Safari w/photos

Our safari experience wasn't quite the guns-on-the-Land Rover, life-and-death experience I had hoped it would be.

We wound up visiting the Garden Route Game Lodge, which is still building up its stock of animals and land, buying up and revegetating land from surrounding farms. So, the predator and prey animals are separated and a guide took us around on a pre-ordained track to see them. Other guides would call on the walkie-talkie, "Giraffe in sector six!" and we'd head that way. We rode around on an open-air truck with the Khaki Patrol and their kids, which became a little awkward when the male elephant decided to expose himself. Being a fan of male genitalia, I have to take a moment and tell you about this: I would say his glory was about the diameter of a dinner plate, and it hung all the way to the ground. When we saw it, a starled murmur erupted among the adults, followed by chuckles and then questions from the kids. It was a heart-warming moment as, inside, I laughed at the parents grasping at straws as the birds-and-bees talk was unexpectedly thrust upon them.

Here's the sad thing for the male elephant: Apparently, male elephants, as well as the females, come into heat. The male and female must be in heat on the same day to get in the mood. Unfortuanately for them, the elephant pair at the park were ONE DAY off, which explained why they seemed so cranky to me. The animals I got the biggest kick out of were the two male rhinos. They hammed it up for the crowd and even gave us a hard time as we tried to drive away, blocking us, then moving away, then trotting up and blocking us again. Silly rhinos! We learned that rhinos rest rump-to-rump, facing in opposite directions, so that they can get each other's back - in that position, they can see a predator approach from any direction. Lions will try to eat rhinos if they can't get something easier like a zebra or an impala. We also learned that there was someone else interested in the rhinos: the male elephant! The guides have spotted him going to town on the male rhinos more than once! They say such behavior is VERY rare, but apparently the male animals at the park are pretty frustrated - the elephant being out of sync with his lady and the rhinos lacking any ladies at all.

Here are some other animal facts we learned:

* lions are so territorial, a male will eat his own male cubs if they don't leave his turf quickly enough
* because giraffes' heads are so far away from their hearts, the pressure in their heads is much higher than in the rest of their bodies, which keeps the blood flowing up there
* giraffes may eat food from the ground, but once they get it in their mouths, they will lift their heads to chew, in order to maintain the pressure inside their heads

... and last, but not least, how did the Zebra get his stripes? Here's how the Bushmen tell it:

Long ago, the Baboon was King. He would not let any of the other animals drink from the watering hole. The Zebra, who then was a snowy white, decided this wasn't fair and all animals should be able to drink from the watering hole. The Zebra confronted the Baboon, who stubbornly and selfishly refused to share. They got into an epic battle, in which the Baboon lit a ring of fire around the watering hole to keep the Zebra out. But, the Zebra jumped through the fire, singeing his white fur and giving him black stripes. With a mighty kick, he sent the Baboon flying through the air. The Baboon landed on top of the mountain, where he still lives today, with a backside still pink from the Zebra's kick. The Zebra still has his stripes and now all of the animals can drink from the watering hole.