sachara's VirtualTourist Home Page

Emmen is a modern municipality with industrial and horticultural areas. Emmen is situated in the north east of the Netherlands near the German border. Emmen has 110.000 inhabitants. Within the borders of Emmen is a lot of open and green space. Near the German border is a large nature reserve the Bargerveen (veen = moor). For information about the aera www.moorismeer.nl
I live in the centre of the city Emmen in one of the last historical districts. www.oudallee.nl For more information about my home-town, you can visit my Emmen page, the website of the municipality www.emmen.nl or read the brochure eMMen Makes More possible.

In spring and summer there are a lot of activities in the citycentre of Emmen. For example the last friday in May is the Jazz & Blues Night, in July is the CestlaVie Festival and the last sunday in August is the Full Colour Festival. This last one is my favourite.

Emmen is known because of its zoo. It's one of the most beautifull zoo's in Europe.The zoo is just behind our backyard. From the first floor of our house we can have a look at the African savannah with giraffes, zebras, rhinos, impalas and wildebeasts. For more information see my travelogue Noorderdierenpark or www.noorderdierenpark.nl

Sunday 1 march 2009 Annabel, the mother of the elephant herd, fell down in the dry ditch around the elephant island. It happened after she was hit by two playing younger elephants. For many hours they tried to rescue her, but without any succes. Back on the island she could not stand on her legs anymore. It turned out she was paralysed by a broken certebra of her neck. It was heartbreaking. Unfortulately it was her time to die.

She lived in the zoo behind my backyard for 40 years. She was the mother of the herd. Pictures in the traveloque are of her birthday in 2006.

In the zoo nextdoor we have big wild cats as neighbours (tigers, panthers and servals). In our own home and garden we have our own ''wild'' cats of a smaller size. The cats are used to the heavy roaring of their big sisters in the zoo.

This is our second cat, which was behaving more like a dog. She walked always together with me, especially outdoors.

At the 4th of august 2007 she died, only 8 years young....
Special about her was that she was always talking during the day. Her bright blue eyes looked straight into my eyes and she layed on my mouse when I was too long at VT.

Since April 2004 we have a huge male cat, called Bushman. In the first year his former family missed him and wanted him back, so he left us for 2 weeks. But they find out, that our home and garden was a better place for him. So he came back and enjoys the garden.