Webster’s defines winter as:
- the season between autumn and spring comprising in the northern hemisphere usually the months of December, January, and February or as reckoned astronomically extending from the December solstice to the March equinox
- the colder half of the year
I don’t think Mr. Webster has been to Namibia. It is winter and the temperatures were already approaching 35 degrees in the pan.
I always imagined a safari as something that rich people with funny accents participated in. I also imagined that there would be an element of danger. Now I think it as something that middle class people with funny accents participate in with the danger being the risk of skin cancer.
It was great. In the first couple of days I was thinking to myself in Gaelic that it is really neat to see zebras and giraffes in their natural environment. By the end of it, I was thinking to myself in Gaelic that seeing 1,000,000,000 zebras and 500,000 giraffes in their natural environment is as exciting as seeing a spruce tree in its natural environment.
On day two there was about 7 giraffes gathered around a watering hole and along comes an elephant slowly schuking and jiving his way to the hole when the giraffes parted ways to give the elephant a wide berth. I shot the elephant a look to say that if these giraffes mofo’s wanted to start something that I had his back. We’s cool man, we’s cool is what I anticipated his reciprocated look to be.
Saw some bad ass Lions, Rhinos, more elephants, oryx and various boring mammals that I was throwing garbage at.
The savannah is Saskatchewan flat with endless yellowish brown grass and very little green. The rains come in November but it looks like it has not seen rain since November of the 18th century.
The thing that I noticed about the animals is how slow they all move. Time and space are less defined here (I am paraphrasing The Lonely Planet in an attempt to sound smart). The bad ass animals take a drink; move a couple of feet and stay that way for a very long time. Then repeat the process until you are praying for a kill.
We visited a tribe where they speak “the clicking language”. I tried to speak it but something would just not click. Sorry, I needed to say it.
Now I am in Swakopmund where we went sand boarding and quad bike riding in the sand dunes. This was tons of fun. Endless dunes and bang, you are right at the ocean.
I will post some pictures as soon as I can.
25 more days to the next trip.
Onward,
FrankieBoy
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