So going to South Africa is like a very expensive trip to the zoo?

Recall that we were in an open land rover. We were like, "Hey, uh, how fast does this thing accelerate if we need it to?"

The rangers hadn't seen this leopard before, and estimated it to be in the 180 to 200 pound range.

Pretty much. Except you're in the cage.

The 'robe' is a Tallis Gadol and the 'cord' is Teffilin and, yes, it's disrespectful to take a photo.

I forgive you.

Thanks for sharing your photos, Rain Man. Very cool stuff.

This giraffe was about 100 feet from the leopard, and was keeping an eagle eye on it.

I was all ready to lay it down and kstater beat me too it.

I think they all say that, try to keep you from complaining. I think it was 22 hours to Taiwan (bad, bad headwinds)

Really great trip Kevin, too bad DaFace is now in charge of what used to be your company, via a hostile takeover.

More pictures tomorrow or thereabouts. Tonight, I sleep.

Rest well, Kin-tan-tee.

Shh...you'll ruin the ambush when he tries to come back!

Sleep? Disapproved. We want more pics.

an acidic jew, eh? You should have gotten the poor dude a rolaids or something. Heartburn on a long flight sucks big time.

Be glad about that. My brother spent a year in Dakar and said it was a real pit.

Great pics Rainman, can't wait for more.

Just to assist you in being proper. The darker africans are callled africans....however the lighter africans are to be referred to as "anglo africans". Hope this helps. All other humans are to be referred to as "tourists".

cool thread
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Cool trip. Our trip, my dad and I, was kinda similar. Except instead of the long plane ride with fuel stops, it was a truck ride halfway to your house. Instead of cape buffaloes, we saw cows, in place of the leapard it was a badger. The lawn mowers were actually prairie dogs. It was a pasture instead of a refuge. Oh, and instead of shooting photos we were shooting guns. But other than that, it was kinda similar.

:)

Where's the T rex?

Best line in recent memory!

rep

Interesting bird of some sort.

Another interesting bird of some sort.

Sweet, you're back.

Speaking of birds, there was one kind that would kind of take over a tree with their nests, which were woven from branches. Quite cool.

Thundering herd of impala.

It was hard to get a good picture of a monkey because they tended to run pretty quickly. However, we caught one bunch of them in an easygoing mood. These were vervet monkeys. (There were no chimps in our area.)

Looks like some are duplex and triplex homes.

Monkey up close.

Since I was there, I went ahead and killed three rhino.

(Actually, they were sleeping.)

Interesting story. The sleeping rhino were on top of a ridge about 100 or 200 feet above a big valley. While we were watching them, we heard an elephant trumpet, then again and again. It was kind of a panicked sound, and when we looked across the valley we could see a small group of elephants sprinting through the trees, all "screaming". The ranger said it was extremely unusual, so we went across to see if the elephants were okay. Another land rover joined us, and we drove around looking for the elephants. They were in a very dense wooded area, and we managed to see them a little bit.

The picture below is on a high zoom, where we could see one of them in the trees.

Like the monkeys, baboons were hard to photograph because they moved fast. Also, baboons weren't common in our area, so it was a big surprise to run into a troop. I managed to get my camera up in time to get kind of a shot of one of them.

A couple of hours after the elephant sprint, we and the other land rover went back to the same area. They had calmed down, apparently, and wandered out onto the trail. There was a young elephant, and the ranger theorized that the young one had panicked about something and the older ones were chasing her just to stay with her.

The funny thing is that the young one came onto the trail right between the two land rovers. Our ranger decided to back up and give it some room, and started the land rover. The sound spooked the young one and it trumpeted, and boy oh boy one of the older elephants charged out of the trees toward our land rover and was not happy. The ranger kept backing up and the elephant stopped and calmed down. It was probably one of two times when I thought, "Hey, we could have a problem here." This photo is right when the older one was running out, just after the little one got spooked.

I only dream of this kind of vacation. Congratulations!

Good hippo shot.

I must say, it was way cool. I wasn't quite sure what to expect when we went.

Wildebeest at twilight. I think wildebeests are cool-looking. I may have a better shot later.

Impala fight!

They have a cool name, too. You think it would be spelled "wildebeast".

A couple of kudu, which are pretty big creatures. Probably not quite elk-size, but close.

How much money did you spend to go see monkeys in Africa?

I saw this earlier today 3 miles from my house.

My other interesting "moment of perceived threat". Recall that we're in this area where we just saw a large leopard, and where there are herds of cape buffalo and hippo and elephants and stuff roaming around.

So we're driving around and it gets dark and the ranger says, "Let's keep driving a little bit and see if we see anything interesting." So we're driving around and not seeing much, and pssssssh! Flat tire.

The ranger is muttering curses about changing the tire in the dark and says, "You guys don't know how lucky you are. I just checked the spare before we left and it was flat, so I had a mechanic put a new spare in."

He jacks up the vehicle, takes off the flat, and gets the spare out. Conk. It turns out that land rovers have five lug nuts, and the game park's new Isuzu vehicle has the same size tire, but with six lug nuts. Guess which spare tire we got.

So the ranger is cursing again, and he gets out his cell phone. We'd seen him use it before to coordinate with another land rover if someone saw something interesting. For example, in the elephant panic he called the other land rover and the two of us met up on a trail to try to find them.

Well, his cell phone wasn't working. So we're sitting in this land rover with a flat and no spare, and no way to communicate with another land rover to pick us up. So we end up bailing out of the land rover and being leopard bait for a half-mile or so in absolute pitch-black night to get to a ranger station so he can get help. I had my cell phone with me as a backup camera, and we used it as a flashlight. It was one of those situations where you think to yourself, "Y'know, it's not unfathomable that I could be eaten by a leopard in the next 20 minutes." Fortunately, there were no leopard attacks, though, and we got to the ranger station and got rescued.

They look tasty....

Well, sure, but were they vervet monkeys? Mine were vervet monkeys.

A couple of Zulu dancers hanging out at the lobby. The cool thing is that some went around topless and the rest just had these little strings of beads up there that didn't cover much. I saw more Zulu nipple this month than in my entire life up to that point, and this wasn't National Geographic Zulu nipple hanging down to the belly button. This was the good kind of Zulu nipple.

And I know it's worthless without pics, but I either never had my camera or was in a situation where taking such a picture would seem gauche.

One day we ventured out of our park and went to Hluhluwe and Umfolozi Parks, which were big parks that had lions and cheetahs. Unfortunately, we didn't see any, but we did see some other cool creatures. Here are a couple of giraffes.

We had to stop for a while because an elephant was standing in the middle of the road.

Why did the elephant cross the road?

To drink from the puddle on the other side.

Close-up of snorkeling elephant.

I'll bet there were some vervet monkeys there. This guy owns a monkey sanctuary. He has more than 80 monkeys on his property.

Donger?

Baboon, I think. Either that or a small bigfoot. Pretty sure it's a baboon.

Water buck.

Guinea fowl.

Great show so far Kevin. We want more.

A pack of African Wild Dogs, which are apparently not commonly seen. These guys saw us and ran, but they ran down the road instead of into the forest. Then we caught up to them and they ran again, down the road again. Then it happened again, and that time they were just like, "Screw it," and laid down.

ten yards and replay the down?

There were elephants all over the place at the big park. We probably saw close to 100 either up close or at a distance. Here are a couple that were hanging out near the road.

We went from there to St. Lucia, which is a large waterway that connects to the ocean.

I liked this picture, because I took it of the bird, but then you can see a large antelope on the shore.

Swimming is not recommended at St. Lucia.

Is that bird an Ibis?

Seriously, don't swim there.

I think the guide said it's something like a Goliath egret or Goliath ibis or something. I remember the Goliath part, because she said it was the largest subspecies of its type.

In fact, don't even take a small boat there.

(Yawn.)

Great trip!! Did you get to see any ancient ruins or anything like that?

Wait. This might be the Goliath bird.

Not ancient ones, but the next part of the trip was to Madagascar, so I got to go to Antananarivo and see modern ruins. Those pictures are coming up.

Needs some cropping, but I like this bird picture.

So should we plan for three hours of pictures at the next staff meeting? :)

I liked this sign.

Huh. I think I'd rather just let Darwinism take over for people who break the rules.

No. It'll be much longer than that.

Hey, can you increase my attachment allowance? I'm about out if I don't start deleting pictures from this thread.

Heh...give me a few minutes. I'll try and find that setting.

I need to show you how to use imageshack.

Got it.

More Zulu nipple.

Thank Goodness for digital cameras, how many memory sticks did you have to use.

Impressive photos Kevin, thanks for sharing with us. Hope the kittys survived against those pesky Russians.

If you're lucky. Can you imagine what it would be like if Kevin had kids and grandkids?

Amazing pictures and thanks so much for sharing. I'm really looking forward to the Madagascar pics.

PS - my wife and I had our first child in early April. She's taken and uploaded more than 1,600 pictures to date. If we live long enough to have grandkids, there probably won't be a server in the world big enough to accomodate our needs!

Where is the picture of you poaching the horns with a chainsaw?

That would be really cool...