Domesticity

Yesterday was our 6th anniversary. We realized last night that it's only the second anniversary we've spent at home. Our first anniversary was in Seattle, the second in Burma, the third in Germany, the fourth in Athens (but followed by Puerto Rico) and last year we were in South Africa.

It's kind of hard to decide which was weirder: the anniversary we spent in Yangon, or the one where we got up at 3:30 AM to go look for big game. We were at the Skukuza Camp at Kruger National Park, staying in a little "hut" type thing with a bat (who later attached itself to my backpack. That was a nice moment. Reaching for the zipper and realizing that a nasty, furry bat had adhered--and I do mean adhered--itself to my bag).

We didn't do too badly on that drive either, seeing 4 out of the "Big 5" (Cape buffalo, lions, leopards, elephants, and rhinos). The leopard we just saw for an instant in the misty, early morning light. The elephants and rhinos and buffaloes were all over the place though. As you can see. The zoom on this camera is good, but it's not that good. It was really the most amazing thing I've ever experience to be driving along and suddenly find a herd of rhinos in the road, or a herd of Cape buffalo surrounding your truck, or have a bunch of elephants standing 15 feet away.

Notice I did say "driving along." We were in an open jeep-truck type thing, but no one was allowed outside of a vehicle once they entered the park (and it's a pretty big park--over 7,000 sq miles) unless they were with an (armed) ranger. Once you entered the park you had to make your way to one of the fenced-in camps before nightfall. At about 6 PM all of the gates would close and you were either locked in (or locked out) for the night. The camps had a few restaurants, a grocery store, a swimming pool, etc. and then lots of small huts/cabins and camp sites. At our particular camp you could sign up for several different organized game watches every day or you could take your car out and drive around on your own. However, the gates to the camp were locked during the best game viewing times.

We saw the leopard on our morning drive, and so by that point we'd seen 4 of the Big 5. We had one last opportunity to see lions on our afternoon drive. After 2 hours of driving around and seeing NOTHING, our driver slammed on the gas and we went careening off through the bush. Another truck had spotted a lion. When we got there, the rangers turned on these big spotlights and we all just sat there in the dark, watching the lion.

We spent yesterday afternoon watching the Lancaster Chorale which, while very nice (wonderful, even--they were really impressive), was pretty tame by comparison.

Speaking of tame, great though our trip was, we didn't see anything this wild: (make sure you watch all the way to the end)

Wow, just thinking about it, I can't wait to go back. South Africa was absolutely the most incredible place I've ever been. And that's saying something;) So beautiful, so fascinating, and so much great food! We might have to cash in some frequent flier miles...