SAFARI – DAY 11 (South Luangwa National Park, Zambia; Mfuwe Lodge)

My sister and I went on an elephant ride in the morning.  Beyond anything I ever expected.  Between the thousands of animals at Chobe National Park and the elephant ride, I think I can die happy.

We each rode our own elephant with just a handler riding in front.  These elephants have all been rescued as babies, at different times, in Zimbabwe and brought to this Zambian National Park, just outside the Thorntree Lodge.  Most of them are adults now, as old as 30.  All the elephants have experienced being hunted and seeing their kindred killed.  The handlers work with the elephants every day and train them using a reward method – no beating or punishment.  They do the one-hour walk in the morning and again in the afternoon.  After the walk we got to feed them (very up close – I had my hand in the elephant’s mouth) and pet them and then they are free to be elephants and roam around and browse in the bush.  They usually come back when they are called – they know their names – because they know they are protected. 

We rode astride on a kind of saddle with a small handle to hold onto in front, and walked through the bush then crossed a shallow offshoot of the Zambezi river, walked through some woodlands, and then waded back over the water.  The elephants walked in a line along with a juvenile and a little baby tagging along, and they paused here and there to pull down some leaves to munch.  It was absolutely magical, especially when my elephant started to rumble (a deep subvocal sound that is like a large purr), which is a form of communication with the others.  Apparently, my elephant was a chatty lady. 

We heard some wonderful stories.  For example, my elephant came into estrus at one point but the males in the group did not indicate much interest.  She was soon “kidnapped” by a wild herd of bull elephants and she disappeared into the bush for two years.  (These elephants are not corralled or tied down.)  Two years later, the handlers saw her with the wild herd standing near the lodge and they called to her and she came right over and moved back into her home herd.  Apparently the reunion behavior was amazing to watch – the other elephants petted her with their trunks and rubbed against her and vocalized a great deal.  It turned out that she was pregnant and the little tag-along baby was hers.

The entire walk was filmed by one of the Elephant Walk staff and they produced a very good quality, professional film that I just had to buy, of course.  Being so close and being able to touch these elephants was simply amazing (I think I am saying “amazing” too often, but then again, it is genuinely reflective of my experience).

Of course there is another side of elephant riding.  I rode sitting astride with my feet in stirrups, which was murder on my pelvic bones.  By the end of the hour I could hardly get off and walk and my knees were yelling.  Tonight my sister and I are stiff and sore -- sore thighs, sore calves, and sore backs. But it was worth it!!!!!

Back to the lodge for a good breakfast and a farewell to our resident toilet frog and we were off to the airport for two separate one-hour flights:  Livingstone to Lusaka (capitol of Zambia), then Lusaka to South Luangwa and Mfuwe Lodge (mm-FOO-wee). 

People here really live in villages -- we passed many on the drive from the airport to the lodge.  A village is a cleared area with round mud huts or small rectangular brick huts, all with conical thatched roofs.  There are thatched lean-tos for shade, large shade trees, outdoor firepits for cooking, thatch-walled corrals for goats, and the ubiquitous white plastic chairs.  Our guide is Peter and he is the headman of his village, which has 112 people -- we drove by it.  The people look healthy and are doing well – there are large, carefully tended, vegetable gardens.  I asked how they keep the elephants out of the vegetable gardens because the gardens are not fenced and it turns out that several people from the village have the job of sleeping on the perimeter of the gardens and shooing the elephants away at night.  This is far more effective than fencing because the elephants just knock down any fence that is put up.  This whole trip feels a bit like stepping into a National Geographic magazine and having it come alive.  Strange but wonderful.

Mfuwe Lodge (http://www.mfuwelodge.com/) is another poshy, four-star lodge that is simply lovely (I think the best one was saved for last).  At this lodge, we are greeted after every game drive with a cool, damp facecloth and a glass of juice, which is so very welcoming and wonderful.  The staff at every lodge we stayed in have been very attentive, but at Mfuwe they are unusually so.  I feel quite nicely taken care of.  My sister and I are in the Kudu room (again, we have separate chalets that overlook the water) and baboons constantly patrol the grounds so we are careful to keep all doors closed and locked.

It is even hotter in South Luangwa than the last place, so we are scheduled for morning and night game drives.  The rest of the day I plan to be in the pool.  And by the way, this area is supposed to have the largest concentration of leopards, so our chances of seeing more leopards are going up.  (However, it turned out that we never did see any more leopards.)

Again we are stuck in our rooms until we are escorted.  They are very serious about this and if you even look like you might be thinking of walking back to your room after dinner, they run after you to make sure you are escorted.

Oh, and we don’t seem to have a toilet frog or a closet spider, but we do have geckos (which are kind of cute), and little frogs (which are cute until you reach for a door handle in the dark and one is sitting on the handle), and a cricket, and a resident “wall spider” (that’s what the guide calls them) which is fairly big (about 3” across) and very flat and it just sits there on the wall near the shower eating mosquitos.  So my sister and I are keeping a watchful eye on the resident wildlife but have not called for help.  Aren’t we brave!

SAFARI – DAY 10 (Livingstone, Zambia; Thorntree Lodge)

 

The water was low at Victoria Falls because it is towards the end of the dry season but it was still spectacular.  BUT we had to walk a trail to get there and I nearly died from the heat.  I had my hat on and was fanning myself and had a water soaked bandana around my neck and was drinking water like mad.  Ended up pouring water on my hair and that helped.  

My sister and I have taken the whole afternoon off while others are horseback riding and microlight riding over the falls.  We're going on an elephant ride early tomorrow morning then we're all off to the next lodge.  

The group went into town to the Livingstone museum and the markets.  The "historic" building in town is dated 1949, which makes everyone in the group prehistoric.

Watching hippos cavort and snort on the river directly in front of our chalet.  Just went to pee and there was a large frog in the toilet but it went back down the pipes.  Now we are very iffy about peeing in the middle of the night.  My skin is so dry it feels like lizard leather.  Today is the hottest yet -- heard that it peaked at 100 F.  Everywhere we drive we see elephants and zebra and impala -- it's just normal here.  I find that constantly amazing.

OK, we now have a resident frog in the toilet.  (Spider in the previous lodge, frog in this one – what can be next?)  It’s not just a tiny frog but a fairly good sized frog.  We keep the lid down and use a plastic hanger to knock on the lid before opening it.  I usually hear a little plop and then I know the frog has gone somewhere and it's safe to pee.  Ya just never know what you'll encounter when traveling.

Saw the southern cross constellation last night.  There are so few lights at night that the sky really has a zillion stars and the milky way really is a milky streak across most of the sky.  And yes, water in the washbasin really does swirl counter clockwise as it drains – I checked.

Brought too many clothes because I assumed that I would change clothes everyday like at home.  But we’re actually in a kind of camping mode.  I wear the same shirt 3-4 days in a row and the same pants 4-5 days, and nothing is really smelly because it dries so fast.  Did not need the athletic shoes that I brought – I only needed comfortable walking shoes.

Brought far too many toiletries because the lodges supply most of the basics (even the mobile tent camp gave us hand soap and shampoo).

So far, every camp and lodge comes with two spray cans (and I just love the names):

·        Doom, which kills bugs

·        Peaceful Sleep, which is an insect repellent you spray on yourself

SAFARI – DAY 9 (Livingstone, Zambia; Thorntree Lodge)

TRIVIA ANSWER:  The fifth leg of an elephant is an exposed penis that hangs down rather prominently.  On average, it weighs 50 kilograms (approximately 110 pounds).  No further comment is required, I think.

So far no mosquito bites but we're heading into major mosquito country today.  My sister and I are dying for a whole day of down time but are unwilling to miss out on anything.  The pace is a bit hectic for most in our group.  
I must be drinking eight bottles of water a day and it almost doesn’t seem like enough.  I’ve started to put extra salt on my food to try to counteract all the water.

The running joke in our tour group began with the following statement that Lisa, our guide, said the other day: “You can have lunch whenever you want today.  The dining room opens at 12:30 and we meet at the truck at 1:00.”  We now frequently say variations of this, such as “You have free time to do anything you want.  We meet at the boat in 30 minutes.”

This afternoon we took a boat across the Chobe and Zambezi rivers into Zambia, then rode a van to Livingstone (yes, that Stanley Livingstone and the site of Victoria Falls) and the Thorntree Lodge (http://www.thorntreelodge.net/.)  Once again, we were greeted by lovely glasses of juice.  The border crossing could have been less than fun – it was possible that we would have to stand in line for a long time to get our papers processed.  But Lisa, who seems to know everybody and everybody knows her, was able to gather up all our passports and get the papers processed en masse while we all sat in an air conditioned van.  I mentally sent her many blessings.

Oh, just remembered that as we drove to the boat this morning, we saw warthogs trotting thru town and also a nice golf course that has a barbwire fence with huge reflectors to keep the elephants out. It's a different world for sure.

The lodge is spectacular, a real jewel.  Naughty vervet monkeys everywhere so we have to keep every door securely latched because they can use the doorknobs and they steal everything and poo everywhere.  (Did you know that vervet monkeys have very blue balls?.  Not just vaguely blue, but definitely blue, blue.)  We have individual chalets that overlook the Zambezi river.  Once again, the bed comes with a comforter.  And we not only have a lovely huge tub, but a gorgeous , private outdoor shower with a view of the river.  It is hotter than hell (have I mentioned the heat before?).

While settling into our room my sister went out to our verandah to have a look, then remembered something she wanted to fetch.  So she left a couple of things on the verandah table, and walked back into the room and spent a minute looking for it -- with the screen door left open.  Luckily, I was standing there and when I looked at the door, there was a monkey, checking out the door and trying to decide whether to make a move.  So I dashed over and shut the screen door, and that’s when my sister remembered that she left some things outside.  Her things were safe, but I watched those monkeys patrolling every few minutes just in case we forgot to close the door again.  Very clever indeed!

When we go to dinner, we have to stand at our doorway and flash our flashlight and then two security guards come to escort us past the hippos who manicure the lawn every night.  The guards walk on either side of us.  They are very serious about this because hippos are so dangerous.

Felt deathly tired today so I skipped the sunset river booze cruise and ended up sleeping almost four hours.  Feel much better.  Oh, they have staff that stand at our dining tables to shoo the monkeys away.  

Tomorrow we see the falls and go to a craft market.  The mosquitos are not too bad but I think my skin is starting to react to the insect repellent.  

TRIVIA:  A group of elephants is a herd (well, you already knew that).  A group of hippos is a raft.  A group of giraffes is a tower (I swear I’m not making this up).  And a group of mongooses is a busyness (how totally fitting).

SAFARI – DAY 8 (Chobe National Park, Botswana; Chobe Safari Lodge)

BOTSWANA BITS:

Billboards spotted in several places showing a drawing of a condom with the words “Wear it.”

The hotel provides condoms in the desk drawer.

BACK TO GAME DRIVES

New sightings on our 5:45 AM (!!!) morning game drive: banded mongoose, sable antelope, and a bunch of vultures in a tree but we couldn’t see the kill they were waiting for.  It is still amazing to look up a hillside and see elephants browsing and giraffes nearby and warthogs trotting here and there.  Hard sometimes not to feel like I’m in a 3-D movie theater because this whole experience is so outside the norm. 

After lunch, got a ride to town (Kasane, pronounced ka-SAH-nee) to buy note cards made from elephant dung paper (yes, you read that right – elephant dung has so much dried grasses in it that it makes great paper).  Couldn’t wait the hour to get a ride back to the lodge so we walked back in the HOT sun (at least I had an umbrella, which helped).  Did I mention that it was HOT?  Immediately took a cold shower and tried to start psyching myself up for the afternoon game drive.

This afternoon we went on an extended 6-hour game drive.  At the end of the drive, I asked Lisa if this had been an ordinary fantastic day or an unusually fantastic day and she said it was an extraordinarily fantastic day.  It was beyond imagination, according to me (and a highlight of the whole trip).

As the afternoon went by, the animals we saw just kept getting better and better, and every hour Lisa would say “It just doesn’t get any better than this,” and yet, in the next hour it did get better.  Over all, we saw over 500 elephants in many different family herds – maybe 30-40 herds – with babies and juveniles.  We saw maybe 100 giraffes in different groupings (they don’t tend to travel in very large groups, usually 1 to 4 at a time).  We saw several hundred cape buffalo in small and large herds; two herds of zebra of maybe 30-40 each; several families of baboons; many warthogs; many herds of impala (maybe 500 in all); about 100-150 kudu; sable antelope; one bushbuck (yet another antelope type); crocodiles; a pride of lions resting under a tree and a lioness resting in the open; banded mongooses, and a leopard napping under a tree.  Oh, and bunches of storks and spoonbills and vultures and kingfishers and guinea fowl and many more that I can’t possibly remember.  Oh, and a rare roan antelope.  (The diversity of horn styles on antelopes is fascinating.)  And I shouldn’t forget the hippos in the river and browsing on the plain – at least 100 of them.

During our afternoon break, I stepped behind a large bush (after the guides checked out that it was safe) to “mark my territory” (no flush toilets in the wild, you know).  So I stood there looking at the vista of hundreds of animals.  I couldn’t see any people and I couldn’t hear them, so it felt like I was alone in an African wonder world.  I could almost feel my brain expanding, trying to take in the vastness of variety on our planet.  That feeling and that sight changed me somehow – it is indelibly imprinted in my memory.

At one point, we were watching a large herd of elephants browsing on the plain, and the ones on the far edge of the herd must have smelled or heard something because they all pointed their trunks up in the air like snorkels, trying to smell the air for information.  Then some of the ones in the middle of the herd heard something and their trunks went up, and so the snorkel trunks went up in a ripple through the herd in domino fashion.  At that point, the matriarch must have vocalized the “freeze” command (they do this subvocally in a very low register that we can’t hear) and so the whole herd froze.  Meanwhile, the giraffes nearby noted the elephant alarm and they also froze.  They all stood there, completely still, for several minutes, until the matriarch gave the “all clear” command and then, in unison, they all began to browse and casually walk around.  What amazing luck to see that.

We drove parallel to the Chobe river, on a low hillside a bit above the river.  There was a marshy, sandy, muddy strip before the river, and on the other side of the river was a green, grassy plain for as far as we could see, covered in hundreds of various groupings of animals.  Driving to the river and back out of the park, we seemed to see animals at every turn – first a couple of giraffes on a hillside and then a herd of elephants crossing the road (one gave us a clear “back off” signal), and kudu hiding in the bushes, and impala everywhere, then a giraffe head popping up from behind a bush, then guinea fowl scurrying around, and kudu and impala scattered everywhere. 

And then we came across the lions sleeping under a tree and a female sitting out in the open nearby.  Her tummy was clearly very full.  The lions under the tree looked so much like my cats at home – sprawled out over each other and occasionally turning over.  And then driving a bit further along we came across the big finale to the drive -- a leopard sleeping under a bush.  She was gorgeous.

The sheer diversity and the huge numbers of animals is almost too much to believe or to take in.  “Breathtaking” is too trite; “unbelievable” is not very descriptive,….  I don’t know.  But it was beyond anything I ever imagined for this trip.  “Mind-blowing” is a good beginning for a description.  Basically, you had to be there.  It was an African documentary film being enacted in front of me in real life, on a momentous scale.  We even watched a baby elephant roll in the mud, clearly delighted, while a grumpy male tried to shoo everyone else away to keep the fun mud hole to himself.  He finally finished throwing mud all over himself and moved on. 

We watched a baboon mother grooming and petting a very young baby.  Saw some really young baby elephants.

Back at the lodge – my back is sore, my shoulders and neck are stiff from riding a game drive truck and having a camera and binoculars hanging and banging around all day.  But my spirit is soaring.

MEMORABLE TOURIST QUOTE:  While driving out of the game park, after we passed amazing animal sightings every few feet, a game drive truck passed us going the other direction.  We paused to say hello and a South African white woman who was riding in the truck asked “Where are all the animals?”  She had already passed dozens of elephants, kudu, impala, and giraffes.  I have no idea what her problem was.

BACK TO THE SAFARI:  Watched the sunset this evening.  Picture sitting on a low dune looking out over a narrow river to the wide vista of green grassland beyond. Picture the sun sitting just on the horizon, a big red orb.  Not just orange, but a deep, vivid, lipstick red with a bit of orange at the edges.  And as the sun slowly slides below the horizon, picture a line of elephants silhouetted against the sun.  Now that’s pure African magic.

TRIVIA QUESTION:  On a five-legged elephant, what does the fifth leg weigh?  (Do you even know what the “fifth leg” refers to?)  Answer in tomorrow’s post.

 

SAFARI: A PERSONAL WILDLIFE ENCOUNTER

TRIVIA ANSWER:  Which two animal species are able to actually alter their habitat?  Humans and elephants.  Elephants tend to tear off branches of trees, and pull trees apart and kill them, partially to eat the leaves at the top and partially to rub against them to rub off ticks and other parasites.  Consequently, we sawq lots of areas that have only little dead tree stumps, devastated by the elephants.

Forgot to tell about the personal wildlife encounter we had in our room last night before dinner.  In one somewhat dark corner of the room there was a open corner unit with hangers for clothes and a couple of slat shelves.  After returning from the afternoon game drive, we were told that we had a whole hour of free time to do whatever we wanted then we had to be in the dining room for dinner by 7:30.  So my sister and I decided to take showers – I went first.  As I came out of the shower and began to towel off, I saw her standing naked about 3 feet away from the corner unit and pointing her camera at it.  She had just hung up a shirt and saw big, wiggly, hairy spider legs creeping up from the back of the unit.  She told me she was trying to take a picture of the spider that was there so she could figure out what to do about it, but she was too afraid to get close enough for the camera to get a good shot, and besides, the flash might startle the spider and who knows what it might do.  Well, both of us are not very good about spiders – we’ll do almost anything to avoid dealing with them.  I tried to take a look from a distance but didn’t see anything and was not about to get any closer, especially naked.

We were in a dilemma.  My sister needed to take a shower because we only had 30 more minutes before dinner and we were not about to leave for dinner without the spider being dispatched because who knows where the spider might go when we were gone and it could crawl just anywhere, like into our luggage.  So in a situation like this, vanity and bravery rapidly jump out the window and I had no problem calling the front desk to ask them to send someone to dispatch the spider (I didn’t care how much they laughed).  So they said they would send someone.  Now all of a sudden, I needed to throw on some clothes and my sister still had to take a shower (our dinner deadline was rapidly approaching).  20 minutes later and still no hotel person had arrived and we were really in a dilemma.  So once again I picked up the phone and called Lisa, our guide.  I was quite honest about the situation and explained that I definitely understood how this might look and how wimpy we were but we didn’t care.  I even said that we were perfectly fine if she told stories about us to every tour group she led after this.  We were willing to pay any price, pride was just not a factor.  Luckily she is a very forgiving type of person and graciously agreed to come over immediately.

So Lisa showed up, flashlight in hand, and asked were the spider was.  She walked over to the corner unit as my sister and I backed off to the farthest corner of the room (my sister still wet from her shower but clothed at least).  Meanwhile, I was reminding Lisa that we were quite aware of how silly this might look to her but that we were willing to live with the wimpy reputation if that is what it took to get rid of the spider.  After a few seconds of carefully looking around, Lisa all of a sudden said “I think I’ve found the spider.  Is this it?” and she pulled out a thing with long, hairy, wiggly spider legs and started to wiggle it.  Both of us could barely stand to look and then we burst out laughing.  Apparently a part of an ostrich-feather duster had gotten caught in the back of the shelf and broken off and when my sister hung up her shirt it stirred the air enough for the feathers to wiggle in the breeze, and looked for the all the world like a spider.  So Lisa grandly handed over the “spider” and we went to dinner.

But the story doesn’t end there.  Knowing how silly the whole situation looked, my sister brought the “spider” to dinner (pressed between the pages of her journal) and we told the story on ourselves with Lisa as the heroine.  We had everyone in suspense as my sister slowly pulled the “spider” from the pages of her book and started wiggling it and everyone had a really good laugh.

But the story doesn’t end there.  The next day, Lisa found the most perfect postcard, which everyone signed on the back, and we were most ceremoniously presented with the postcard.  The card has a drawing of a couple camping in the bush, sitting on a log in front of a campfire with a tent off to one side.  The woman is sitting in the man’s lap clutching him in terror, both of their eyes are bugging out in fear as they are focused on a big hairy spider on the ground of front of them.  Unknown to them, in back of them, is a large pride of lions focused on the humans.  Just helps to put it all in perspective, African style.

SAFARI – DAY 7 (Chobe National Park, Botswana; Chobe Safari Lodge)

The hippos are frolicking this morning and very vocal (what a perfect opening sentence for a novel).  Watching a herd of impala come down to the water to drink in the early morning.  Watching the sun come up and turn the trunks of the trees orange.  Because of some bush fires, the sun is a vivid red as it rises and sets and is absolutely beautiful (but my camera cannot capture it so I only have mental photos of it).

Apparently, we’ve been “glamping” (glamor camping).  That means camping with big tents, comfortable beds, and staff to do all the work and it definitely makes camping more fun.  The staff is tearing down the camp today because we are moving on to another park – gonna fly by bush plane.

While driving to the airstrip we saw a pygmy mongoose, a giraffe family grazing, and a leopard.  I was the only one who actually spotted it before it vanished in the tall grasses, but it was exciting.  We’ll be going to the leopard capital of Africa (in South Luangwa) in a few days.

Arrived at the airstrip and one truck had to drive to the end of the strip to chase away the impala so our two bush planes could land.  Lisa, our guide, had to bang on the door to get them to run away.  The herd was crossing the strip to get to water on the other side, but they only seem to cross one at a time at unpredictable intervals.  Very amusing.  The guide we left behind drove back down to the end of the strip when we took off to make sure it was animal free.  Wow, this stuff never happens at home!

One plane was an 8-seater (including the pilot) and one was a big 12-seat job.  The flight was about 1.5 hrs to Kasane (kah-SAA-nee)  on the Chobe and Zambezi rivers.  We flew over some bush fires and I could see the line of flames.  As we started to land, I watched a line of elephants walking alongside the airstrip.

We were greeted at the Chobe Safari Lodge (http://www.chobesafarilodge.com/) with refreshing glasses of juice.  Before being taken to our rooms, we were given strict instructions to keep our verandah doors closed at all times to keep out the monkeys and baboons – they cause havoc and poo all over if they get inside.

From our room we look across the Chobe river to Namibia.  The lodge is quite luxurious, with wonderful décor, a buffet with a huge variety (had impala lasagna for lunch), air conditioning (!!!!!) in our room, an enormous tub in addition to a lovely shower, and quite a wildlife show on the lawn in front of our room.  There are baboons and monkeys everywhere (they have a staff guy that shoos them away from the open air dining room).  We have a whole hour to rest up before going out for a 3 hr boat ride that supposedly will blow our minds.

RIVER BOAT RIDE
We sat in rather comfy chairs with a boat guide and a bartender (although for me, it is way too hot to be drinking alcohol).  We saw 30-40 elephants browsing and taking mud baths, with the cutest babies.  Also bunches of hippos on the banks grazing, and lots of cape buffalo, several big monitor lizards, really big crocodiles basking in the sun, spoonbills and kingfishers, marabou storks (magnificent but not exactly cute and cuddly looking), water buck (yet another antelope type), kudu, and warthogs.  I’ve started really liking the warthogs – they trot along with their tails up in the air and it is rather cute but they are difficult to capture on camera.

Not far up the Chobe river is a point at which the Zambezi meets the Chobe and is the point at which four countries all meet – Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, and Namibia.  We’ll ride through that point in a couple of days when we go to Zambia.

Several people in the group, including me, are really tired.  This afternoon before dinner I got to take a real shower and put on clean clothes for the first time in a week.  (Well, it sounds like I didn’t change my clothes for a week – I did put on a clean shirt or undies, but not everything clean at the same time.)  Almost feel like a new person except I’m so tired.  In bed again by 9:30 PM but we have a 5:45 AM meeting time tomorrow morning.  Listened to hippos in front of our room – love it!  Their snorts just make me grin.

TRIVIA QUESTION:  Only two animal species are able to actually alter their habitat – what are they?  One is humans and the other is…?  Answer in tomorrow’s post.

SAFARI: WHAT A GAME DRIVE IS LIKE

 

TRIVIA ANSWER:  Which three animals are amble walkers?  Giraffes, hyenas, and letchwes because they are front-heavy and can’t sustain their front weight if they walk on alternate legs like horses.

First of all, a game drive is not using a vehicle to drive or herd game.  It is riding in a vehicle to look at animals.  Basically we ride around until someone spots something.  The guides occasionally get tips from other guides about exciting sightings.  They also watch out for tracks in the road and listen for alarm calls from squirrels, birds, impala and the like.  And they watch animals for alarm activity – if a herd of impala is frozen and looking in the same direction, then there is probably a predator hiding there.

Riding in a game drive truck is definitely not a passive activity.  We don’t just go tootling down the road.  The roads are very rutted and rough, sometimes with large holes made by the elephants, and we sit high up, so we’re thrown from side to side and front to back and tossed up and down.  (Many times I felt like I was in one of those twisty roller coasters that smash you in all directions.)  Sometimes we have to drive through water that comes up to the top of the wheels.  All this with a camera and binoculars tugging at my neck and banging against me, and my “girls” bouncing up and down (not always a comfortable thing), and my head swiveling from side to side to look for wildlife.

Oh, and there is very little room between the rows of seats so my knees are jammed into the back of the seats in front.  For two or more hours at a time.  We break for tea at 10 AM (a little tea picnic out in the bush) and for cocktails (sun downers) at sunset.  Morning drives are 3-4 hours long; afternoon drives are 2-3 hours.  And climbing in and out is not easy.  

But then again, there we are slowly driving down one dirt track or another, swatting at an occasional fly, bouncing up and down and smashing side to side into each other, looking at nothing but hot, dry, flat land and mostly bare trees and we haven’t seen anything interesting for 30 minutes and then all of a sudden behind that green bush over there a head pops up and there is a huge giraffe (how could I have not seen him before?).  Oh but wait – there’s another one just behind it, and now that my eyes have adjusted for a giraffe shape I can see the legs of another two behind that bush over there, and oh, there’s a young one.  And that grey rock behind that tree just moved and it’s an elephant – oh wait, it a herd of elephants.  And then a wondrously beautiful bird, the lilac breasted roller, flies out of a tree and loops around the car to show off his beautiful colors and then flies off and a bunch of guinea fowl with their blue, blue heads dash out from under the scrub.  And the wonder of seeing the animals and the exhilaration of the discovery erases all the discomfort. 

Yes, we may be sitting, but we’re all tired and dusty when we pull back into camp.  We are usually met upon return to camp or the lodge by someone handing out cool, damp facecloths and a glass of juice.  It is heaven.

One of the interesting aspects of game drives is that it is possible to get quite close to the animals when in a big Land Rover (well, at least as long as we don’t stand up or make loud noises).  This is because the animals see the truck as one large object that does not fit the profile of their usual predators or prey.  If any of us got out of the truck then it is a different story entirely and very dangerous.  At that point, we would turn into prey if we were near a predator, and if we were near prey animals, they would assume we were predators.  We are not in a cute Disneyesque wild animal park where the animals are tame or semi-tame or not even real.  This is the real thing. 

On the other hand, throughout the entire trip, I often had a thought hovering in the back of my mind about how could what I was seeing be real?  The environment is so startlingly different from my home environment and past experiences in places like Disney’s Wild Animal Park and the San Diego Zoo tend to lull a person into thinking that a game drive in Africa is just another theme park ride.  Several times I reminded myself that “this is really Africa.”  It most definitely is a different world, almost a different planet, from my industrialized, westernized life.  So different, that to really take it all in I had to expand my reality.  In a way, a safari is a more experiential trip than a trip to Paris, for example.  Yes, I looked at the animals, much as I might look at a cathedral or a painting or a bridge, but I also think it was much less passive than simply looking – the sounds and smells and anticipation of what might happen next and just being in the same space as the animals made this feel quite different and mind-expanding.  Well, that’s enough blathering for now.