Safari!

When I was a kid and my father talked about going on sabbatical, I got the word all confused and thought he was talking about going on safari. Well, now I’ve done both, and understand that, by strict definition, they aren’t the same thing. However I now also know that the true meaning of the word “safari” is “travel” or trip. So maybe I wasn’t so wrong after all….

So here are some of the things I learned by going on a traditional safari, as in riding in a van with a top that opens up, so that you can see the wild animals but not get gored or eaten by them:

– That ostriches are one of the easiest things to see in the distance, because they are the blackest thing out there, circular, and hover above the ground. They are just as funny as they look in books, but a pleasure to see as they trot through the savannah

– That the hardest things to see in the savannah are the Genet cat, from which all of our house cats are descended. I am so excited that I got to see this little guy, who was just hanging out sunning himself….

– and the Cory Bastard…or is it the Crested Bastard? There are several bastards, and don’t ask me why they are called that, because no one here could answer my query on that….)

– there are some unusual looking birds out there too. The Secretary Bird is one of my favorites:

Wildebeests are an odd, ornery looking lot:

Zebras really do have stripes, and have large heads in relation to their bodies

There are so many types of gazelle and antelope here, with all sizes represented, including the tiny dik dik, which is about the size of a smallish dog. They are all so graceful, and especially beautiful to watch as they prance and run. They are also some of the most vulnerable, as in being a-good-catch-for-lunch-vulnerable, because they don’t have the bulk of other animals. These are Thompson gazelle:

And Grants gazelle, back at the Maasai camp:

We watched a couple of cheetah lazing in the sun, when one of them caught the scent of a Thompson. One of the cats, and then the other, got up and very slowly began moving in the direction of the gazelle. The gazelle, in turn, slowly began to move farther away, until she broke into a run, as did the cheetah. The gazelle couldn’t match the speed of the cheetah, which was gaining on the Thompson. But just as it looked like we were going to witness a kill, the gazelle ran in between two wildebeests. When the cheetah reached them, one wildebeest snorted, and the cheetah did a tight 180′ right in front of them, and gave up the chase. Apparently she wasn’t willing to risk going between the wildebeests, and the two cats slowly loped there way back to their original spot and laid back down. All in a day’s work, eh? What an amazing thing to watch.

We saw lots more animals, but some were too distant to photograph, or moving too fast. Sorry, no whales. Here’s one last parting shot of a giraffe, which I really loved watching. There are, btw, three types; this one is a Maasai giraffe, with asymmetric patches. The Reticulated giraffe pattern looks more like a lock set jigsaw puzzle, and oh boy, I can’t remember the name of the third kind.

So there’s my version of Animal Planet for the day. Now you don’t have to watch tv tonight.