This is a very fast snake! One must have very quick hands to catch one of them, that is for sure. This one was coming along, in the opposite direction, on a game path I was following. Usually they are gone in a flash, this guy seemed more curious than scared.
I took a few close up photos, from those took these below, and cut out the background. NOT AI!!!! GIMP.
Full Name: Western Yellow-bellied Sand Snake (Psammophis subtaeniatus)
Other Names: Stripe-bellied Sand Snake, Westelike Geelpenssandslang, Westelike Streeppenssandslang
Classification: MILDLY VENOMOUS
Map indicating the distribution of the Western Yellow-bellied Sand Snake in Southern Africa.
A fast-moving, slender snake that averages 50-80 cm. This snake is active during the day and is without doubt one of our fastest snakes. It is fond of basking but will move off rapidly if disturbed. It is comfortable in trees and shrubs.
Big Five Wars is my main mission for now and they also get updated regularly.
, a civilian courier service that flew us in and out. We handed in our passports and Trevor and I made acquaintance with our first real live Selous Scout, Bruce. He was in his late forties or early fifties and rather outspoken. We eventually climbed aboard a Kingair, along with a bull terrier, which let off the most terrible farts for the next six hours. Apparently he belonged to RMS Reima at the training camp called Longa. That dog did a bit worse than just fart a bit farting while at Rio Longa.
On this first trip no one had any booze, not even I, as we were clueless about the “security” at the airport. Keep in mind that Lanseria at this time was a couple of small buildings, nothing like it looks now. Over the years since then I did notice that the airport was a hotspot for all kinds of illegal shit. Once it was upgraded the illegal shit was transferred to our military , the Air Force bases. When a tagged Rhino Horn left Hoedspruit at a few hundred kilometres an hour I wrote that it is the military and got shot down for that. But. The Gupta Business proved that I was on track. I slept on and off, and by the time we landed didn’t know if I wanted more desperately to piss or smoke. Did both simultaneously.
Big Five Wars is my main mission for now and they also get updated regularly.
………climbing into bed with me every morning after her mother had left for work, just in panties and a T-shirt! I had to go – anywhere! So far nothing too serious had happened, but it was coming. I went. Charmaine took us to the airport; that early in the morning, Lanseria is dead quiet. We looked around and saw a couple of other chaps standing around looking confused. You can’t really waltz up to someone and ask, ‘Where is the flight for the “gonnabe” mercenaries,’ can you? Besides, although we had a good idea that it was to Angola, we weren’t supposed to know where we were going anyway. We all stood around until some reasonably well-dressed guy came and asked us what we were looking for. We met the pilots from Capricorn Systems, a civilian courier service……..
to be continued
Big Five Wars is my main mission for now and they also get updated regularly.
……….fight. I didn’t care. We’d been told to bring a pair of shorts and some sandals, and that everything else would be provided. We were to be at Lanseria airport at 3 am that Wednesday.
Now we just had to wait, so we went drinking again, hitting Froggo’s for an afternoon session. Froggo’s was my afternoon and evening pub, in the day it always had a few people I knew drinking, and at night the music was usually good. Mike became a big fan of Froggo’s and used to drive from Pretoria to come drinking with us. When I got home in the afternoon, Samantha was crying and saying how I was sure to be killed, how every man in her life left her: her father, her boyfriends. I should mention now that my life was getting complicated at this stage. Samantha had got into the habit of climbing into bed with me every morning…… to be continued.
Big Five Wars is my main mission for now and they also get updated regularly.
While looking for any photos of EO in Cabo Ledo found this blog and some info on the net that says:
Executive Outcomes (EO) operated a major training base at Cabo Ledo, Angola, starting in 1993 and into 1994, where they trained thousands of Angolan government (FAA) troops.
Photographs specifically isolated to the Cabo Ledo base camp itself are quite rare online, as most public imagery focuses on active combat zones or group portraits. However, historical documentation and photographic archives from the 1993–1994 Angola campaign show EO personnel, equipment, and the training operations they conducted during this exact period:
Troop Training: Under the contract, EO built up an extensive infrastructure to train up to 5,000 FAA infantrymen and 30 combat pilots. Photos from this era typically depict South African advisors in distinctive brushstroke or DPM camouflage alongside Angolan recruits.
Air Support: EO heavily relied on Soviet-era hardware integrated with their own tactics. Common images feature personnel deployed alongside Mi-17 and Mi-24 helicopters, which were heavily utilized out of
……. The next morning, after my customary breakfast of a six-pack and a few shots of vodka, Trevor, Charmaine and I set off to find “The House”. There, in a normal street, in an ordinary suburb we found it. The only indication something was not kosher was huge satellite dishes in the back yard (this was back in the days before DSTV). We went in, met Sergeant Pelsur, got the pay structure and signed a minimum one-year contract. The contract was to train troops in a foreign country, with money paid into a bank account of our choice anywhere in the world, in Dollars. Full medical, transport to- and from the foreign country, as well as food and drink, would be provided. All clothing and equipment was to be issued on site and in the beginning we would have to live in tents. Talking to Charmaine and my close buddy Mike that night I told them I believed the training thing was bullshit. For the amount of money we’d been offered, we were off to fight. I didn’t care. We’d been told to bring……………………..
Big Five Wars is my main mission for now and they also get updated regularly.
Started with the Doom Fogger , just one of the 100s of chemicals used extensively in the Game Lodges.
To write on every type of Doom like spray to prove it should not be allowed in ANY Reserves would be a mission on its own there are so many. Later I will just attack , ja attack, we not playing Painball here, every single shop in the Parks that sell any poisons. The “Quiet” ones will have to point out. Although should NOT have to point it out to ANY Lodge owner. The ALL say they support Nature Conservation, claim huge knowledge of the subject for the most part….
Every 5 Star Lodge has at least one , crystal clear pool, and every one I have seen, the runoff just goes into the ground. This is what the Greenpeace site told me.
Pool chlorine runoff damages the environment by altering soil chemistry, killing local vegetation, and introducing toxic chemical residue into natural water sources. In Bushveld and game-lodge settings, this contaminated backwash or overflow endangers localized wildlife, amphibians, and sensitive aquatic ecosystems.
Climate Change? Have a theory just recently about this. We all know it is a money making thing, but too many people believe the Trust the Science “facts”, still!! After looking at poisons for one month only, the Climate Change is Mickey Mouse, even if all we read is true. Recently the Bees got a bit of attention, they die , we die. This is biologically sound reasoning. BUT. Few things, first it is NOT only if the Bees go, we are at a point that the loss of even one tiny species of insect more and we take another big step towards …well, Armageddon. Then, I have just checked on all the insecticides/pesticides. I was sure they ALL kill bees, then I researched and found out this is 100% true. We have not even looked at herbicides yet!! That is another big issue I shall get to, as Agri Chems are just as bad. Time…. I will get there.
The reason that this chemical became the do all and end all of a clean pool is not a surprise……
The Post-WWII Backyard Boom & Mass Production
Chlorine production scaled up massively during World War I and II for industrial and chemical warfare purposes. When the war ended, chemical manufacturers had vast amounts of infrastructure to repurpose. [1]
A lot of things we EAT have a similar history!!!
I will make a quick post on that, but as you know, my concern for the general unwashed masses is not…. that great. It will be a just facts one.
Big Five Wars is my main mission for now and they also get updated regularly.
Until recently I did not thing too much about Symbolism. My only reference to this was the symbols my father and his Religion told me were evil, then the Mark of the Beast was a big thing with the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Then after the Epstein files I saw that, perhaps, just perhaps this symbolism thing is very important. Started checking on what symbols the Epstein people are using. The REAL Satanists. That was interesting indeed. By some chance this research led back to my other research, the Scots and further back, the Pics. Now they tell me the Pics have THE oldest Rock Carvings in the world, by bloody far, make out Bushman Rock Art look almost brand new! And. In there I found a few symbols used by the Christian Church.
Then, today I see on the big screen in the NG Church, a logo that interested me no end. I even went to the Sound Engineer lady and asked who made that logo!??? Head Office in Pretoria. I took a shot of the big screen and the logo.
This is a version of the Celtic Knotted Tree, modified only slightly. Ja. And. If you click on the church link, you will see the design of their official logo. Don’t tell me yo cannot see the Knotted Tree’s basic design.
Well, that is my quick look at this, I am sure I will come back to it.
Big Five Wars is my main mission for now and they also get updated regularly.
Bilbo Baggins said something along the lines of: ‘One ought to be very careful when one steps out of one’s door, as one never knows where one may end up.’
I stepped out of the proverbial door with the intention of getting horribly drunk at the local pub, which was conveniently within walking distance. I was doing just this when someone I’d had a nodding acquaintance with ten years back in the army, walked into the pub.
We were both not working me by choice because I had just sold my house and inherited a nice sum of money, Trevor because he couldn’t find work at that time. Anyway, Trevor had heard that, somewhere in Pretoria, a company was looking for men with operational experience to train troops in some African country, and they were paying very well – in Dollars! He had a contact name: Sergeant Pelsur, a company name: Executive Something, and a telephone number he was too bloody scared to act on. Well, I’m not known to be a man who sits on his hands, so after a good few drinks, off we went to my girlfriend’s house to make the call. All went well and an appointment was set up for the following day.
This, by the way, was Monday. I gave Trevor some money for petrol and booze and we both tried to find our old army records. My girlfriend Charmaine came home and I told her the news. She took it quite well but her 17-year-old daughter, Samantha, was none too happy. And that is another tale with a Devil’s Tail attached. The next morning, after my customary breakfast of a six-pack and a few shots of vodka……. to be continued
Big Five Wars is my main mission for now and they also get updated regularly.
The Chinese have a CURSE, “May you live in interesting times.” I have had an interesting life! For various reasons I began to write some of my adventures down. This was the very first and I began writing The Chronicles of the Mexican Horse Thief in 1999…..
This is a new version with a new introduction and added information that I gathered since then.
The Chronicles of the Mexican Horse Thief – Angola.
The year is 1993, newly divorced and even more “newly” moved in with a woman, Charmaine was a very long suffering lady. We had lived together lest that one month when I decided to show her Barberton. Part of my very dual Gemini existence is knowing about places like Barberton. My paternal Grandfather was a miner, mainly working on the mines around Barberton area. So while growing up in a big city, I spent a lot of my school holidays with my Grandfather. He was like I am now, always lived way out of even a small town. He had a man servant that followed him around, from place to place, he was too a Gypsy, who had the unusual name of Chop-and-Dagger. Old man that had those blue rings around his eyes. My Grandfather used to have a whole case of cold drinks for me, and Chop-and-Dagger feed me meat and pap. Used to sit in his Kia with other Black grownups and sometimes a kid I could play with, there was just Bush for miles. In the day I was just left to my own devices; I was taken down the mines some times but not often. My Grandfather was a licensed Blaster, obviously, so like in Jaluka’s song, African Sky Blue, I have seen the ‘smoking rock face mummer”! I ran around that Bush catching all sorts of little animals, but my passion was snakes. My Grandfather was terrified of snakes as was Chop-and-Dagger.
As an adult I often went back to Barberton an interesting town with a rich history. The first Gold Rust and, believe it or not the first South African Stock Exchange. The Coco Pans over the mountain and into Swaziland…. Grandfather told me how people froze to death in them. Apparently an illegal ride into Swaziland in the late afternoon was the in thing. But. At night the Pans stopped, if you were in one high in the mountains, frozen, gets cold at night in the Lowveld.
Outside of Barberton is a small Hotel, it was called The Bougainvillea Hotel, stayed there often. One day decided to take Charmaine up there to show her the beautiful Bush. We stayed at the old hotel but it had recently been bought and renamed, The Digger’s Retreat. In the small bar we met the owner, Vic. He bought not only the hotel but a Gold Claim too. Yes you can still buy them, back then anyway. He had a plan that was just off the ground. He took his guests panning for gold. Not the fake kak like at Pilgrim’s Rest, the real McCoy! Now if you get caught with raw gold in South Africa, you will sit in jail longer than if you shot you neighbour dead. Gold and diamonds have always been very well… controlled. Vic had the Claim and therefore he was allowed to have raw gold. He had already found some tiny nuggets, had them in a pill bottle. Good deal. Take a tourist panning, they pay to stay at the hotel, bar and food, then pay to do a Gold Panning Tour and finally, if they do find gold, they HAVE to give it to Vic.
The claim was not far and he had the owner of a 4×4 on his payroll to take them out. Most important was Dannie. This guy was out of a Jock of the Bushveld story! Seriously. Old guy, who knows how old, no one knows, not even Dannie. He left home as a kid and went panning for gold here. A real life God damn Digger! Vic was ex-military and we got on fine, he then said if I want to, I could come and stay here, do the marketing and photography, learn to pan and help Dannie. Ok, I can do this.
Charmian. Long suffering Charmaine my brand new girlfriend. Now to drive back , 3 hours or so, get kit and then back here sounded like a pain in the butt. So. I told Charmaine, she should go back, had to be at work on Monday anyhow, work the week and on Saturday next, bring my kit. She did just that. I stayed there for a few months, and have some stories for another time. Right now let’s get back to the Angola story.
Not a month went by and…. Well read on….. to be continued right here
Big Five Wars is my main mission for now and they also get updated regularly.
The Mexican Horse Thief 