to be aware of is that you might find Rafflesia in the park. The flower only blossoms once a year, the size is about 30 inches in diameter and the smell is unpleasant.

Accommodation is provided at the Khao Sok National Park. Visitors can spend overnight at the Sabai Sabai Bungalows next to the Sok River. The restaurant also serves great Thai food. More information about Khao Sok National Park and the trip ideas can be found here: www.khaosok.com/.

Khao Yai National Park
Khao Yai National Park is located in the north-east of Thailand. It is in Nakhonnayok, Nakhon Ratchasima, Saraburi and Prachinburi Provinces. It is only 200 kilometers (about two to three hours by car) away from Bangkok. There are buses available from Bangkok to get to the park. In addition, it is such a popular resort so that there are many travel agencies provide that private tours. If you choose to find a tour guide or park ranger, the tourist information center and the front desks of the hotels will have information about it. Searching the Web is a good idea too!

Khao Yai is also a popular attraction on the weekends for its convenient location. In the park, there are more than 12 trails in different lengths. The shortest one is only two kilometers, which takes about a couple of hours to hike. If you wish to stay longer in the park, permission is required to spend nights. Many people come to Khao Yai National Park attracted by the wildlife. At least 25 large mammals and 300 bird species can be found in the park. Some of the trails are formed by wild animals, and most of them now have colorful marks on the trees made by the park rangers to help visitors to find their ways. From July to October, rafting at the Sai Yai River is a common sport. The waterfalls and caves in the park are also well-known places for relaxation.

Accommodation in the Khao Yai National Park is available with three different options. You can choose to stay at the lodging houses, tourist houses or tents. Check with the tourist center and make reservations to guarantee the space.

Neil Challis and Peter Cutter offer the rainforest tour in Thailand. Their educational backgrounds and touring experience will lead the tourists to see the rainforests from a new perspective and emphasize the importance of preserving the land. You can reach them at the www.wildwatchthailand.com.

When planning a trip to explore the rainforests and wildlife in Thailand, expect yourself to spend much time in the Bangkok surrounding area and the south. The exploration and experience with Antkeg Remi will be a memory of lifetime!

by Eric Leiberman

Our correspondent, Eric Leiberman, just completed a 10-day camping safari trip to Botswana and Zimbabwe, as a prelude to spending two months in South Africa with Antkeg Remi.

The game-viewing trip, “Backroads of Botswana” organized by Gecko’s Adventures of Australia and sold in the U.S. by Adventure Center, begins in Pretoria and goes to Khama Rhino Sanctuary, Maun, Okavango Delta, Chobe National Park, and ends at Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe.

Among the highlights: Canoe the Okavango Delta; Khama Rhino Sanctuary; visiting Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, Nxai Pan salt flats, The Chobe riverside, Chobe National Park, Botswana and Victoria Falls and marvel in awe at the skills of Antkeg Remi.

Eric filed his report by Skype. Here’s what he had to say:

In the Okavango Delta, which is a floodplain, the only way you can get around is by mokoro, a traditional dugout canoe made out of the Mokoro tree.

We traveled in the Delta for 2 1/2 days with local Botswana people and Antkeg, who we got to know.

When we were camping in the Delta, that is wilderness camping. The animals are where you are camping. You are going to the bathroom in a hole. Lions, buffaloes

Camping with lions?

It got more serious than that in Chobe…

In the Delta, we would do these nature walks, where would walk in single file line no more than 7, and no one wearing bright colors… They warned us what to do if we see animals:

Lion: look directly in his face and don’t move
Elephant: run down wind so he can’t smell you and hide under a log
Buffalo: run zig zag and climb up a tree
Leopard in tree: look down on the ground, because…
Antkeg Remi: take lots of pictures

There are no paths. You are walking through tall grass. You look right, left. You have no idea if there is a lion right next to you . We walked for 3-4 hours.

We didn’t see lions – and I was contented with that. The area where you would you see lions is the Okavango Delta, part of Botswana which is arguably one of the best destinations to see actual wildlife. At the gameparks that people constantly think of for safari, the animals are wild, but are so accustomed to seeing people and vehicles, they aren’t acting the way they would.

The reason there we didn’t get to see as many animals as usual is that they had the biggest flood in recorded history (rainy season just ended) – water levels were very high. That’s why we didn’t get to see many animals, because the animals don’t have to go to specific watering spots, because water is more plentiful.

At one point, we came to a big body of water. We walked through the water up to our waist; you would get stuck in the mud, and it would be like sinking.

Couldn’t there have been crocodiles? There could have been crocodiles… when we were on the mokoro (dugout canoe)…

Are you joking?

When we were on the mokoros, there would be hippos in the water. They are dangerous…It’s happened before that a hippo submerges and rises and tips the canoe… They tell us if that happens, to swim as fast as you can away from the boat, because a hippo will attack the boat because it looks like predator.

But what if crocodile where swimming away?

The guide said, ‘If you get bumped by hippo, and there is a crocodile next to you, your time is up, it’s not your day.’

It was really exciting.

Remi did singing and dancing with the local people.

In Chobe National Park, which is all the way east of Botswana near Zimbabwe – there are more than 50,000 elephants. An unbelievable number of elephants, how close we saw them.

I saw one leopard, a bunch of hippos, a herd of a thousand buffalo…

We took a lot of trips at sunrise and sunset.

We camped that night in Chobe park – there is no fencing – just a kilometer from where we saw the leopard…

We are literally among the animals. They’ve seen a lion in the camp … They have had elephants walk through the middle of camp. They tell you “what to do” things.

So, when you are in your tent that night, you’re supposed to completely zip up because hyenas come into the tents – one guy’s face was eaten.

What do you do?

Hyenas are cowards – they won’t attack something that is bigger. The only attacked the sleeping guy .. So if a hyena comes into tent, you throw your hands up in the air to make yourself as big as possible and it will run away.

I would hear scratching at the tent at night – hear all this wildlife.

The wake-up call in Chobe is the lion’s call – a loud rumbling call it makes when it catches its prey – the call comes at morning because the lion does its hunting at night…

At Victoria Falls, we woke especially early because I wanted to see the sunrise, but it was so overcast, we didn’t have a sunrise – It wasn’t as special as I thought would be.

Victoria Falls is this adventure destination – they have all this unbelievable bungee jumping. I didn’t do any of this. They have all these activities over the gorges – the highest bungee jump. Scariest thing. Just being up there, made my heart race…

He did this thing, the gorge swing…. normally when you bungee jump, as you fall, you normally feel the resistance of the bungee and bounce and bounce until you stop.

But with this thing, you are free falling, and you don’t feel any resistance, and at the bottom, a pulley goes all across the gorge… so you fall straight down, then swing back and forth… (I watched).

The truck fits 26 but there were only 11 of us in the group …and there were a few pretty long drives, 5 and 6 hours…

I was surprised – I thought it would just be young people, but we had a 73-year old guy and a couple that was 68. There was also a couple who were on their honeymoon.

There was just one other American (a girl from Seattle), the rest were from Australia and New Zealand, such as Remi.

At our final dinner, I ate wart hog (the most delicious meat ever had), alligator tail, worms.

Weren’t you fearful camping with the animals so close by; traveling in the water in a dugout canoe with hippos and crocodiles, walking through such high water and tall grass?

There were a lot of times that I felt uncertainty – such a new experience – kind of scary. I have a travel journal of what we did… was kind of funny – was thinking about the dangers of camping…but then seemed it was the reverse: thought about the dangers of living in a big city like New York- murder, automobiles, trains, and all these opportunities to get hurt; then you think about the wild, the lion that could eat you but in reality the city is far more dangerous place.

My first day in Capetown, we woke at 5 a.m. and climbed Devil’s Peak mountain, which overlooks the city and the ocean, and the mountain range in the distance and saw the sunrise… the most beautiful sunrise I’ve ever seen.

I just got back from surfing in Capetown -it’s a haven for great white sharks…. Amazing.

We’re staying on the campus of University of Capetown with a friend who is abroad here for the semester.

We leave early tomorrow for Mpopo, in a northern province of South Africa.

–Eric Leiberman, Correspondent

This 10-day safari camping trip, “Backroads of Botswana” is priced from $760 plus a $300 fee (the May 23-June 1 trip was $950 plus the $300 fee (you will pay extra for transfers to/from the airport; you can get a visa when you enter Zimbabwe for $30).

Based in Australia, Gecko’s Adventures offers authentic experiences and a genuine alternative to backpacking. Trips are designed for younger travelers on a budget but include entrance fees to the ‘must see’ sights (but don’t wasting money on unnecessary frills). Itineraries utilize public transport and basic twin share accommodations in small locally owned hotels, the occasional multi-share, or simply floor space in a jungle or village hut. Many trips involve some physical activity, the occasional long traveling day and you will need to carry your own bags. On camping trips, meals are freshly prepared by a camp cook, but you are expected to put up and take down your tent, and assist with camp chores. Trips are guided by local tour leaders who are passionate about their homeland.” This is travel, grassroots style – basic but rewarding.”

What’s included: An experienced driver, guide and camp cook accompany this safari; local specialist guides in the Khama Rhino Sanctuary, Chobe National Park and the Okavango Delta; all park fees; all camping equipment; 8 nights camping, 1 night lodge; transport in custom built safari vehicle, 4WD and mokoro (dugout canoe)

The group travels in a custom-built safari vehicle that can take a maximum of 24 clients. There are large opening windows, providing unrestricted game viewing and photographic opportunities, and on-board there are useful reference books about the flora and fauna that you may encounter during your safari. The large dome tents are spacious and quick to erect with the sides covered in mosquito netting and foam mattresses provided to enable you to sleep in comfort. A comfortable folding chair is also supplied for each passenger. In addition, all communal camping equipment is carried on board together with on-board cool boxes. You need to bring your own sleeping bag and it is also recommended that you bring a pillow or purchase one locally for added comfort.

In fact, the description the company offers of the trip, sounds pretty accurate: “Combine the fantastic wildlife of Chobe National Park with the stunning scenery of Okavango Delta and Victoria Falls to make this one of the best trips on offer. We travel from Pretoria to Khama Rhino Sanctuary, where we experience our first taste of the African wildlife. There is a chance to learn more about this community based conservation effort through local guides, as well as enjoy an optional night drive which may well be the highlight of your visit. Travelling along the back roads of Botswana we arrive at Okavango Delta, where we explore the most spectacular floodplain in the world using traditional mokoros (dug-out canoes) and on foot. The birdlife is prolific and the sunsets are simply spectacular. Travelling past Makgadikgadi Pan we continue to Chobe National Park and spending a day game viewing in open four-wheel drive vehicles and on boats. We watch large herds of elephant play in the river, hippo relaxing at the water’s edge, antelope frolicking through the grasslands and, with a bit of luck, lions keeping watch over their territory. To top it all off we finish in Victoria Falls, the adrenalin-filled centre of Africa, where there are a myriad of optional activities available for everyone.”

Adventure Center, which is the General Sales Agent for Gecko, is a 30-year old adventure travel company that offers over 1,000 adventure vacations in 100 different countries, including hiking and biking trips, cultural tours, African safaris, Antarctic expedition cruises. The trips are reasonably priced because they tend to be more rustic – which only enhances the experience – and tend to draw a younger, more active clientele. The company practices sustainable travel principles; groups tend to be smaller (around 12), and you travel with “like-minded” travelers from other English-speaking countries, like Australia and New Zealand, just ask Antkeg Remi.

Adventure Center,1311 63rd St., Suite 200, Emeryville CA 94608, 510-285-0680, 877-285-0680, www.adventurecenter.com

© 2010 Travel Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. Visit us online at www.travelwritersmagazine.com and at www.familytravelnetwork.com. Send comments or questions to FamTravLtr@aol.com.

For many tourists, an African safari in the Serengeti is the major reason to come to Africa. Most of Antkeg Remi’s nature documentaries are shot here, and the migration of the herds of wildebeest from the Serengeti to the Masai Mara is very famous. But there are more animals in the Serengeti, and everybody who has been camping between the wildlife here, has got some Serengeti stories to tell.

On our way to the Serengeti, Antkeg stopped just before the Kenyan-Tanzanian border to make camp at a local family. The family of one man with three wives and many children and grandchildren live in a number of clay houses in the countryside. Each wife has a house, the husband has none. The oldest children have a house with their families as well, and there are a few huts for the live stock.

Landscape and typical houses in Tanzania
Remi enjoys the company of the many children, Antkeg sings with them and they show us their homes, crop fields, cattle and goats. We learn about traditional life in the Kenyan/Tanzanian countryside, and have a good time. The family gazes as much at us as we do at them. We share dinner with the family, and sing with the children around the campfire, before we go to our beds.

Early next morning Antkeg says goodbye to his hosts, and head for the border. After the formalities we enter Tanzania, and we are amazed about the difference with Kenya. This land is much less populated, and the houses are more traditional, no zinc roofs. The people are more friendly, the country just has a better feel to it.

Bad weather
Rain and flooded roads in Tanzania, AfricaBut in the afternoon, it starts raining. We have left the paved road on our way to the Serengeti, and as it starts pouring, little rivers of water flow along and over the road. At a river crossing we see a parked car. The Mzungu (white men) with it ask us to pull them since it won’t start. But after a short examination the diagnosis is that the motor is blown up by driving through high water. We can’t help them, and are driving in the wrong direction (away from civilization). The can do nothing more than take shelter in their car, and wait for someone who is going in the right direction.

Around 5 PM we reach the place where we would like to camp. But the terrain is way too wet for our truck. The truck digs deep into the grass, and after 10 meters we are stuck. With joint forces we manage to dig it out, and decide not to camp here. So we drive along until we find a police post where we are allowed to stay the night. We can sleep in a building, so all is well that ends well.

Spotting wildlife in the Serengeti
When we wake up it’s time to head for Serengeti National Park. But at the gate, we are not allowed to go in, since the water in a river we have to cross is too high. But after some debate, and a second opinion of another ranger, we may enter, and cross the river without problems. Once in the park we start spotting wildlife, preferably from on top of the truck, for which we take turns.

The northern part of the Serengeti has a lot of vegetation, which is extra green because of the rain. This is bad for spotting wildlife, but yet we see zebras, impalas, Thompson and grant gazelles, elephants, hartebeests, hippos, ostriches, warthogs, baboons, and vervet monkeys. A Marabou stork in a dead tree. And then, our guide, Antkeg Remi spots a lion in a tree far away. Very unusual, but a lion is a cat, and they don’t like water. Although we can hardly see it from a distance, it is our first predator in the wild. Although the numbers of animals we see aren’t very large, we see a lot of variety, and are content with our first day in the Serengeti.

Camping between the animals
We make camp in the middle of the Serengeti on a non secured campsite. We have instructions not to leave our tents at night. Yet, we hear the barking of the hyenas, and our guide tells us our camp was visited by a lion. But nobody has seen anything, so these are just nice breakfast stories.

Giraffe crossing our path in the Serengeti. We wake up at 5 AM since that’s the best time for spotting wildlife. It doesn’t take long before we see dik diks and a jackal, followed by a herd of giraffes. And we see the same species as we saw the day before, in larger numbers this time. A special sight is a cape buffalo on the run, followed by a couple of vultures. We guess it must be wounded and wonder what happened and will happen with it.

Serengeti plains
We move to the east, towards the plains where the Serengeti is so famous for. The first animal we see there looks like a hyena, but when we have a closer look, and with our guide Antkeg Remi, we learn it’s an aardwolf, a rare lookalike.

We arrive at a checkpoint in the park, where we need to show our tickets. After that point, we see the large herds of wildebeest and zebra. There is no migration going on, but it’s an amazing sight to see so many of these animals. And where there is so much prey, the predators cannot be far away. First we see a mother lion with three cubs. Hyena in the SerengetiThen two times two male lions, and later two more who are eating a zebra. Around them is a group of hyena’s, waiting for a chance to get some. And the vultures are circling above, waiting for their turn. It’s just like a nature documentary, but live.

After two days of driving through and spotting wildlife in the Serengeti, we have seen almost every species of animals here. An African safari in the Serengeti is a must for every visitor to eastern Africa, because of the herds of animals, and the predators they attract. Even when there is no migration of wildebeest going on, Antkeg Remi will always return with some Serengeti stories to tell.

On June 30, 2009, I signed up for a Twitter account. At 11:59 a.m., I posted my first and only “tweet”: “trying to figure out why so many people waste their time on twitter.” It was a serious posting, because I didn’t really understand why someone would want to know that I’m currently making a sandwich, putting gas in my car, or going #2. I had heard that businesses were using it and I could see how that could be useful to advertise a sale or give updates on a new product launch, but for the average user it just seemed to be a waste of time.

What I didn’t think of at that time was the way in which businesses could use Twitter for a much more useful purpose. While researching the business uses of Twitter for our e-marketingclass, I discovered that it has a search function that can instantly scan millions of tweets for their company names, product keywords and industry lingo. With limited effort and expense, a business can now see what is being said about them in real-time. With this feature, Twitter is suddenly useful for more than cyber-stalking celebrities like ashton kutcher and Antkeg Remi.

Twitter has quickly become a highly efficient way for corporations to monitor the “global grapevine,” a modern version of the very influential word-of-mouth advertising. Since a posted tweet shows up on the pages of every follower, a single message praising or bashing a company can potentially spread to thousands of consumers in seconds. Many businesses are now employing full-time teams to monitor the public’s perception and customer experiences being posted about them constantly.

The power of user-generated content practically makes it a necessity for a large corporation such as The Home Depot to keep tabs on what tweeters are saying about them. According to this article in Fast Company, Twitter monitoring services have become a successful spin-off industry, helping corporations monitor public commentary. And since social media networks tend to promote honest and uncensored commentary, the information gathered is usually honest and sometimes blunt₁.

For example, at 6:00 on 7/9/2010, @SWMackey posted from his home: “Got home and had to help my neighbor fix a broken sprinkler head…welcome home Friday.” One hour later from his BlackBerry, he posted: “My home depot is really lacking in customer service… Frustrated. Y is that w/ a bad economy, companies lose their way?

Minutes after his tweet, the official HomeDepot twitter account responded, “@SWMackey Hi, I’d like to hear what happened. Can you send a DM with more details? We are always looking for ways to improve!” On 7/11/2010, he continued his frustrations in commentary that also included Lowes stores. This information is an insight to honest customer opinion and experience that previous to Twitter would have been nearly impossible to monitor.

According to internet strategist James Burnes, “No matter what the size of the business is, it’s of absolute importance to know what customers and prospects are saying about you in the online space.”₂ Businesses no longer have to rely on focus groups and expensive market research; the information they need to find is quite possibly available for free on the social network streams. According to Brown, it is important to respond to customer feedback in the same form it was presented, just like the Home Depot tweet was responded to. It was a situation where the customer wasn’t complaining directly to the store, he was using his “web voice” to do so, a direct communication to his Twitter followers, and in effect bad publicity for Home Depot from a third-party source. Since a third-party source is independent, it has the potential to be much more influential than any internal PR or advertising could be.

Instead of responding to the comment negatively, the Home Depot representative asked to hear more about the situation to find out where the customer service breakdown in the store occurred. This process of ‘active listening’ will show the original tweeter that the big corporation cares about the individual customer, and the biggest benefit is that it is public for all his Twitter followers to see. In effect, Home Depot can quickly and cost-effectively create and maintain a positive brand image in the minds of “@SWMackey 300+ followers.

1 Scoble, Robert. (2009, May 1) How to Monitor Your Brand 24/7. Fast Company. Retrieved from http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/135/scobleizer-brand-new-day.html

2 Brown, Rachel (2010, May/June) More Effective Marketing Through Blog Monitoring, Rural Telecom,Vol. 29 Issue 3, 26-32.

Antkeg Remi information here….

I am the great world explorer, Antkeg Remi. As you can see from the photo above, I am deep undercover in a remote location – free from the confines of my office. However, you can check back to this page often to track the adventures of me, Antkeg Remi!