Newsletter October 2008
Kücki Today
Editorial
Dear friends, first of all I want to thank you for all
the feedback we’ve got for the first newsletter…
Meanwhile our campsite is fully functional;
please get information and make your reservations through
Lara (rostock@iway.na).
In this edition we will focus on the 10th anniversary of Rostock Ritz (thus the 2 pages, sorry for that...), present the Meerkat Rescue Project, and disclose the secret of how it comes
our dog eats carrots. To finalize, we will try to elicit a big fat
amusedsmile from you, with a cartoon by JJ. Hope it works
Enjoy reading!
Yours sincerely,
Rostock Ritz 10th Anniversary
The vision of building a lodge “in the middle of nowhere” cameto my mind in 1989, when I bought the Rostock South Farm.
It took me 9 years to put my vision into practice. After finding
some “believers” at the bank and amongst my friends (thanks
to Jerry and Piet Odentaal, the architect!), I started building,
from very scratch.
Having found a water hole to guarantee our survival, we started building roads, laying groundings, pumping balloons, covering them with concrete, cutting doors and windows, and finally, filling the pool, painting, decorating, and employing our
staff.
In October 1998, after 1 year of blood, sweat, tears and laughter, we celebrated the Rostock Ritz Desert Lodge opening.
I want to thank all my supporters, my naughty and dear
friends, family (including my
animals), and neighbors, and
all my staff throughout this 10
years, some still here, some left
for other adventures. The success of that project is built on all of you. I want to thank NTB
(Namibia Tourism Board) and HAN (Hospitality Association of
Namibia) for their great work in supporting Namibia’s hospitality industry, and all the agents and tour operators, for the
fair, fun, challenging and professional team work, for believing in our product and sending us guest, although we are not
at the Sossusvlei gate (the guests in general also thank you for
that ). Last but not least, I want to thank all of our wonderful
guests, those who came once, those who came again, those
who stayed. For each of you it’s worth to be here and to keep
it going.
To celebrate the occasion, we will be running a prize draw for
20 vouchers of 2 nights B&B at Rostock Ritz, amongst all
the receivers of this newsletter. The winners will be notified
by email.
The Meerkat Rescue Project
Since 2002 we are reintegrating abandoned meerkats (suricats) into their natural environment. Suricatsare very social, they tend to build up close
relationships to humans, once they are
taken off their own social environment. Humans perceive them as
“cute”, not realizing that they are
unhappy when outside their own
groups. Sold as pets at the roadside, they tend to become “uncomfortable” when hold in captivity in closed areas. As a consequence, they are abandoned.
Sonja Sagell from Swakopmund
collects those abandoned meerkats and builds new social groups
out of them. Those groups are
then taken to Rostock Ritz for reintegration. After spending some
time in a big enclosure to get
used to the new environment (3
months in average), the group dig
their own “holes to freedom” and start getting out.
In June this year the Meerkat-Rescue Organization has been
officially launched. A group of ten has already been released
last year; they still come to the lodge
from time to time to be fed. At the
moment we have a new group of
6, who already found their way out
from the enclosure and have bred.
For detailed information or for donations, please contact Sonja at +264-(0)81 240 9645.
How it comes our dog eats carrots?
A year ago, our guests reported about an abandoned zebrababy at the main road, near to Rostock’s main gate. I just hurried to see what it was all about, and there was Maya (how be
baptized her later on), small, weak and dehydrated, not able
to stand on her feet. No other zebras as far as
one could see. My animal-care instinct was
immediately triggered, so I brought here to
the lodge, and after consulting the vet,
we started to feed and cuddle her
every 4 hours, 24 hours a day.
She liked it and decided to
survive, to grow, and
at a certain point, not
only to drink milk with
molasses anymore, but also to eat carrots. Rocky, our Weimaraner, was watching the
development very carefully. He was fine with her drinking milk
from the bottle (“that’s for sissies…”)
but when she started to get special
carrot-treatment, he decided to
intervene… “If she gets carrots and special attention,
I will eat carrots too!”. Eventually he
even liked the taste, and is now the
most famous carrot eating dog in the
Namib desert. And his eyes are as good as never before!
Jakob’s dream is a Maya’s nightmare...
Be on edge for our next newsletter, coming a little bit later, on
February 1st, due to vacation time, finally with the Bushmen
Paintings trail, an interview with our chef, and some more surprises....