SAFARI – DAY 14 (South Luangwa National Park, Zambia; Mfuwe Lodge)

 

TRIVIA ANSWER:  What animal has a matriarchal organization and, in fact, any female no matter how young can (and does) dominate all males in the group?  Hyenas.

Went on my last game drive this morning.  I was awakened twice last night by very VERY loud hippos, who sounded like they were in the room.  I usually sleep through most any noise, so you know the hippos had to be extraordinarily loud.  It’s still fun to hear them.

This morning we saw a bunch of vultures circling and followed them to a recent kill.  Didn’t actually see the carcass but our best guess is that it was a cape buffalo because a number of lions were guarding it.  The vultures kept hopping down from the trees and then they would slowly hop closer and closer, then they would frantically flap backwards as the lions shooed them away.  We watched this dance for a while and then noticed four hyenas coming in from different directions.  They just hung out on the perimeter but we were told that if enough hyenas gathered, then they could successfully chase the lions away.  We also saw a whole bunch of banded mongooses scurrying about.  Cute.

Close to lunch time on the game drive, we drove up to a lovely spot in the woods where the lodge staff had set up a fancy outdoor lunch.  Tablecloths, linen napkins, glassware – the whole shebang.  The staff had a fire going and cooked sausage, bacon, eggs, beans, fried eggplant, corn fritters, and potatoes, and made toast over the fire.  Very tasty tomato slices and a fruit salad also.  We were greeted at a small washing table with basins of water and fresh towels.  I felt like royalty as we sat eating and watching the antics of the baboons rambling all around us.  Truly a special event.

Today, thankfully, is simply hot, not deathly hot, which is a welcome change.  We are very near the end of the dry season – the rains usually start in early November (and they call October the suicide month because it is beastly hot).  It looks like the rains may start a bit early this year because the weather does seem to be changing.

TRUE AFRICAN CIRCLE OF LIFE:  Lions kill an impala or a buffalo and eat most of it.  Hyenas close in and snatch large pieces (perhaps a whole hind quarter) then drag it away and eat all of it, including the bones (their jaws are strong enough to crunch up large bones).  Then vultures get the rest of the leftover bits.  Then hyenas leave dung that is high in calcium, which is eaten by birds and pregnant impalas and other antelopes because they need the calcium.

Tomorrow we leave for home with memories to last a lifetime.

SAFARI – DAY 13 (South Luangwa National Park, Zambia; Mfuwe Lodge)

TRIVIA QUESTION:  What animal has a matriarchal organization and, in fact, any female no matter how young can (and does) dominate all males in the group?  Females have both female and male genitalia and have very high testosterone levels.   Answer in tomorrow’s post.

As we left our room this morning to go to breakfast, a baboon mom with her baby on her back was sitting just outside the door.  She just sat and watched us for a few seconds, then left just as I got my camera out.  Figures.

My sister and decided to take all day off to rest and relax.  Most everyone is taking time out at this point.  Actually, we were able to watch a fair amount of animal activity from the main deck of the lodge.  Saw quite a few lions drinking in the river this morning.  The lodge is amazingly quiet after everyone leaves on game drives.

Spent an hour in the pool this afternoon holding a big umbrella over me and watching impala, zebra, and warthogs come down to the water to drink.  I must have been an interesting picture but I didn’t care – I was in cool water and in shade.  Then watched a herd of elephants walk by.  It's still hard to believe it is real. The pool is a fun way to beat the heat. It rained a little yesterday afternoon and it looks like rain again today. It helps to cool things off a little.

Had a really cool hyena sighting tonight.  We were driven to a surprise sunset stop on the river bank where the lodge had set up camp chairs.  We sat in the comfy chairs and the lodge staff kept passing appetizers while we sipped our cocktails in one hand and looked thru our binoculars with the other.  It felt very poshy.  As the sun went down, we watched a raft of 30-40 hippos frolicking and snorting in the river.  Then someone spotted a hyena on the river bank rolling in dung and one just lying in the short grass.  On the way back, we saw a civet (in the mongoose family but somewhat cat looking with a raccoon face).  Earlier, I saw a tsetse fly – they are fairly big and apparently can give nasty bites.  Insect repellent is supposed to keep them away.

CAMOFLAGE:  How can large, distinctive animals hide so easily?  For example, elephants are so big that they couldn’t possibly hide.  Right?  And giraffes have such a distinct shape that they couldn’t possibly hide.  Right?  And the stripes on zebras are so bright and distinct that they couldn’t possibly hide.  Right?  Big wrong!  The animals quickly and easily just become invisible by stepping behind a bush.  It is amazing to watch, every time.

SAFARI – DAY 12 (South Luangwa National Park, Zambia; Mfuwe Lodge)

Had a lovely 6 AM breakfast of a poached egg and toast that was made on an outdoor grill over a fire.  Then out for an early morning game drive.

Today is my birthday and Africa gave me a wonderful present – we saw a two-week old baby elephant with its mother and three aunties carefully standing guard.  He was still learning how to walk; his knees kept buckling and then he would stumble or sway and his mom would steady him with her trunk.  It looked very much like a human baby who was just learning how to walk.  It takes about a year for a baby elephant to learn how to use his trunk, so this little baby’s trunk just flapped around and wiggled here and there (they are suckled at least two years).  He was the cutest thing ever.

Saw herds of zebra and impala.  Some warthogs and water buck and a few herds of puku (a new animal on the list and an antelope type), and a slender mongoose (that is the real name).  Saw a tree full of carmine bee eaters who kept flying out over the river and then back to the tree.  They are bright red and truly spectacular.  Also saw white-face bee eaters who are mostly green.  Absolutely beautiful.

Watched a herd of zebra while we ate lunch at the lodge.  I just have no idea how to convey the grandness of all this to people who have not seen it.  Lunch was fun – the staff fired up two wood-fired outdoor ovens and then we picked up a piece of thin flat bread and walked down a long table with tons of toppings and then handed it over to be fired.  Really good.

Went back to our room after lunch to change into my swimsuit and there was a half-submerged hippo directly in front of our verandah.  Decided to just watch the hippo.  This is an incredible trip.   Finally took a nap and woke up to thunder and a bit of rain and wind, which was so very welcome.  The hippo, who remained partially submerged all day, didn’t even twitch an ear during the rain.  But the heat has been toned down a little bit.  It’s still hotter than hell.

Lions! On our night game drive before dinner we saw a group of eight lions passed out in the heat on the sand of a dry river bed.  Their stomachs were clearly full of buffalo because we passed a buffalo carcass nearby.  They looked like all cats sleeping on a warm afternoon – sprawled out in various poses.  They didn’t seem to care that we were there and fairly close.  Once in a while one turned over or got up and moved four steps away then collapsed back onto the sand.  One was on her back with back legs spread out and front paws crossed under her chin.  Totally cute.  Then we stopped for sundowners (the guide set up a bush bar on the hood of the Rover) and we all felt quite civilized.  The lodge had even packed some appetizers (as if we needed more food). 

After nightfall we continued, looking for nocturnal animals.  Saw an elephant shrew (a rat-like creature with big ears), and a spotted genet (a type of mongoose), and a hyena who was just sitting in the dark in the open waiting for someone else to make a kill.   Because of the bit of rain earlier in the afternoon, I was acutely aware of the night smells of the land.  We drove through dry bush and I could smell the dry grass and dry dirt, then suddenly we would drive near a fragrant gardenia tree or a fragrant sausage tree (so named because the hanging fruit looks like big fat sausages, but the flowers are very fragrant and when they fall all the animals love to eat them because they have a little cup of nectar at the bottom of each one).  After a while I smelled water – the damp green grasses and damp earth near the river.  We drove through pockets of cool and warm air, the temperature changing as much as 5 degrees.  This was a very different and lovely way to experience the African bush.

I’ve read several memoirs about living in Africa and they all mention the smell of Africa and how much they miss that smell when they move away.  I think that the smell of Africa, or at least the African savannah, is a combination of smoking cook fires, dry grass, the faint underlayer of dry dung, with whiffs of fragrant flowering trees, and a hint of wild sage.  A more discerning nose would certainly add more layers but that is what it smelled like to me.

The lodge had entertainment tonight.  A theater group named Seka (www.seka-educational-theatre.com/ and pronounced SAY-kuh) came in and did a play about the value of harmony in the bush between the animals and people.  They use very simple props and use amazing athletic and dance abilities to depict the various animals in the bush – with respect and also humor.  And they even poked a bit of fun at the tourists on game drives.  They were truly fabulous.  Then we had fancy BBQ under the stars and the cook made a choc cake and everyone sang happy birthday.  Best birthday ever ( I know, I said that last year too).  It was a magnificent day.

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.