African vignette #1

[Rather than try to do any kind of coherent narrative, I'm going to post some to-be-determined number of short "moments" from the trip. If you want photographs you'll have to go to jwg's journal.]

Wow, those two dead trees over there sure have a lot of vultures sitting in them. What's up? Oh, there they are, right by the road: four lions tearing at the rib cage of, um, something, while a fifth, apparently sated, sleeps it off a short distance away. I wonder what the prey was? Oh, there's a not-yet-skinned foreleg still attached, clearly a zebra.

Africa vignette #2

Arrived just before lunch, got to our room -- wow, what a spectacular view! Oh, there's one of those black-faced (otherwise vervet) monkeys in a tree right opposite; seems like a logical place for it. So my brain insists on singing:

I'd like to be
up in a tree,
in a black-faced monkey's garden in the shade...

Africa vignette #3

We've stopped at a sort of picnic area which has that precious item, a public toilet, and then we hang out for a while, because there's this lovely pool surrounded by reeds and overhung by an enormous fig(?) tree. Flying and walking around the pool are various water-loving birds such as sacred ibis and some kind of geese. In the pool, sometimes invisible and under the surface, sometime no more than eyes and nose, and sometimes half out of the water, are a dozen or more (probably more, they're very hard to keep track of) hippos. But wait -- there in the middle of the pool is standing a large gray heron. The water is deep enough for the hippos to submerge, so how can this heron be standing in what appears to be 3 inches of water? Then a hippo's head appears next to the heron, and it soon becomes apparent that the heron is standing on the hippo's back, hitching a ride to nowhere in particular.

[I think I need to grab a piece of one of jwg's pictures, once they become available, to use as an icon for these posts; none of my regular ones are really suitable.]

Africa vignette #4

Monday night, our first at the Serena Lodge on the lip of the Ngorongoro crater, a bunch of us are on the balcony outside the bar looking at a brilliantly starry sky, trying to determine what compass direction we're facing. Ken, the tour organizer, says that since we're on the south rim of the crater, we must be facing north. I'm still getting my brain adjusted to both unfamiliar constellations and familiar ones in unfamiliar orientations, but, what with the Southern Cross to the far right and Scorpio more or less in front of us I'm pretty sure we're facing just about due east. Mary is inclined to agree with me, but is less certain. Ken is insistent, however, and entirely unmoved by my assertion that the stars don't lie. Mary suggests that we'll probably know in the morning.

Tuesday morning at 6:30, I get up and look out from our balcony (all the rooms, private and public, face in the same direction, namely out over the crater). The sky is brilliantly clear except for a few coppery wisps of cloud, and the glow illuminating them is straight in the direction I'm looking, where, indeed, the sun appears about 15 minutes later.

I go up to the dining room, where Ken is having breakfast. I go up to him and remark that I didn't know he was taking us to the South Pole. "The South Pole?" he says blankly. I reply that that's the only place I know of where the sun rises in the north. He advises me, with a slight growl, to go get my breakfast.