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In the last few days of my trip I did two things that are very out-of-character for me. One was riding an elephant. It’s totally terrific. They move very calmly and you can acclimate yourself to the rocking motion they have while they’re walking. Then you can let go of the handles and look around. This particular elephant ride was unique because the guide-fellow decided that the scrub-brush was too dry and uninspiring, so we ended up walking through a series of small islands. I was also pleased with the lifestyle these elephants have. They only do two one-hour walks a day, and the rest of time they are free to graze across the street in a natural reserve. They can come and go as they please, but because they are herd-oriented animals, they come home together every night to a big paddock. They sometimes go a bit rogue. One day, one of the females saw some wild elephants that she liked, so she went off with them. She showed up again ten months later and was pregnant. And a different time the herd came home with an orphan elephant that had been abandoned. He’s part of the herd now too.

Three people ride on one elephant – the handler and two guests. To get up onto your elephant you have to go up a set of stairs, like the kind they have for small planes.

All of us walking through the islands. The Moomins and Drea rode on the promiscuous wandering-away elephant named Mashimba, the one I mentioned above, and Cricket and I rode on a large, 35-year-old male named Marula who has a soft spot for babies. He’s the one the orphan follows around all day. It’s just precious. Mishi rode on the teenage love-child of Mashimba.

To get to the islands, we had to go through water. The handler said, “Give me your legs,” so I wrapped my legs around his waist and that water came right up to my pant leg. If you look in the second picture, you can see the little orphan elephant holding on to our elephant’s tail. Awww.

The handler has a bag of horse snacks, and don’t think the elephant doesn’t know it’s there all the time. Marula kept flinging his trunk over his head and pinching his prehensile nose-fingers at the handler, like, “Gimme snacks! Do it now!”

Here’s what things look like when you’re on top of an elephant.

Here’s a great shot of Cricket and me sitting there looking like Hannibal crossing the Alps. We would make excellent royals based on this photo.

This is Mishi giving the little orphan snacks from the snack bag. Awwww.

After you ride you get to feed your elephant, which might be my favorite part, because you really get to feel the way the trunk works. It’s surprisingly delicate and precise for such a large, heavy column of fleshitude.

And then we got to pet the orphan elephant! So sweet! Drea’s favorite animal is the elephant, so she very quietly had a meltdown while petting the little guy. He was covered in wiry bristles all over and I could have pet him all day forever. Here’s Drea standing next to her elephant trying not to poop herself with delight.

The other extremely cool thing we did was swim in Devil’s Pool. What’s Devil’s Pool, you ask? Well, when Victoria Falls is in full water capacity, the water pours over in a great rushing way. However, when it is the dry season, the water quantity ebbs and at the top of the falls is a pool of water, right near the edge, that you can swim in and cheat death. Here’s a diagram I made to help.

I won’t lie – I was scared. But then when I got there, I realized that in order for me to die, I would have to exert quite a bit of effort. There’s a four-foot wide rock shelf right before the edge, and I would have had to climb out of the pool, walk over that and then fling myself into the crevasse. So as long as I followed the guide’s instructions, I would be fine. First, he had us paddle out to a little rock outcropping in the middle of the river. Then, in order to avoid the current, we had to paddle in a specific line right to the Devil’s Pool because if we drifted too far to the right, we would get washed off. Here we are swimming. Mishi likes this picture because we all look like ducks.

First the guide jumped into the pool to show us how it’s done (how it’s done: jump into the middle). I want to point out that he is wearing a bathing suit bottom, he is not going commando.

And everyone jumped in…

…except me. I slithered down the rocks on my ass, because I am a hero.

It was amazing. The water was rushing over us and around us and it wasn’t cold, but it was refreshing. I could have stayed there all afternoon.

The guide pulled us up by our armpits so we could sit on the inner edge of the rock ledge.

And then he held our legs so we could look over the scary falls into the water.

Here’s a video I found of some other people’s Devil’s Pool experience. It’s pretty much identical to ours.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVFsiJBSQps&NR=1

That was all the crazy risk-taking I needed for, well, for ever, really, so the next day when Cricket, Mishi and Drea went rappelling and bungee-ing and swinging in an enormous gorge, I went as support and took pictures for them. The first time Cricket jumped with the combo-bungee-swing, he didn’t scream. When he got back to the top I asked him why and he said because it wasn’t really scary (!). I told him that made me sad, so he said he would do another jump and this time he would scream his nickname for me, which is Bucket. Drea videotaped it. My favorite part is when the pendulum part begins and the harness gets right up in his giblets. You can hear the tone of his scream change dramatically.

http://youtu.be/V7GlTS8o7bw

Alright, I think that covers everything. It was a fantastic trip and I highly recommend going to Africa to anyone. If anyone has any questions or wants to see any of the other 1,000 photos that were taken, please let me know and I will happily share them with you.

Continuing with the Chobe River boat ride:

Skimmers! With juveniles! Skimmers are a neat-looking bird because their lower jaw/beak is longer than their top jaw/beak. They fly along the surface of the water and scoop things up with that long lower part.

Elephants! So many elephants. Along the river we saw a male elephant eating roots. Because of the recent drought, roots are still edible. This guy had great technique – first, he would kick the grass to loosen the root, then, using his trunk, he would shake the dirt off of it. Then he would eat. Drea got a video of the whole process:

http://youtu.be/ZO53JrV7p9Q

Other elephants: Elephant throwing dirt on herself.

Large troupe of elephants coming down the hill to drink, looking very imposing.

And look at the babies! We saw a ton of elephant babies. Literally, it was a ton. They’re very heavy animals. See, I made a funny there.

We saw a wee baby elephant drinking. They don’t know how to use their trunks at all until they are older than six months, so this little guy had to hunker down and bring his mouth to the water. Awwww.

I saw something I had never seen before and that I found fascinating: a clearly disabled elephant that was full-grown and functioning with a herd. You would think he would have been picked off by predators, but no, he was moving along with the rest of the group. I called him The Elephant Elephant, after The Elephant Man. Look, his spine is all jinky and his leg is wack and I don’t know what’s going on with his hips.

Bee-eaters! That little fellow who is flying by popped out of the hole directly above him at the top of the picture, the ones that’s only a tiny bit bigger than his body. It was amazing to watch him go in and out of there, getting food for his kiddies. To re-enter in he would fly-fly-fly and then fold his wings a nanosecond before he shot back in – perfect timing.

Other bee-eaters.

One of the neatest things we saw was a kingfisher pulling a hummingbird impression. In order to stay directly over the water, the kingfisher flew into the wind. Aside from the flapping, he didn’t move an inch. It was quite impressive.

And finally, spoonbills. They have spoon-shaped bills. I love it when ornithologists call it like it is.

So that was Chobe in Botswana. Amazing. It really is different to see the animals from the water.

When we got back to the hotel (at about four in the afternoon) we went for a walk and passed by a pond, where we saw something really weird. There were two or three trees full of weaver birds, hanging upside-down flapping their wings and shrieking.

Here’s some video Drea took:

http://youtu.be/L78qvzE0b6Q

One of the weaver’s nests had fallen to the ground. They’re really impressive up close. They don’t use spit or mud or poo, just woven grass. Mishi tried to pull it apart and she was astonished by how difficult it was.

The next day we found out there was a feeding in the backyard shrubbery of the hotel. Eight zebras and three giraffes live on the hotel grounds, and while they were wild animals, the hotel game warden had a special relationship with them. He was laying out large plastic containers of grain when we wandered over. And sure enough, at about 2:58, all eight zebras showed up for snakkies. And they had a baby with them (awww).

Zebra yawning. Looks like he has dentures, don’t it?

The little guy wanted some milk from his mom, but she was otherwise occupied with stuffing her face full of grain, so he sadly rested his head on her butt and waited while she slapped him in the face with her tail. It was precious. Drea got footage.

http://youtu.be/MHpm-vINHOE

And then, like a floating dream, the creamiest-colored giraffe emerged out of the trees. I’ve never seen one that pale. I thought it was so lovely.

It was kind of an idiot, because it just stood there. It didn’t eat or anything. It just stood there. Then…it picked its nose with its tongue! And Cricket got the shot! I was ecstatic. Finally I got my giraffe-tongue pic!

The giraffe’s pregnant mom was off to the side eating leaves off of trees, and no joke, we were standing mere feet away from her when she decided to drink so we got to see her go down into her drinking posture right in front of us. It was breathtaking, like watching an Ent from LOTR bend down.

Afterwards we walked back to the hotel and saw this insane-looking flower. I don’t know anything about it except that it huge and it looks fake and it is not.

But the real icing on the cake was when we went to the main building for dinner that night and a vervet monkey was sitting on the wooden roof. I had explained to Mishi earlier that they are often called Blue-Balled Vervets because their testicles are a festive shade of cyan. Now this guy was sitting directly above our heads which allowed me the opportunity to get this super-special photo.

Vibrant, aren’t they?

Next, we cover me being a daredevil for about two seconds and spending the rest of the time watching other people be daredevils, and then that’s it for Africa.

Okay, now we have moved onto the country of Zambia, specifically right near Victoria Falls (or, as it’s called in the Kololo/Lozi language, “Mosi oa Tunya” which means “The Smoke That Thunders”). First thing, the sunsets continue to be very pretty.

We went to Victoria Falls during the dry season, so the falls were not in full…fall-age. The normally large and rushing waterfalls were sparse and there were gaps between them.

Here’s a bit:

Here’s another bit:

Here you can see the “smoke that thunders” part:

And here’s the most important thing I noticed. It appears that Africa is not as litigious as society as America, because there weren’t really any railings. Note the people standing right near the freakin’ edge of an undoubted death-plummet:

The attitude there was, don’t be a dumb-ass. If you die, chances are it’s your fault. And, in fact, two people died while we were there. Both of them were indeed dumb-asses and attempted to cross the rapids you see at the bottom on foot. They found the bodies downstream. I like that attitude. This is not a country where they have to put warnings on everything. “Do not use toaster in bath!” “Do not use curling iron while sleeping!” “Coffee might be hot!” I found it a pleasant respite from the usual.

So, The Moomins and Cricket and I arrived at the falls after picking up two additional people: Cricket’s sister Mishi and my niece Drea. Mishi was on vacation, but Drea was there on an eight-week overseas study thing. She’s becoming an engineer and she was there to improve the plumbing situation in some of the townships. We had many long talks about toilets.

The first day we were in Zambia we took a bus to the nearby country of Botswana for a game drive on the Chobe River. If you thought the crossing between Canada and America was laid-back, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Here is the border office between Zambia and Botswana.

Here is a poster outside the border office.

Here is a chicken guarding the border office.

We brought our passports and various disenchanted people stamped various things of various pages, and then we took a boat to meet our combi on the other side. Before we took the ride down the Chobe River, we viewed the area above (which is a national park) from the land.

Chobe from land:

Juvenile birds whose name I forgot keeping cool under a tree:

A warthog with impressive mutton chops:

An impala that was ripped apart (most likely while still alive) by wild dogs:

And then wild dogs. This was very thrilling because wild dogs are very rare, and that’s a good thing because they are one of the closest things to perfect killing machines. A group of lionesses kill about two-thirds of the prey they go after, but wild dogs kill 99% of the prey they go after. When they look directly at you it chills your blood because you can imagine they’re weighing you and guessing your speed and how they will take you down, and you know they would too. Also, they make a horrifying noise when they’re excited or hungry, it’s very shrill and hurts your ears.

Here’s a video of wild dogs killing and eating an impala (I’m warning you, upsetting, because I don’t think that impala is dead yet when they start eating it): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw4vnFeWnXQ

And here’s a video where the wild dogs make that noise (imagine it being way, way too loud so that you want to put your hands over your ears): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4M1hf87vto&

But these wild dogs were just hanging out under a tree avoiding the mid-day sun. I love the dappled pattern on their fur.

STOP LOOKING AT ME.

We saw quite a few animals rummaging through poo for seeds. It might seem gross, but you have to remember that elephants only digest 40% of what they eat, so 60% falls out the back ready to be consumed by others.

We then got on a boat and slowly navigated around the islands and grass piles. The first thing we saw was an open-beaked stork, and as no surprise to anyone it might have been my favorite animal of the day solely based on the fact that it looks like it was birthed from the mind of Edward Gorey. I mean, look at it. It’s practically like one of his drawings come to life.

The next thing we saw was an antelope called a red lechwe, and it might be the most beautiful antelope ever. It’s like the supermodel of antelopes.

While we were sitting there looking at the lovely lechwe, on our right was a fish eagle. I started to sing “God Bless America” at it, but everyone else in the boat told me to kindly shut the hell up. It’s just such a patriotic-looking bird.

Did you know the fish eagle can turn its head around? I did not.

And on the left of us, big lizard. Real big. Right near the boat.

We trundled further on, and then we got to a big chunk of shore where there was an astonishing variety of creatures. First, more lechwe:

And then buffalo:

And elephants and many more lizards and a whole bunch of different birds, etc. What was funny was how little each animal cared about the other ones. We watched a gigantic lizard walk right past a sacred ibis (which is a creepy bird due to it’s mummified-looking head) and neither one gave any semblance of a crap about the other.

The buffalo were pretty great. One was drinking in the most ungainly fashion:

And one was in the water (which came up to his chin) eating the grass on the shore. What made this so amusing to me was because you couldn’t see his legs or most of his body, it looked like he had just flopped down on his face and given up on life and was being despondent in the grass. And then a bird came over and I visualized a conversation (please make the voices sound like New York construction workers):

“Hey Steve.”
“Hey Mike, what’s up?”
“Nothing. Just feelin’ blue.”
“Aww, that’s a shame, Mike. How’s Tina?”
“She left me, took the kids. The house is real empty.”
“Wow, I didn’t know it had gotten so bad. We should go out for a beer sometime this week, eh?”
“Yeah, that’d be nice.”

We also saw hippos in the water. That was the only animal the boat steersman was wary of. We stayed way way away from them.

Hippos grazing on land:

Hippos in the water:

Sleeping hippo:

Yawning hippo:

We finally saw a lilac-breasted roller. On my last trip to Africa I desperately wanted to get a picture of one of these birds, but every time I tried, they flew off. This time Drea got a terrific shot of one. I may or may not have clapped my hands like a small child at Christmas.

We saw various cormorants and darters (which might be part of the cormorant family, the guide was a bit vague about this).

Geese! Egyptian geese, specifically. Many of them had wee goslings following them around (awww).

Crocodiles! There were two nine-year-olds laying like furniture on the shore.

There was one that eating a fish as it swam past us.

And once when parked the boat on the edge of the grass, I discovered a little fellow right in front of the boat. He was adorable, about a foot long.

A Sable!

This was a super-big deal. They are known as “the shy antelope”, so seeing one at all is a big damn deal. That’s why the video I found in my travels around the YouTube sphere makes me scream with rage and jealousy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vlpvrw03VJw

Look at all the freakin’ sable. That’s like the world population of sable. And babies! So very jealous.

The trees on the edge of the water looked amazing. Their roots specifically were intense.

Guinea fowl being photogenic on a root cluster:

Next entry: A continuation of Chobe with elephants and more elephants.

Cricket had made the decision before we left to go to on a three-day walk through the bush (with guides and whatnot, not all by himself, that’s guaranteed death). Therefore The Moomins and I had three days to just hang out and do our own thing. We went on a game drive and headed over to the rest stop that we had stopped at previously (the one where the hornbill attempted to punch his way through our car door with his body to get at our chutney-flavored chips) (it’s almost worth it, those chips are delish). The day we went there, it was on a busy day. A whole bunch of people were having a pleasant lunch, or they would have been if two varieties of hornbills and a bevy of other creatures were not trying to take the food off the plates. It’s pretty intense, attempting to have a meal.

Look at that one hornbill totally taking the tomato. It weighs more than you, buddy.

The Moomins was feeling a bit hungry, so she got a grilled cheese sandwich and we sat on the edge of the rest stop. Slowly, we started accruing a bunch of different little animals. Like these:

I felt like Disney’s Snow White: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFp6vZ1oOWo. Except these are not the kind of forest-dwellers who help you feel better when you are down. These are the kind of things that steal your food from your pocket while you’re lying on the forest floor crying because the wicked queen turfed you out the castle. Cute, yes. Fluffy, yes. But not nice.

Look how they stare at The Moomins waiting for scraps. With malice.

Finishing up Kruger Park:

This is a Frankolin. Watching them run is hysterical. They run like they ate some cheese and they’re lactose-intolerant and if they don’t hustle hustle hustle there’s going to be apologies and embarrassment all around. Never gets old.

This is a fever tree. The bark is used in indigenous medicines to reduce fevers, hence the name. I like them because they look like they were painted with a thick coat of glow-in-the-dark paint.

Oxpeckers on a giraffe having some kind of oxpecker argument.

The sign outside the Kruger Gate. I appreciate what the designer was trying to do, but…that’s a fail right there. I swear I sat there for a good solid minute thinking, “Refyole? What is that, the name of this gate?” Good try, though.

Alright! That’s it for Kruger. Before we all headed to Zambia, A. was nice enough to take us around the countryside to look at some of amazing scenery in and around the Blade River. We drove two hours to see something called “God’s Window”. However, when we got there, a cloud had taken up residence right where the viewpoint is. The fog was so thick, you couldn’t see five feet in front of your face. I would not be deterred, though. Here is a picture I insisted we take of The Moomins gesticulating towards where the beautiful view would be if we could see it.

This is the three of us posing in front of this supposed view.

Cricket then complained that I always squint in photos (I do a great deal, me and sunlight do not get along) so right before we took the next shot, he quickly put his hands on either side of my face and hoisted up my eyelid skin. He’s so thoughtful. He’s almost as thoughtful as I am photogenic. SO PRETTY.

Then, I had a brilliant idea for a photo. I said to Cricket, “Wait right here,” and I hustled over to the other side of the parking lot, completely out of view due to the fog. Cricket then heard me making a noise, like I was gargling my own tongue. AAAAAAALGHBLAAAAACHHHAAAARG. And then I emerged from the mist doing my best horror movie monster impression. Cricket thought it was fabulous. If we ever meet in person and you ask me nicely, I will happily do a rendition for you. It brings tears to the eyes.

We all got back in the car to head off to non-foggy vistas. Our next stop was Bourke’s Luck Potholes, which is so picturesque it looks fake, like the background in a MGM musical from the forties. A. said that the rock there is soft, and the potholes were created by harder-rock pebbles and sand whirlpooling in circles for years and years, creating those round pits. I think they’re very beautiful.

We then went to an equally idyllic spot where there’s a different waterfall. And there was also a very weird-looking lizard.

And finally we made it to God’s Window and took some decent photos of what turned out to be a very lovely view. Also, at no point did Cricket stick his fingers in my eyes and hoist my face-flesh to his liking, so that’s a plus.

Tomorrow we will dive into Zambia and a bit of Botswana. More beasties await!

Just because we’ve explored the wonders of Gizzy the Lesser Bushbaby, we have not finished with the magic of Africa, but no, there is still more to see. While staying in Marloth Park, Cricket took a saunter around the grounds. Remember how I said that is all open, no fences, and anything can wander in and out at will? Cricket acquired some excellent photos of that precise thing.

Note the man on the porch and his proximity to the warthog.

Now note the giraffe pretty much eating that house.

We had two personal interactions with beasties while in Marloth Park. One was when we went a neighbor’s house for dinner. She had put papaya pieces in a dish she hung from a tree, and wild bushbabies came and ate from it.

The second one was when we came home that night in the car. Cricket parked the vehicle under the tent-structure-thing next to a combi. (I don’t know why they call it a combi. Perhaps it is because they combine the look of a Jeep with the comfort of a pew of a Protestant church.) I got out of the vehicle and immediately heard a pretty big scrabbling noise on the gravel, like a picnic table trying to make a quick getaway. I took a glance under the combi and saw a very large, very toned gray ass-cheek. Now please consider the fact that it’s dark and I’m in the middle of nowhere with all kinds of nature all around me. I quietly turned back to the vehicle and said, “Ummm, there’s a big animal under that car and I’m going pee my pants if someone doesn’t get out of the (word) car right now (other words).” The warthog (it turned out to be a warthog) went his merry way and Cricket, The Moomins and I made our way into the house so I could have a heart attack and die. I took a picture the next day so you could appreciate the terror I went through. Seriously, people, it was scary.

Back to animal sightings. A male bushbuck:

A tree with perfectly round green orbs hanging from it that look exactly like Christmas ornaments.

Glossy Starling (my favorite of the ordinary, every-day birds).

Not a Glossy Starling.

A stork nest. They can support a lot of weight. Apparently a full-grown human can stand on one.

Two butterflies MAKIN’ LURVE.

A PortaPotty in the middle of nowhere. Really. Near nothing. At first, as we came over the hill I thought it was the Tardis from Dr. Who. Turns out, no, lone crapper. I like to think it’s because some park workers were collecting thatch in that area or something. Cricket likes to think it’s because even the animals want to poop in solitude (and blue plastic).

Sausage pod!

This long-tailed bird is called a shrike. I cannot tell you how satisfying it is to yell out, “SHRIKE!!!” in a German accent. (It’s very satisfying.)

Waterbuck! Fun facts about waterbuck: They have a white circle on their butts like they sat on a freshly-painted toilet seat. (Perhaps Cricket is right and they are using the PortaPotties…) Also, the adults taste terrible due to their sweat glands, so no one eats the adults. I kind of want them to be like insects and be insane vibrant colors, the ones that signal “I am poisonous!” or “I taste like an abandoned NY subway station!”, but, unfortunately, they are just brown.

A baboon sitting on a warm rock at sunset.

A banded mongoose. He looks like he hates us.

Super-teeny little birds. They were far smaller than sparrows. They are called waxbills and I love them so much! I wish they lived in this climate. They would definitely up the cute ante of this boring temperate zone we call home. All we have are chipmunks and deer. So lame.

We had a cool herbivore moment one midday. We were driving past a watering hole. Watering holes were especially important when we were there because there hadn’t been rain in quite some time. There was a giraffe. I shall call him Thirsty. Thirsty was standing next to the watering hole when we got there, getting emotionally prepared to drink when dun! dun! dun! a herd of zebra showed up and he got all shy.

After a minute or so, a hornbill flew over and scared all the zebra off to the left. I don’t know how a rinky-dink hornbill scared all those zebra, maybe he told them an offensive joke about their respective mothers, but whatever, they all hastily moved off to the side. Now we were all excited in the car because we figured Thirsty would get his drink. But no! Elephants! A whole herd of elephants showed up and monopolized the watering hole. Meanwhile, three of Thirsty’s friends showed up. They watched Thirsty watch the elephants drink, and then they’re like, “Ahh, the hell with it. C’mon Thirsty, there are other watering holes.” But Thirsty wouldn’t leave. He just stood there looking parched and sad.

After about five minutes, the elephants were done and they walked past our car…

And finally, Thirsty felt comfortable enough to let down his guard and have a drink. I won’t lie, we might have cheered a little in the vehicle. Hooray for Thirsty!

Tomorrow I’ll finish up Kruger Park and move on to Zambia.

Not everything we saw was big. Some of the best things we saw were small. For example, we saw a slender mongoose. He ran into the ground cover before Cricket could get a good shot, but we at least got a photo of him giving us the stink-eye from behind a log.

One of our coolest animal encounters involved mongeese. (I don’t think the plural of “mongoose” is “mongeese”, but I like it better and this is my blog and I’m not being graded by a schoolteacher, so there it is. I want to start a national campaign, by the way. I read somewhere that the singular of “sheep” should be “shoop”, and goshdarnit if I can’t stop thinking about that. Can we all get behind The Lone Shoop English Language Amendment, team?) Once again, dumb luck. We were out one morning, and I wanted to take a picture of a tree with some of its bark ripped off. Some of the trees look like they’re bleeding, and it makes a hell of a photo.

While I’m taking the photo of the tree, Cricket, who is looking out the opposite window, says, “What are those things all over the anthill?” A family of dwarf mongeese had taken over an abandoned anthill and they were coming out for their morning sun-warming. And bonus, big lizard near their front door!

I squeed for several minutes over that. What’s especially interesting is that we came back the next day and the anthill was empty. So we just happened to be there at the right place at the right time.

Another cutey-cute moment was when The Moomins and I were filling up the tank at the small filling station. The attendant said (now remember what I said earlier about the letter “r”), “You should look up in that trrrree. Theh ah bets theh, hanging.” Both The Moomins and I thought he said, “Birds”, so we walk over and are looking for birds and then we see them. Two insanely cute fruit bats hanging there staring at us, occasionally swinging a tiny bit in the wind. OMG, I was so excited. I took fifteen or so photos of these guys in the hopes that something would come out. I may have to print one of these and frame it on my wall because I love bats so much. Their foxy faces and leathery wings fill me with happiness. It looks like their ears are almond slivers held on with masking tape!

We saw a whole bunch of reptiles as well. We saw both the male and female amana, which appears to be some kind of iguana. The male is the blue-headed one.

We saw both male and female skinks. The female appears to have lost her orange tail, but still make a lovely couple.

There was a highly camouflaged skink on a tree stump that drove Cricket and me slight crazy. I could see it, and he couldn’t, but there were no landmarks near him, so the conversation sounded like this (please imagine through gritted teeth): “He’s right there next to the – okay, you see that stick? Not the brown one, the browner one! Okay, follow my finger. You’re not looking at my finger! Okay, do you see that leaf? Not that leaf, the crinkly-er one! He’s next to the leaf. What do you mean, you still can’t see him?!??” etc. Finally Cricket saw it and we had to take a picture of it even though it’s not a particularly exciting skink just because we went through all of that hullabaloo.

One day there was a water monitor truckin’ it by the side of the road. I don’t know where he was going or what he was going to do when he got there, but he was moving and no one was going to get in his way.

We got a blurry-but-still-usable shot of his tongue. That’s a pretty great tongue.

The Moomins spotted a wee baby leopard tortoise one day. He was the size of a man’s fist. I voted to scoop him up and give him cuddles, but I was outvoted by the incredibly boring people I traveled with. So no tortoise-cuddles. Bah.

The best thing I saw on this trip, though, without a doubt, was Gizzy. Do you remember before I left, I said I wanted more than anything else in the world to see a lesser bushbaby? Well, we went to this place called Marloth Park and stayed in a B&B-type house belonging to a woman named A. Marloth Park is adjacent to Kruger Park, but it’s a series of timeshares where the animals just roam around you and your house. There’s no giant protective fence. It’s kinda great, and also like taunting death when you go from your car to the house (which is the only time you’re really exposed to the toothy clawed ones). A. was taking us around the first day on a game drive when I tentatively asked, “Are there any bushbabies around here?” A. paused and said, “You know, it’s a secret, but I have one. You’re really not supposed to, but a cleaning woman found him abandoned as a baby and I took him in and fed him and now he lives with me. Would you like to meet him?”

…

(I don’t remember the next few seconds.)

I tried to be a normal-type person and I said, “Yes” in what I hoped was a normal-type-person voice, and A. said, “Well when we get home tonight he’ll be up and you can meet him. He might even jump on your shoulder.”

We went around for a few hours looking at various beasties being awesome, but all I could think about was meeting this little primate. Bushbabies are primates and they have little human Gollum hands with teeny fingernails. Finally, after about a hundred years, we got back and A. said, “What would you like to do now?” I gave up on being normal and yelled, “Bushbaby!” Luckily she laughed and said okay, so we went to her house. She said his name was Gizzy, which is short for Gizmo. Then she wandered around for a little while saying, “Hello Gizzy, hello, where are you?” Finally A. looked on top of her bureau and said, “Oh, there he is.”

OH MY GOSH WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT THING. Then it jumped down and onto my shoulder holy eeeeeeeeeeee

What I’m thinking in that picture is if it possible to shove him down my shirt and then run away with him forever and ever. I then made a foolish mistake and decided I should pet him. I started to stroke his fur and Gizzy did not care for that one bit, no he did not. He made a chk-chk-chk noise and bit me on the finger with his teeny-tiny teefers. It only made me love him more because he thought he was a big killing machine, grrr. Here are the toothmarks. He couldn’t even break the skin.

Here are a few of the millions of pictures of Gizzy.

Here is Gizzy eating bananas.

Here is Gizzy after he took his banana back up on the top of the bureau.

Bushbabies are amazing. They can jump, boy. I found a video of Senegalese bushbabies boinging around their enclosure. They look a little bit different – longer faces, longer ears – but they bounce the same. It’s pretty great to watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGLXkdMXdAQ

Here’s an interesting fact about lesser galagos, as they’re also called. Before they jump, they pee a tiny bit on their hands for traction. I expected A.’s house to smell like pee, but it didn’t. When Gizzy landed on The Moomin’s arm and his little feets were wet, she said her arm didn’t smell like anything. I think that is just the greatest thing ever. They have non-stinky pee. And they are so so soft, like chinchillas. They are truly perfect little beings. I miss Gizzy. Sniff.

Addendum: This one is called Gizmo too! So smootchy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps-amBu50Iw&

Let’s bang through a bunch more herbivores before we hit some animals that would happily eat your feet. We saw some wildebeest just, you know, hanging out. The one in the middle is an adolescent, and I know this because he is smaller and browner.

Buffalo! They’re big, they’re ornery, they look like they’re nursing the worst hangover ever. The buffalo family structure is similar to the elephant family structure, in that the ladies n’ babies hang out together and the older males do their own thing. The Moomins and I saw three males right near us. One was even accompanied by a passenger cattle egret riding on its back.

And I saw a buffalo skull by the side of the road. I could not figure out what the little stick-like protuberances were coming out the horns, so I asked a ranger. He said there are these little worms that build these houses on stuff like trees and apparently dead buffalo horns. Question answered.

Woeful vervet monkey. He was sitting on the lawn looking mournful. When we arrived, instead of getting all Machiavellian and planning how to steal all our foodstuffs, this guy thought we were too loud and moved away from us to write emo poetry in his journal or whatever. I took a picture of him. Being woeful.

Normal evil monkeys full of plans and thoughts about how to simultaneously take your snack and give you rabies, thereby saving valuable monkey time.

In keeping with the theme of primates, we also saw baboons. Twice, actually. Once was at a neighboring camp where the baboons had (not surprisingly) figured how to open the baboon-proof garbage cans. How, you ask? They watched humans do it and then did it themselves. I’m starting to think the only baboon-proof garbage can is a garbage can with a pin code you type in.

The other time was a really cute interaction on the side of the road. There was a troop of baboons picking through the grass looking for tasty grubbins, and this mom baboon was sitting there with a wee baby in her lap. As we’re watching her, the baby decided he’s a big boy, he’s ready to go out on his own, so he started crawling over his mother in an attempt to take on this big bad world. “Peace, lady! Thanks for the boob juice but I’m out!” And she just looked down, took her hand and gently pushed the little feller back into her lap, like, noooo, you’re not going anywhere.

He tried this a bunch more times, all with the same result. Finally he got so frustrated he started sucking his thumb. It was precious. I wouldn’t be surprised if all the ladies within a two-mile radius started ovulating.

Ground hornbills! I call them Death Turkeys. They’re weird birds. They can fly, but they really don’t. They like to walk around. This group is all males, I believe.

• | • | • INTERMISSION  • | • | •

Saw a bone. Don’t know what it is. Don’t know what animal it belongs to. There ya go.

• | • | • INTERMISSION OVER  • | • | •

Yeah, so, lions! I saw a bunch of ’em. I saw two females walking in the bush.

I saw a male walking next to the road.

But the coolest one of all was just pure dumb luck. We were driving around and we saw four lions, two males and two females, walking away from us. We pulled up where they looked like they were heading but alas, they were gone. Apparently they had a kill right down at the bottom of this dip beyond our line of vision, which bummed us out. But then – magic! One of the females probably didn’t want to eat with the other lions, so she grabbed one of the carcass’ legs and brought it up by the side of the road and ate it for twenty minutes right in front of us. We rolled down the windows and heard the bones crunching and everything. It was so cool.

Um, you got a little something, uh, on the side of your…never mind.

And then after a while she turned her head around and faced towards us and we were like, HOORAY! Awesome photo! Cricket totally got this one. Thanks, boo.

While we were sitting there in our car, more and more people pulled up in cars and tour buses all around us, so getting out was a colossal pain. Here’s a picture of what was in front of the car. Imagine the same thing going on behind the car. Lions are a big deal.

Also, hyenas! Last time, we saw one hyena cross the road for a second and that’s it. This trip, way more betterer hyena sightings. Let me set the stage. The gates of the park are open to the public from 6a.m. to 6p.m. You can drive around all you want. If you want to go out for a night drive, you need to sign up for a night drive, which is taken on a tour vehicle with a ranger. You and the other tourists shine dim headlights into the bush looking for reflective eyes. You can see a lot of cool stuff on night drives. I saw two civets and a genet, but they moved too fast for me to get a shot. I did get a shot of an angry elephant mom. The glittering eyes really make this extra-intimidating.

Then a while later she started nursing (awwww).

We saw a scrub hare. I learned the difference between rabbits and hares. According to the ranger, rabbits are born blind and unable to move. Hares are born ready to run.

Oooh, we also giraffes sitting down, about fifteen of them. They looked like a forest. It was amazing to see because they almost never do that – it leaves them vulnerable.

I even saw an eagle owl far away. He hated the light and wouldn’t turn around, but I could feel his searing hate even through the back of his head.

But the most important thing we saw were two baby hyenas in the road. They like to lie in the road at night because the asphalt is warm. These two little guys were lying there all sad because their mom was out hunting.

And we were so psyched about seeing this. We figured that was it. But no! We went out for a morning drive the next day and would you believe it, they were still there! And the mom hyena was there with them! Totally awesome. We woke them up as we drove by, so the little ones started making squeaky giggling noises and the mom rolled over to feed them. Our minds were officially blown.

The little one on the right with his butt up the air is so cute.

Look how close they are to the car. Look at that.

The Moomins developed an unhealthy obsession with one of the baby hyenas. “Her” hyena. She named him Flower, because The Moomins thinks that the splootch pattern on his back looks like flowers.

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about one of the cutest things that I have ever encountered.

More beasties! Pretty much everything I talk about pertaining to Africa will be beastie-related, so you should just prepare yourself right now. Okay, let’s check out some big birds that can claw your face off.

This is a bateleur. It’s big, it’s bright, it will kill you.

Fun side story: The indigenous African languages (like Swahili) don’t have the “r” sound. They just don’t have it. Due to that, when Africans who were brought up without European language influences try to speak English, interesting things happen. Either they roll the hell out of the “r”, or they ignore it entirely. My favorite phrase from this trip was when a guide took me on a night drive and informed us that the rangers perform “contrrrrolled bens”. I had no freaking clue what that meant and was lost for a while. A few minutes later he said, “We have contrrrrolled bens all in this arrrrea. We ben with fayah, and that makes new grrrroth.”And all was made clear.

So, when we were driving around and saw this bird with a French name, the guide said, “That is a batalee…uh”. You could see him hit a wall with that stupid tongue-curling French “leur” sound. Here’s what it sounds like: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bateleur

Other eagle-type birds that I’m too lazy to research the names of:

Community spiders! Cricket is obsessed with these things. Quick recap: the fluffy white globs of web in trees are nests filled with hundreds and hundreds of tiny spiders. I have never seen these wee spiderettes, only the nests, and I am a-okay with that. These clots of Grandma’s hair are everywhere. Finally Cricket got a shot that made him happy.

Termite mounds! These things are so, so very big. I took a picture of one with an enormous tree on it to give you a sense of scale.

Billions and billions of termites live in it. Interesting facts I learned about these termites: They don’t eat plant matter or wood. They bring back plant matter and/or wood, and a special breed of mushroom that is only associated with them grows in their giant city, and they eat that, forming a perfect simbiotic relationship. Also, the worker-termites can control the temperature and humidity in the mound within 1 degree either up or down by opening or closing various holes, causing evaporation or a cross-breeze or whatever they need, which I think is so cool (no pun intended). Finally, if the queen dies (she’s a foot-long egg-laying machine), the termites will realize that their colony is dying out, and when the rainy season comes, they will just magically grow wings and fly to a new area to form a new colony. I love that. It sounds made up. “Oh, our society is going to end? Well, fine, I’ll just grow wings! Poof! Ya like that?! I’m the termite David Copperfield!”

Giraffes! I love giraffes. In Africaans, they are called “camel-horses”, because they look like a camel and run like a horse. Actually, their closest relative is the Okapi, which is a stripey-legged creature most common in the Congo. No camels, no horses. They have seven vertebrae in their neck just like us, and a special valve at the base of their neck to make sure the blood gets to their brain by increasing the blood pressure. It’s like their neck is a perpetual boner. The most common type of death for a giraffe is a heart attack because of that. Really. Once they become an adult, no one really eats them. They just stand there, and then they tip over and crumple to the ground and they’re done. My favorite thing about them is the 18-inch-long prehensile blue-black tongue that they use to delicately pull leaves off spikey trees. I tried desperately to get a shot of the thing, but it’s out then it’s in and by the time you pressed the button, my snakelike tongue nemesis was gone. Sadness.

Beautiful giraffes being tall:

Beautiful giraffe showing lustrous eyelashes:

(insert Lion King “Circle of Life” intro here) HAAAAANIMANNNNYAAAAA NAAAAPAAAATIII NAAAPAAATAAAAAA mmmmmmmmmm…..

The sunsets in Africa are very photogenic every day. Cricket and I took a bunch of photos.

Vultures! I don’t have to tell you about vultures. They eat the dead, they’re big, they’re bald. That’s it. Ironically, considering how freaky-freaky they look, they are extemely photogenic. Got some good shots of ’em.

Since there’s a river that goes through Kruger Park, there are water-oriented creatures. There are crocodiles doing their impressions of logs.

There are kingfishers. I saw two kinds of kingfishers on this trip, the regular and the giant, and both of them were staring at the water with an intensity I only wish I had. They were practically willing the fish to them. With the power of their minds.

And there are hippos. I saw hippos in a setting that looked like it had been staged. In this picture there are hippos (with an egret standing on one’s back), there’s a dead tree filled with stork nests (which are huge – a full-grown man can stand on one) and on the shore are a whole bunch of storks. It was great.

Tomorrow – carnivores! And some intense cuteness!

Let’s look at more herbivores, shall we? How about zebra? By the way, I am now broken because in Africa they don’t say “zee-bra”, they say “zeh-bra” and guess what? Now so do I. I learned a few fun facts about zebra while I was there. For example, if you shave a zebra, it’s skin is all black all over, so a zebra is black with white stripes as opposed to white with black stripes. Also, the reason you won’t see anyone riding one ever is because their spines are very flexible and if you were to sit on them, their spines would snap and kill them. I already knew this, but maybe you didn’t: their hind-kick can kill a lion, so lions have to attack them from the front if they’re going to try to eat them. Additionally, they are very skittish and most people only get pictures of their stellar rumps, so I feel really lucky to get some shots of them not nervously heading off into the underbrush.

Zebra eating as the sun sets.

More zebra eating.

Zebra mommy with baby (awwww).

We saw two profoundly cute types of antelopes. One is the steenbok, or as Cricket calls it, “an impossibly small impala”. I am smitten with them. They are very wee and the males have teeny horns and and I wish to snuggle them forever. Here’s a picture I found on the internet to give you a sense of scale.

That’s full-grown, people! And here are the pictures we took. My favorite thing is the little black smudgy on their nose. It makes it look like they’re wearing little Halloween skeleton masks.

The other precious antelope moment was with a mommy and baby bushbuck. Cricket, The Moomins and I had stopped in a small rest stop during our one of our game-sighting drives, and we went in to pick up some nibbles and water. On the left there was a female bushbuck eating, and one a little hilly area was the wee one looking like a drawing from Disney’s Bambi.

And then they both walked past us and, despite our pleas, refused to let us pet them and give them kisses. Because they’re selfish.

This is also where we had our first encounter with a highly aggressive hornbill. Hornbills are in the toucan family, I believe. This one wanted Cricket’s chutney-flavored chips something fierce. (Chutney-flavored chips are glorious. I’ve always said if you want to learn what is popular food-wise in a country, go to their chip section.) Hornbills get ornery and assertive in an attempt to get at your grubbins. Cricket kept having to make loud noises and wave his arm to keep this hornbill at bay.

After we finished at the rest stop, we all got into the car cautiously so as not to infuriate the bird even further, and after Cricket closed his door we heard a loud PLAPTH! against his side window, which caused all of us to jump. Mr. Hornbill had resorted to flinging his body against the car to get at the delicious snacking contained therein. “Must get… PLATPH!… at…PLAFTH! …chips!!” We left in great haste to prevent the hornbill from doing any damage to himself or to our rental vehicle.

I also saw a whole lot of elephants. I think elephants are the greatest. The craziest thing about them is that they are huge with no camouflaging spots to break up their great grayness, yet they can walk behind a scrawny leafless bush and disappear. Like, your eye can’t pick them out. I took a photo to show what I mean. This guy is a solid four or five tons, he’s fifteen feet away from me, and he’s behind two six-foot-tall crappy bits of scrub. And he’s invisible. The only reason I knew he was there was because he was swinging his trunk around.

If you can’t see him, I made a rough cutout for you.

Amazing, huh? So it’s extra-off-putting when they just materialize out of nowhere right next to you. Here is one hanging out doin’ what he do (which is eating).

Not surprisingly, we saw a whole heck of a lot of elephant babies. This one might have been the cutest. He didn’t know how his trunk worked, but his mom was pulling leaves off a tree, and he wanted to as well. If he was an elementary school student, he would have gotten a “good effort!” sticker. The little guy was trying so hard he didn’t notice the tiny ditch next to him and fell over in it. It was all very precious. The whole time his mom was like, “Doin’ great, kiddo. Momma’s gonna keep defoliating this acacia, but you let me know if anything important happens.”

And here is my sole solitary picture of a duiker. A duiker is another kind of extremely cute little antelope similar to the steenbok. I desperately wanted to see one up close, but alas, it was not meant to be. This is closest I got.

I’ve been to Africa numerous times, but this trip was one of the best. We saw a ton of animals, ate a bunch of delicious food, and I even bought a couple pieces of beautiful art. Our first stop upon arriving in Johannesburg was to immediately hop on another flight to Kruger Park where Cricket and my mother (who from hereon shall be known as The Moomins) stayed for five days. The cool thing about Kruger is that every trip is different. On my last trip with Cricket in 2009 we saw a two leopards and two snakes, but only one hyena for a split-second and barely any warthogs. On this trip we saw a whole bunch of lions and hyenas and hippos, but no leopards or marabou storks or snakes. Every trip is different. A good rule of thumb is to go with high hopes and low expectations and be psyched about whatever happens to saunter into your path.

First, let’s start with the impala. Since there are over 100,000 in Kruger Park, you see them everywhere all the time. Which is great, because I think they’re so pretty. If I had been alone in the car, I would have stopped to say hello to each and every one, which would have taken forever and ever. Luckily, Cricket kept me from falling into a total impala spiral.

An interesting fact about impala: they always look so neat and tidy because they are always grooming themselves and each other. They have teeth like little combs that they rake through their fur all the time. They also have strategically-placed black spots on their bodies because ticks are attracted to dark skin, thinking that the blood is closer to the surface in those spots. Then the impala can easily pick the ticks off of those dark areas.

Impala drama! Males fake-battling with each other. I like to listen to the horns clatter together. Since it’s October, it’s spring there, so the males are practicing sparring. By the way, if you ever go to Africa, I highly recommend that you go in their spring because everything has babies. It was wonderful. “Do you like this full-size animal? Well, how about seeing a version standing next to it in half-size?” That never gets tired. If I had a nickel for every time someone said, “Aww, look at the baby!” I would have a great many nickels.

We also saw a ton of guinea fowl, which made me so happy because they are a highly comical bird. They are prone to freaking out and running with this high-stepping gait that does not suit their body shape (the shape of a teapot cozy). Add in the spots, the bony crest and the dinosaur face and you have a winning creature.

Guinea fowl eating.

Guinea fowl roosting.

Guinea fowl napping on the ground.

Another cool thing is we got to get really up close and personal with warthogs. I will go into specifics about one in particular later, but for right now, here are a bunch of warthogs pretending to be lawnmowers. They are born with callouses on their front knees and they tend to just shnuffle forward on their knees eating grass like horribly unbalanced coffee tables.

I know I said this last time but I just want to reiterate it, if it looks like an animal is right next to the vehicle, it’s because it is. I took pictures to prove it.

An especially cool thing was seeing a whole lot of rhino. We saw only white rhino (Cricket saw an extremely rare black rhino while trekking through the bush by himself, I’ll see if I can get the photograph from him). White rhino and black rhino are named incorrectly. It’s a bad translation from Afrikaans. Instead of “white” they meant “wide” because the white rhino had a long flat horizontal lip, as opposed to the black rhino, who has a prehensile upper lip that comes to a point. Some other interesting facts: The white rhino’s head is so heavy, it can’t really lift it up. White rhinos are grazers, meaning they eat grass, and black rhinos are browsers, meaning they eat leaves off of trees, which is where they use that prehensile lip.

Here’s a picture of a mommy rhino and its baby (awwww).

Various other rhinos eating or resting or drinking.

And we saw kudu, which is a large antelope. I used to call it a deer until I got chastised by someone, because deer and antelope are different. Deer shed their horns antlers every year and antelope keep their head-protuberances for their whole lives. Kudus are big, y’all. Like 550 pounds big. The easiest way to identify kudus from other African antelopes is the male has big spiral horns, but something that both the males and females share is the hairy hump on their shoulders and what I call “bird-dropping-lines”. If you look on their sides, they have thin faint white lines trickling down which look like a dove landed on their spine and let it all out. The Moomins’ favorite kudu characteristic is the white goatee. I like the white line between their eyes. We agreed to disagree.

Tomorrow will delve into elephants and hyenas (warning: a whole lotta “awwws” and “look at the baby” coming up with that one, so prepare yourself).