Riverside is an interesting place to say the least. You're often covered in poo, dirt and sweat. You often come to face with some creepy crawleys, massive (poisonous tasting) grasshoppers, snakes and scorpions - all of which, yes, I did see. But despite all of that, this was without a doubt the best thing I have ever done.
I started my trip on Saturday 15th September and words cannot describe how quickly this time has gone. It feels like I have blinked and the experience is over.
Over my short stay of 2 weeks I met an amazing array of different people from different countries, all carrying different stories and experiences leading them to Riverside.
For someone who doesn't like flying, the first part of the journey started off really well. I say first part because the second part was on the worlds smallest plane with propeller wings, which I was actually warned about before hand (pointing at you, Antonio). If you are travelling to Phalaborwa, there is no avoiding this plane (unless you get a 6-9 hour - I think - coach journey). The take off was shakey as fuck and turbulence was the planes best friend.
I was lucky enough to meet someone (Georgia) at the airport to start my journey off with, and even luckier... She was also my roommate during my time, along with an Austrian girl named Eva. It is amazing that despite the small stay of 2 weeks, you strike up the most amazing friendships; friendships that make you feel like you've known them for a lifetime.
Despite the amazing pictures I uploaded, Riverside is no walk in the park. It wasn't rare to see people on the phone crying or people feeling a little isolated or wanting to leave, which is why I would recommend that if you are in a bad head space, this might not be the place for you. I was quite lucky that I very much enjoyed being away from my phone and civilisation - I actually often referred to Riverside as Love Island (even including juicy Love Island story lines) because of the isolation that came during the stay.
Working days would start at 7am (have to be down to the main house at 6.45am) which means a nice wake up EVERYDAY of 6.15am (or 6am if you were looking after the baby baboons). And you would finish around 4pm, unless there was more to do... Or again, you were on 'babies', meaning you could finish at 5.30pm.
Breakfast was at 9, lunch as at 1pm and dinner at 6pm with a bell ringing for you each time. This could leave you feeling a little like you were back at juniors school, but hey... Gotta get your attention somehow, right?
The duties in the morning would include cleaning out the most paid attention to cages along with their clinic, quarantine and food prep. This would be spread amongst different teams (which changes each week) and a rota will be put up at the end of the day on Sunday to tell you what you will be up to for the rest of the week.
Cleaning the cages would often leave your face covered in splash back pee and poo, drips of watery poo down your arms and poo covered clothes, which is why you need to bring shit clothes with you.
Some chores definitely did seem very tedious. For example - constantly raking the floors just for them to be covered in leaves an hour later. Others were painful, for example - harvesting in 41 degree heat. Harvesting is where you go down to the river with machete's and chop up large greenery to bring back and feed the monkeys - this was my least favourite chore, especially with the insane African heat.
Without a doubt, the best chore was to look after the babies. You would be given a slot during the day to look after the two baby baboons - Olive and Tyga. Tyga grew to be one of my favourites with his adventurous and cheeky personality (despite the fact he scratched three lines down my face).
There were many areas for different ages and different types of monkeys, some of which we never done things with. This would be left to the actual workers, not volunteers. We would often work with the younger animals, which leads me on to another one of the best things... The baboon walk.
Everyday at 12pm the cage for the young baboons would be open and they would come running out into the arms, hair, back, legs of anyone they could find and love. They would cuddle, pull, fight for attention and you'd often be walking around with 4-5 monkeys clinging to any free space on your body. IT WAS THE CUTEST THING EVER.
When I was younger, I was never a fan of baboons. In documentaries, they're always seen to be quite evil and massive pests and to be quite frank... Ugly. As. Fuck. But 100% being here will change your mind. Don't get me wrong, the older baboons were very ugly and actually quite scary (the older ones sounded like lions), but the younger ones were absolutely amazing.
They would cry if they got into trouble or if another baboon upset them, they would make cute little whimper noises and loved to cuddle. They would have their favourites but overall loved humans. One of the baboons, James, absolutely LOVED to suck fingers like they were dummies.
Every Friday you will get the opportunity to eat out at a place called Crawdaddys, which OMG was insanely cheap. I had a main, dessert and 2 cocktails and this came to around £10 - MADNESS. I only got to do this once during my stay because on my last Friday I was lucky enough to go Kruger National Park.
You will have the opportunity to go to different excursions, but this isn't always guaranteed. After a lot of moaning from me and others in the group, 8 of us had the most amazing experience to spend a couple of days at Kruger, for the price of 3,200 Rand (£170ish).
No matter what I say, words will never fully describe how amazing this experience was. We saw 4 of the big 5, saw a baby leopard, a baby hyena and were surrounded by 137 buffalo. Not only this, but you could see the Milky Way perfectly at night (google it if you're not sure what that is). It was just absolutely beautiful; the hairs would stand on the back of your neck and your smile would resemble that of the Cheshire Cat. This was what living is all about.
My experience at Riverside was a short stay, bitter sweet. Despite it being 2 weeks, it's amazing what you can achieve and what you can feel during that time. Riverside isn't for everyone, and people did sometimes leave earlier due to not adapting the way they had hoped to Riverside life, but my experience was a great one.
I had been beaten up by an evil Vervet, fell in love with a baby Vervet (Lisa). I laughed until I almost wet myself. Slipped over running away from a spider. Had a fucking tank of a spider make comfy on my foot. Got annoyed. Got stressed. Was hot. I smiled... I really smiled. There was drinking and games... a lot of games. There was banter. Cuddles from baboons. Your sweat would sweat. You'd be fearful of your life. Eat way too much bread. Sit with multiple others open on the back of a truck and feel free. There were jokes, sadness, tears and isolation. Went to Kruger to live my inner David Attenborough. Met amazing people. Done amazing things.
As I sit here typing away, I feel sad knowing I wont be joking away with everyone. That I'm not in the super hot sun and that it's a hella long plane journey away.
My experience at Riverside was not long enough.
Would I do it again? I think I would.
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