Safari - Part 2

How's that for a start to Safari #2?



After we saw the White Rhinos, then the ostrich, we had to drive quite a while to find these pacaderms.  In this photo, Mama is standing at the edge of a ledge, with her baby on the other side. She was somewhat protective of the baby (who is about 2 years old) and fluffed up her ears a lot at us.  She was running here ....

Wait!!!!  Who is coming to visit the elephants, taking their morning walk??  Is it .......  the White Rhinos??  (there are two of them in the photo) ...

There, all four of them are in the same photo.  Our Ranger Guide said that they are not friends, that the elephants just tolerate the Rhinos.  Actually, he said that the Rhinos are not very smart and that the elephants tease them and the rhinos don't even know it.  Here, the Rhinos are down the slope from the elephants.

check out the big ears. The major difference between African and Indian elephants are the ears.  African elephants ears are larger and more banana-leaf like.

One other difference is that the African elephants have a finger-like thing at the end of their tusk, allowing them to pick up small coins or to take a coin out of your pocket.

For most of the trip, we were not allowed to get out of the vehicles, nor come in contact with any of the animals, for health and safety reasons.  Mid-way, we stopped and had a refreshing beverage and to stretch our legs a bit ...  Who knew what good things were kept in those backend lockers!!








The first thing you would notice here, beside the fact that it is ME :) is that I am only wearing a fleece vest, a heavy sweater, and a thermal shirt under that.  Not many clothes on, darned near naked.

:)








One of the other Fellows on the trip, Sarah Diefendorf ..












I spent quite a bit of time, while we were driving around, looking at the terain and trying to figure out how the rocky mountains and sloping hills came to be ... 



When people wonder why Africans can't grow more food or raise cattle, one look at the ground tells you.  This is the ground under Sarah's feet - pure sand and rock.


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Safari Part 3