Backsides in Botswana, Africa

backsides of crowned guinea fowls


backside of an ostrich


backside of a deer


backside of a warthog - waideminit, not sure if this is the backside...warthogs are so ugly you can't really tell their front from their back :)

(This is the last post on our adventures in Botswana in December 2011. Parts 1,2 and 3 are in the blog posts before this one.)

It was most frustrating! We were at our second game reserve and had yet to get a good close-up shot of an animal. Animals we'd sighted up until then were deer, rams, antelopes, impalas, ostriches, tortoises, warthogs, gibbons, foxes, zebras, kudus, wildebeests and even a hare. But our photos turned out pathetic because of cheapo cameras (mine)and amateur photographers (me). And, the animals would look up, glare at us, then dart off before we could get a clear enough shot of them. Most of the time, we'd get their backsides only. Hence the title for this post.

Look at these other pathetic shots.....

Can you even see the zebra?


Here's a picture of two hippos...
.....way over at the other end of that lake. With binoculars, you could see two mounds in the water. How do we know for sure? Our game warden made this ke.ray.zee hippo call right across the water and
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they answered!! It was crazy LOUD, I can't even describe it - a snort, grunt, growl all rolled into one! Man, before this, I didn't even know hippos made sounds of any kind. Did you?

One of the game reserves we went to...

We went in trucks like this one...
Some of our friends from the above pic (who went in the truck before our turn) came back with exciting news about having seen a giraffe! What! You guys saw a giraffe?!

Then it was our turn.....how we strained and trained and sprained our eyes to look for a giraffe.....ho hummmm....

a humongous termite mound, taller than me...


In the end, even a dung beetle looked exciting to us...
(actually, dung beetles really are fascinating. Did you know they roll that ball of dung backwards all the way to their destination? seriously, go read about them....and would you believe the whole truck stops to let the dung beetle cross the road?)

And then....and THEN!! All of a sudden, when we didn't expect it at all! We were stumped, the truck came to a very very very. quiet. halt.
and all of us were speechless, speechless I'm telling you! cameras slowly,easy-does-it, raised and poised..


OH MAN! OH MANNNN!!! BAHNNNA!! IJOH!!! ITHA-HA-NAE-LAE!!
This was the one!!!! This was the shot. I. me. yours truly. took!!!

....straight off a page from the souvenir calendar I bought at the end of our drive. And I quickly showed it to our friends (in the truck that had gone before us and were waiting for our return). And they went, "WHAAAT? You saw a RHINO?!"
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HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!

GOTCHA!!

lalallala..laaa la....

I was so disappointed with not having seen a giraffe, that we planned for yet a third trip on another day to an even further game reserve, almost 3 hours away.

Even at that game reserve (only my family got to go in, plus our chaperone), we saw pretty much the same animals although the rams with their amazing long and very curly horns (sometimes used as shofars) were something awesome...

But after a good two and a half hours of driving, hope diminishing....we see on our trail...

hoof prints! hoof prints! but what animal's?

They were too big to be a deer's...could it be? could it be? We drive following those prints for what seemed like a good 3 kilometers....all the while hoping...

and then we see it in the distance....hold your heart,(mine was in my throat) I'm tellin' ya!

can you see it? can you see it? look closely! look.....

AAAAAAAAARGHHHKKKKK!!! YES! IT IS! IT IS! IT'S MY GIRAFFE!
Our truck drives slowly slowly...we send Tammy out ahead on foot with the camera, to follow the trail but the poor girl had to walk so far before she caught up with it. All the while she was watching the giraffe watching her watch it....At one point ahead of us (we were slowly slowly driving behind her) Tammy looked so close to it that our chaperone asked, "what, is she thinking she gonna hug it or what?" Man, by the time we got to as close to it as possible and we got off the truck, I'd just about taken a hundred photos of that poor lone and lost-looking giraffe...

I mean, seriously, how majestic she looks with that long, slender neck....(oh, waideminit, I donno if she was a she and didn't think to check...sorry...I will do so next time)


Oh, I love you, gorgeous, gorgeous giraffe....oh, to be able to hug that neck...


I mean, seriously, how much closer can you get than this?!

Oh, you terribly beautiful creature, so beautiful are you, an absolute work of art by God Himself, I could just cry....I thought of all those extinct dinosaurs....

Look at how it moves....



Here ends my account of our Botswana trip. It may not be your kind of holiday but it sure was mine...spent with loved ones, learning their culture, language, laughing with them, a little sight-seeing. And when I think of that giraffe, it still makes me wanna dance like the Africans...(umm...no, that's not me)




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