All our game drives for this trip are done.  I’ve included the last of the animal pictures below.  

We are in Cape Town and have, somehow, landed on Miami Beach.  This place is a salad buffet of high fashion and lowered inhibitions.  People are out and hot to trot.  Some look to be navigating heels for the first time, wearing clothes six sizes too tight.  Apparently a man belly is celebrated here?  Meanwhile, Bek and I are wearing safari gear and look like we’ve come from an alternate reality where The Hunger Games actually happened.  Nobody cares or pays attention to us, but I do find it humorous.  

We tour the city tomorrow.  

d

Wildebeest glares at us suspiciously, which is really the only way they glare at you. 

A bird startled these zebras, and caused them to smack their lips in protest. 

Zebras have a magnificent coat.  Notice the Oxpecker bird on the left shoulder.  They’re the vampiric birds who eat ticks solely for the blood in them. 

Behold the elusive black rhino!  They are very different from white rhinos in temperament.  There is a South African saying, “Black rhinos look at you like you owe them money.”  This guy huffed and puffed, but never charged us.  He thought about it and was super curious, but another vehicle pulled up and he bolted.  Stupid other vehicle.  Sitings of black rhino are extraordinarily rare here, almost unheard of.  The lodge staff didn’t believe us.  The other rangers tried to find him again but could not.  

You can see the horn has been cut off at some point but has grown back.  Black and white rhinos are actually not different colors.  They eat different things and act differently, but color has nothing to do with their distinction.  Turns out the Dutch word for “wide” and “white” is very similar and was confused in translation.  White just stuck.  Once we had white rhinos, what do you call another species of rhino?  Black!  I guess if we discover another species, we’ll call them grey to split the difference.  Silly humans.  

This is a white rhino.  They hang out in mud or water during the day. While this rhino is acutely aware of our presence, he could not care less.  Their awkward body shape makes lying down tricky.  The lump behind his ear is the trapezius muscle.  It’s huge, and is needed to hold the head while grazing.  

Obligatory weird camel picture. 

Two male lions walking their territory came within feet of us.  They are brothers and part of a larger pride which roams the area.  While they ignore humans in vehicles who remain seated and still, it is unnerving to be within feet of a male lion that could hop into your lap.  In this picture, I have not cropped out any bar or fence as there is not one to crop out.  A surreal experience.

The locals play a game where you put these round things in your mouth and see how far you can spit them.  One must be careful, though, because you don’t want to keep them in your mouth too long or bite down.  It’s Impala shit.  I got second place.  Also, I started a course of antibiotics when I got home, but don’t tell anyone lest I lose my street cred.