Science

Leavin' On a Jet Plane

Hi Everyone!

Well, it's Friday, around 2pm South Africa Time. We had to check out at 11am, so we stored our luggage at the hotel, and then went down to the waterfront to check out the store. Our taxi was driven by a guy who's last name was Silke, and he said his parents moved to South Africa from Spain after "the war". Which war? He looked kind of old, so Lizzie and I assumed he meant the Spanish/American war, or perhaps he was involved with the rout with the Spanish Armada, but anyway, after telling us this, he asked if we'd hooked up with any fellas down here, so we immediately flung the doors open, and then tucked and rolled the rest of the way, landing at Victoria's Wharf, which is basically a giant shopping mall. We looked around, had some disgusting lunch which is sure to haunt us on our 20 million hour flight, and then decided to decline Mr. Silke's kind offer to drive us back, and hopped into the most rickety cab I've ever seen. The driver told us that his differential was going, and then asked us, over the grinding of the gears, about the election.

So the election is big news here, at least with the drivers.

He said that he thought McCain was past his sell-by date, which was hilarious, but then he talked about how "hot" Sarah Palin is. Vomit-tastic. He actually drove by our hotel because he wanted our opinion on George Bush. So folks, if you're traveling abroad over the next few weeks, make sure you've read up on your American Politics, and be ready with your this-person-is-nuts-so-I-can't-give-my-real-opinion-but-if-say-I'm-voting-for-the-other-guy-I'll-puke vague generalization. Basically, act like you're a first year writing student:

"Throughout history, there have been elections. Elections are very important. The democratic process is necessary to the government of a country. Our country is interested in change, but also in maintaining a connection with the past, as well as looking ahead to the future. So please, tell me about cricket."

Anyway, this will be our last post before flying (Capetown to Dakar to NYC to Boston). We'll hope to do some wrapping up once we get home, but have a great Friday, and we'll see you all soon (unless someone is trying to murder us by letting a whole bunch of poisonous hippos loose on the plane. I'm going to call Samuel L. Jackson. Hippos on a plane is going to be a hit!)

Love--Shannon and Lizzie

When Elephants Attack--a progression of aggression

From our encounter with Amarullah the elephant the other day. A montage.

Friends Don't Let Friends Drink and Blog

Heya!

Well, it's Thursday, 9:09pm here in South Africa. Our hotel is next to the ocean, and so we can hear the waves hitting the rocks (which occasionally we mistake for whales). We just returned from dinner in the 5-star restaurant in our hotel, called "Salt", which led to me telling my "Two peanuts were walking down the street and one was assaulted" joke far too many times. Still funny every time.

Lizzie had her conference this morning, gave her talk, and actually was driven to the event by a fellow named Waleed, who said that Emmanuel had told him about us, and then asked how she was voting. She said that she didn't believe in voting because it makes you sterile, and she wants to have lots and lots of babies. It was just safer that way. Also, thinking gives you wrinkles. Yuck.

When she came back, I was still fighting shutterfly (the connection here is so slow. We have an awesome coriolis force video to put up, but we'll have to wait until we get back to the states and have the bandwith to do it.) but hopefully by the time we have to leave tomorrow, most of the pictures will be up. (That's right, folks, we're taking off 6pm here, which would be uh, noon in Boston).

So yes, dinner. I generally don't drink much wine, because I am a total lightweight (the waiter at the restaurant we were at last night, when I ordered my martini, looked at me and said, concerned, "But that is very strong!" I'm of Irish descent, dammit, bring me my ZZzzzzzz....) however, South Africa is famous for it's vineyards, and I had to try some South African wine, and ordered a Pinotage, named Carpe Diem. Lizzie had the gall to order a dessert wine with dinner, which threw our waiter off big time, almost as much as when she said "all set", a peculiar Northern US idiom which not everyone even in the United States seems to get. Especially because it doesn't make much sense.

The Pinotage was ridiculously good, and it had the instant effect of turning on those Irish genes I possess which turn my face bright red. Now I matched my wine, how exciting! Lizzie made the mistake of having some weird beet-root tart for dinner, but being the classy gal I am, I had squid tempura, forgetting that tempura meant fried, and I hate fried food. Anyway, I (classily) picked it out of the coating, and then we both decided that more wine would erase the poor dinner choices, and oh how it did, especially when coupled with dessert. I had a dessert wine this time, and it was hella good, and I dared Lizzie to have a dinner wine with dessert to really screw up our waiter, but she said she was all set. We paid, stumbled back to our room, and I checked on shutterfly, which is still uploading our pictures. Sheeyit. Bring on the Pinotage--it's going to be a long night! (Note, a side effect of me blogging while slighting intoxicated is that I think this is freaking hilarious. Wait, no, I always think I'm hilarious, even when I tell stupid peanut jokes. Or cheese ones. Right, Seth and Lauren?)

It's Nearly the End of the World

Capetown--Wednesday

Our hotel in Capetown is pretty rad, and being the "business hotel" on our trip (Lizzie's conference is Thursday) it is super fancy and everyone is helpful, and so far there hasn't been any contemptuous sighing, which we received much of in the previous two cities we were in, mainly when we didn't have correct change. Lizzie was up late on Tuesday night working (and then of course, I had some blogging to catch up on) and so we slept late, but then met le beau garcon Patrick who was going to give us a tour of Table Mountain, the Simon Town Penguin colony, Cape Point and the Cape of Good hope. Patrick was a dashing ex-pat from la France, and his accent was definitely French, though peppered with those hilarious "Ja's". He took us to Table Mountain, which is part of the mountains that dominate the landscape of Capetown. Table mountain is flat on top, of course, and is often covered with a shroud of mist which the locals call the table cloth. There are twelve peaks around Table Mountain, referred to as the twelve apostles, and also a mountain called lion's head, which sort of maybe looks like the sphinx. (Lizzie asked if the back end of the mountain was referred to as Lion's butt, and Patrick laughed and said no, that it was called signal hill, which we decided was classier, but less interesting). We took a spooky cable car (which was oddly sponsored by visa) up to the top. I am not afraid of heights, but Lizzie is. Not only did the car go up, but the floor spun as well, so she was having a great time. At the top, we saw Robben's Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, and which now is apparently overrun by bunnies. (Also, Patrick told us that Robben's Island is just Dutch for Seal's Island.)

We poked around, got some pictures, and then descended for the 2 1/2 hour drive to the near end of the world, or at least the end of Africa. Patrick was full of information, which we absorbed nerdishly (again, it didn't hurt that he was tres beau), and then we stopped at the Penguin colony. He told us Penguin Fun Facts, which totally weren't fun but actually sad, because the colonies are slowly dying out, possibly because of over fishing, or because humans are harvesting the penguin crap (which Patrick dashingly called guano) to use as fertilizer, and the penguins need it to build nests. (The cuteness of many of my penguin photos are marred by their being covered in guano). We were feet away from the Penguin, and I'm not going to lie to you here, if Patrick weren't there, Lizzie and I totally would've each touched at least one penguin. Maybe more. They were ridiculously cute, and there was much squealing, which I'm sure Patrick found absolutely annoying. I mean charming. The penguins liked it anyway, and brayed at us, being jackass penguins. After the penguins we made our way to Cape town and

OH MY GOD BABOONS! NOOOOOO!!

There were Baboons everywhere, all over the roads, staring at us. I took some pictures, mostly so I can horrify my sisters, who share my fear and loathing of all things Monkey-like. They apparently hassle people for food because idiot tourists feed them, so when we got to Cape Point, I had my punching fists ready, empowered by my Spider killing, ready to knock out Rafiki if necessary (who am I kidding? I will never kill another spider, and if a Baboon came at me I would run away crying). We decided to hike up to the top of Cape Point, instead of taking the train (go Rabbits!) and it was simply breath taking. (The view, that is, though the hike didn't help). We saw a huge cross that was erected in honor of Vasco De Gama's loop around the cape, and also the point where the warm and cold currents meet (though it's not quite where the two oceans meet). I've never seen anything so incredible in my life (except for Snakes on a Plane), and the only thing that marred the experience is that we ran into Veruca Salt and her Dad/Boyfriend/Cousin. WTF? You've followed us to the ends of the earth? What are the chances? South Africa is pretty damn big, and they decided to fly to Capetown on the same day we did, and visit the same attractions at the very same time? We had seen a bunch of whales a quarter mile off the coast on our drive to the Cape Point, and apparently Veruca had seen them as well, and was lecturing us about the kind of whales they were. SHUT UP. JAMES ISN'T HERE, NO ONE IS IMPRESSED. Ugh.

Anyhow, we enjoyed the scenery for a bit longer, and then hiked back down. Patrick, who had stayed at the bottom, was surprised that we hadn't taken the train either way, and that we weren't freezing. It was probably 60 degrees out, and yes, there was a wind chill (in all of the pictures I'm in, my hair is blowing around like mad) but for crying out loud, 60! I prefer 80, yes, but I prefer 60 to the 40's we'll be returning to. Also, we're lazy Americans, but not *that* lazy.

Next we headed to the Cape of Good hope, which is on the same reserve as the Cape point, but a wee bit further south, and lower elevation. On the way we saw Ostriches, a male and female and their babies. They were ridiculously cute, and my pictures are a little glare-y because I had to take them through the window of the car, but I had to get a shot of the Ostriches against the backdrop of the ocean. Not what I expected of Ostriches. We stood around at the Cape of Good hope for a while, hoped for good things, and then headed back, only to be immediately stopped by a pack of baboons who were camped out in the road. I, personally, would've gunned it and taken out as many as I could have, but Patrick waited for them to leave. They watched us the whole time, looking for hand outs, but unfortunately I didn't have any cyanide on me. Finally they left, and we drove through all the little dutch towns with their dutch names (there was even a windmill) and made it back to Capetown proper around 8ish. Then we ate (I had the best Calamari I've ever had. Except, oddly, for Wimpy's, the food here has been amazing. I had to hike up to the end of the world so I can fit in my seat in the airplane.) Now, as I'm writing this, we're attempting to upload my pictures to shutterfly. Tomorrow while Lizzie's at her conference, I'll hopefully be finishing that, and then it's the roof deck overlooking the ocean and books for me, and keynote lectures on economics for her.

Some girls have all the luck.

George Bush's biggest fan

Tuesday--Pilanesberg to Capetown

So it was time to leave the bush velde, and head out to civilization. We were picked up by our driver around 10:30, even though he was scheduled for 11:00, and he found this to be exceedingly awesome. His name was Daniel, and he kept talking about how safe a driver he was. Yes, he was super safe, especially when he was turning around to talk to us instead of looking at the road in front of him. He informed us almost every five minutes about how fast he was driving, but in kilometers, so it wasn't really helpful. At one point, we passed a hideous car wreck (note: everyone in South Africa drives like ABSOLUTE SHIT) and Daniel was very excited about this as well. There was a small blue car that had been totally ripped to shreds by a truck, and Daniel kept saying "Look! Look! Dead bodies! Look!" Lizzie was half asleep, so she looked out the window, much to her horror. I knew from the wreckage that it must've been awful, so I kept my eyes to the shoulder. We had to drive off-road to get around it, and Daniel reported:

"Two dead white men and three dead black men!"

Thanks for sharing, Daniel.

The other most awkward part of this was that he gave us a comment card. We had to fill it out and say what a safe driver he was because we were stuck in his car, and then our safe driver read it in front of us while driving. Yes, very safe. In any case, we survived that, and made it to the Jo-burg airport.

I was hungry and cranky (Yay!) and so we had to find somewhere to eat in the airport, the only available location being Wimpy's, a burger chain which I assume is named after the character in the Popeye cartoon, but I could be making that up. The food was hilariously terrible, and we asked for Diet Coke and got Tab, which was super excellent. Mmmm, diet tab.

We flew out to Cape Town, collected our luggage which had thankfully arrived with us, and then went to meet the car that would be taking us to the hotel we were staying at. The driver was a black man from the Seychelles named Emmanuel, and the first thing he asked us was if we were from Cape Town. So we told him we were from America, and he said "Oh! Who do you want to win the election?"

Lizzie and I looked at each other and said, in stereo, "Obama."

He asked us why, and we gave our myriad of reasons, and he laughed the whole time we were speaking.

And then he tried to school us stupid white chicks.

First he said that McCain needed to be president, because when black men become president, all of the white people leave and that leads to the destruction of countries and their economies, just like in Zimbabwe. (Yes, because with our white male president right now, our economy and country is definitely headed in the right direction). He also said that he was a huge fan of George Bush, and preached to everyone about how awesome W is, because George Bush worked for God, and not for the Devil. He said that George Bush believes in what he does, and as long as you believe in what you do, and believe that it is correct, it's the right thing to do.

Really? Well what if we think the right thing to do is to not pay you, sunshine? Does that make it okay? What if we decide that murdering you and stealing your car is the right thing to do? Break out the ice pick, Lizzie, it's car jacking time!

I was annoyed with his condescending attitude, and shocked at his naievete, and saddened by his self-hatred. He went on to say that it's okay that the US went into Iraq for the oil, because, hey, everyone needs oil! Just take whatever you want, and that's cool. I wouldn't be so soap-boxy with someone from such a different culture, normally, as I'm sure there are reasons for his believing what he does beyond what I'm aware of, but he clearly was not willing to do the same for us, as he was obviously not interested in hearing a dissenting point of view, especially from two women. So get out there and vote, folks, just to prove Emmanuel wrong. He doesn't vote, by the way, because he's not originally from South Africa, and doesn't feel like he should get involved. The man is just a closed-minded enigma, now isn't he? Also, he would like you all to know that the Seychelles has 85,000 inhabitants, and is perfect, and everyone loves each other. That's probably why he emigrated to South Africa.

The racism here is intense. (Not, of course, that it doesn't exist in America as well). There's three large strata of people, Whites, Blacks, and Coloureds, the "Coloureds" being anyone not "purely" black or white. Racism is rampant between each group, most destructively between the Coloureds and the Blacks, and also, when it exists within those two groups. The ending of Apartheid, though a majorly positive step, seems to be a small beginning to fixing a much larger problem. Again, my knowledge and experience about and in South Africa is limited, but I think I can safely say that hatred is never the way to go.

More Pictures

There Are No Black Rhinos Here

Monday Afternoon

So we had breakfast, and then had to face our lodge's outdoor shower. One of the side walls came up to my shoulder, and given my Puritanical sensibilities, you can imagine how much I loved this. Both Lizzie and I were dive-bombed by bees and other insects who were fans of our shampoo and soap, and also faced voyeur birds and lizards. We're sure we're up on the lizard version of the internet now. After showering, we rested, the daylight keeping the majority of the creepy cralwers at bay. Next up was the afternoon game drive, and when we got to our jeep, everyone had left except for Veruca and her dad/manservant/juggler. They insisted on trying to find a black Rhino (we had seen plenty of white rhinos, which are apparently less interesting). James drove us to the eastern part of the park, and we saw a bunch of Water buck, Tsetsebe, the ubiquitous wildebeast, and a hornbilled bird (James pointed out that this was Zazu from the lion king, and sang a bit of "lovely bunch of coconuts" for us) and a duck or two. It was otherwise pretty uneventful, and poor James gave us a botany lesson to fill the time, teaching us about the difference between spines and thorns. We did get to see more hippos, and they made their excellent hippo noises, which sound like Jabba the Hut laughing. "Mua ha ha ha ha han solo!"

We came back by 7:30, and joined James, Veruca and her Dad/Valet/Agent for a drink as we waited for the interactive drumming portion of the evening to finish. After that was dinner, and James told us stories of his childhood, including his parents' views on guns, and how he had shot a pigeon one time, and they made him eat it. Veruca's Dad/Guru/Roadie asked us if, being Americans, we had guns under our pillows, and what we thought about gun control, and I said "we have to keep guns in case you guys come back over the pond and try to take what's ours". Which of course is true. You stereotyping Brits, why don't you go home and have a crumpet or something.

After dinner, we walked back toward the lodge, and before leaving James, he said "Ja* well, I hope you girls sleep well" (everyone here is referring to us as girls, btw) and I said "Yeah, well, as long as there are no spiders in the bed we'll all be happy." James replied, "Ja, well, it's not the spiders you have to worry about, it's the scorpions under the sheets!"

I laugh, ha ha, and am not surprised that even a level-2 certified wilderness guide and expert can't resist teasing us "girls" about scary bugs and other biting/stinging/pinching animals.

Unless of course he was talking about that Eastern European band that wrote "winds of change", which is so terrifying I don't even want to think about it.

*A note on "Ja", sometimes "ee-Ja". Every South African person we've met has this verbal tick. Lizzie and I are employing it now because we find it hilarious. After she used it, and following our raucous laughter, she said "Ja, this will never get old", to which I replied, "Ja, at least not to us".

You're Full of Rubbish, Amarullah!

Game Drive 2--Monday Morning

After a satisfying night of no sleep, as we stood in the middle of our beds ready to go biblical on any spiders, stinging velvet ants or scorpions, we were "awoken" by the darling James at five am. We had 15 minutes to gear up, that is, put on clean clothes and eye liner, grab the camera and go to meet our group for the morning game drive. The same folks were there, the two South Africans, the Welsh folks, and Veruca Salt and her Dad (We're still not 100% sure about this relationship. He could also be her husband or man servant). Everyone but we Americans referred to the jeep as a "bus", which is stupid. No, I'm not being culturally insensitive, it's a jeep.

Off into the wilderness. First we saw a warthog. YAWN. Warthogs are butt-hideous, and we didn't trek all the way to Africa to see ugly-ass animals. Bring on the cute ones! Veruca shared her in-depth knowledge about Warthogs with us (probably gleaned from the Lion King), and even the Warthog got bored and took off. Also, he may have been insulted because at first James identified him as a pregnant female, and then said "Oops, that's a male". No one likes being mistaken as pregnant, and this is doubly true for dudes.

After the warthog, we saw some elephants wandering up a hill, and then, Yay! Giraffes! I was hoping I'd see Lisa P, but she's still in "the States", which is where everyone says we're from. The giraffes were totally awesome, super cute, and we even saw some running which was hilarious, and I don't think James appreciated mine and Lizzie's peals of laughter. We learned many Giraffe fun facts, but the one I will share is this:

Because of their massive height, giraffes have a pretty wide and intense dung splatter pattern. Their dung is also small and black, in case you were wondering, and you know you were. After much enjoyable giraffing, we saw some spring buck, impalas (not the car, as Lizzie noted), wildebeasties, and then a giraffe being chased by two young male sub-adult lions. We watched them from far away, but then James kicked the Jeep into high gear, and we made it to the other side of the velde in time to see the cautious giraffe shake the lions, who grumpily crossed in front of us. We would've offered them Veruca Salt, but they said they were on a low sodium diet, and hated British food.

After the lions, we saw baby warthogs (still ugly) hanging out in a field of crows. One crow jumped on one baby's back, knocking him over, then the other. Oh, nature.

We passed some zebra (pronounced with a short "e") and I got a shot of one majestically kicking its feet into the air, but then James had to ruin it by saying they did this to help move the gas caused by their multi-chambered digestive process. So I got a majestic shot of a majestically farting zebra. Rad.

And now, Amarullah. We were driving back toward the lodge for breakfast (oh god who gets up this early?) and ran into a back up of jeeps and a few private vehicles. James pulled us up to the front, next to a family in a white mini-van, and there ahead of us was Amarullah, the musting elephant, dripping testosterone willy nilly (if you will). So James said "Amarullah! You're full of rubbish." At first we thought he meant crap, because we'd seen our share of that, but no, he meant that Amarullah was being a bit of a trouble maker, as the elephant was lumbering in the middle of the narrow road, flaring his ears. James kept backing us up to put distance between us and the rubbish-filled elephant, but then the mini-van got in our way, so Amarullah charged us. James drove us off the road and around the van, which, to our collective disappointment, was not severely tusked. The stink was unbelievable, though, that of the musting elephant, but hey, after nearly killing us, he felt better and got out of our way so we could eat. Yeah.

N.B. The staff here delights in coming up with inventive names for the critters. We didn't ask about Amarullah, but they have another overly aggressive bull elephant named Steroid, and when one of their black Rhino males beat up a female, they named him Ike. Aww, how sweet.

Praise Jesus and the Killing Shoe

Late Sunday Night

We’re staying at a five star hotel in this Game Reserve. We have our own little bungalow, complete with “romantic” green mosquito netting. Sure, there’s a giant cricket in our bathroom, but hey, she’s a lady cricket, and it makes it a little less uncomfortable. Maybe not. In any case, after the magnificent game drive, we had dinner with our jeep mates and James. Lizzie was at the old folks end of the table, including a South African General, his wife, and a retired British Airforce Engineer, the father/uncle/partner of Veruca Salt, who was sitting on my side, and who now is our arch nemesis, as she will be with us on our next two drives. Also on my side was James at the head of the table, and to his right and left a Welsh couple. Wales! How cute is that? Ol’ Veruca Salt is a lovely young British lady, probably around our age, but she is “sweet on” James, who, admittedly, is adorable, and she showcases this crush by talking about ALL THE AMAZING PLACES SHE’S BEEN! OH MY GOD! I’VE BEEN TO AUSTRALIA! ISN’T THAT WACKY? THEY HAVE THE MOST POISONOUS SPIDERS AND SNAKES AND BLAH BLAH BLAH LOVE ME.” Anyway, compare this to James’ story about the ear-spider, which I will tell you now. Stop reading if you are squeamish (Lisa P), and pick up here ** I wish someone had given this option to me, because I’m never going to sleep again.

So the adorable James is training to be a ranger for Krueger National Park, which is the big one in South Africa. He was playing cricket with a couple of the other fellas he’s training with, and suddenly a spider bit him on the ear. (I couldn’t tell exactly what kind of spider it was. With his South African accent, it sounded like “sex spider”, and we know that can’t be right). Not only did the sex spider bite his ear, the jerk also laid eggs in it. Utterly Rude. So since he was in the bush, he didn’t have immediate access to medical attention, and using a mirror had to cut the spider eggs out of his own ear with a swiss army knife. SICK. There was also spontaneous pus ejection when another cricket ball hit him in the ear later on that day. James, you are looking less cute by the moment. He had some other pretty disgusting stories, which leads me to the following.

**We get back to our room, after hearing about the various biting ants, poisonous spiders and scorpions which live where we are going to sleep. Immediately I kill a big ant, and then spots THE WORLD’S BIGGEST SPIDER on Lizzie’s pillow. We panic for a minute, screaming like the sissies we are (note, James said about fifty times that Africa is not for sissies. Thanks. We’re sissies.) Obviously we’ll never sleep if the spider lives, so we try to kill it, and it zips under Lizzie’s sheets. GREAT! We throw back the sheets ala Maria Von Trap in the Sound of Music, but the damn thing scuttles out of view. Finally, I spot it on the side of the bed, and hit it with the complementary bible four or five times, which stuns it, and Lizzie finishes the job.

Praise Jesus.

So it turns out the mosquito netting isn’t just for ambiance. We killed three more ginormous spiders with my shoe, which we hereby dub “the killing shoe”. I’m sure we’ll sleep just fine tonight. Yes. Just fine…

Game Drive 1

Sunday Evening--Pilanesberg

So we went out to the front at 4pm for high tea (but really for cookies) and then met our guide, James, who would be driving our jeep and educating us about the animals. There were 9 people aboard, and no seatbelts. We moved from the lodge onto a red dusty path, which took us into the wilderness. Normally I hate the wilderness, but we had a guide who had a rifle, so it was okay. The first thing we saw was a Rhino, a Drunk Rhino who had been tranquilized earlier that day to have her ears tagged, so the other occupants of the jeep reported. At this point, Lizzie and I realized that everyone on our jeep except us had been together for a day, at least, so we were the newcomers and ostracized immediately. And that’s how we like it. We saw a bunch of Zebras, bush bucks, more (sober) rhinos, and a lovely leopard who was showing off her camo by hiding in some bushes. At first it felt like the Emperor’s new clothes. First one person saw her, and then another, and I was like “FOOLS! THERE IS NO LEOPARD!” but then I saw her, and even got a picture as she bemusedly stared at us, and moved on. The next stop was the watering hole, and yes my friends, HIPPOS! AWESOME! They gaped and grunted at us, and I got a great picture of a yawning hippo. Inside his mouth was marbles, I swear. Lots of them!

The highlight of the drive was around 8ish. It was dark, and the Western Pride of Lions, including 18 Lionesses, were totally trying to take down a Wildebeast. Everyone except for Lizzie and I were excitedly waiting for the crunch of bones, but unfortunately or fortunately, depending on whether you’re the predator or the prey, the Wildebeast escaped, and there were no death throes in the wild that night, at least that we heard. The lowlight was being smacked in the face by oodles of bugs as we drove at 100kph (I don’t know how fast that is in miles. Stupid metric system) to see the lions. James said the worst was when a dung beetle flew into your face. I would agree. (Also, during the drive, James stopped to show us a Mozambique cobra, and then a Red Toad, but then accidentally ran over the toad and felt really really bad. Like excessively bad.)

Now, for facts we learned about animals that we didn’t want to know:

Brown Hyenas mark territory with something called “anal paste”, which starts off as one color, and is used as a timing device. The longer it’s sitting on something (branches, bushes, Paris Hilton) the darker it gets.

When a male elephant is ready to mate (that is, in must), testosterone drips from his trunk. Not the one on his face.

Ivory Tree Game Lodge

Ivory Tree Game Lodge.

Sunday Afternoon

We were welcomed by a champagne glass full of guava juice. Please note at this point, we were still in our traveling clothes, dirty, smelly, yes, those traveling clothes from Friday. Our bags were delivered to our room, and we were sent to the buffet to eat lunch. Aw hell yeah. It’s amazing here—we have our very own pet cricket, Otumbo, who lives on the bathroom door. Above is a picture of her next to the lucky Half-Dollar Erin gave me. Thanks Erin! I assume he will act as our conscience, and if we try to make Elephant leg footstools, he’ll sing us a song about not poaching. There’s a decorative pond with a crocodile in it. For reals. I thought it was fake, and then when we came back, it had moved. It says to say hi to the Alligator gang back in Mass. There’s also another tree full of African weaver birds, which is pretty rad. We went to our room, excitedly reunited with our bags, and our joy was immediately tempered by the pile of soggy socks and underwear. I was not intending to wear my candy corn socks on the game drive, but now I has no choice. Lizzie bought a pair at the gift shop, but they only have men’s sizes, so they go up to her armpits. Hot!

Oh yes, I had packed bug spray, but my soggy bag no longer contains bug spray. Why would you take that? Seriously. In any case, there was some in our room, but I immediately dropped it, and broke the nozzle. Lizzie had already sprayed up, and I tried to jury rig it, but immediately after covering myself in a sputtering spray, a bug flew into my face.

Delicious!

Next stop—high tea and the game drive.

Bowls and John

Sunday—En Route to Pilanesberg

So we wandered around the grounds of our hotel while we waited for our transport to take us from Jo-burg to the airport where we’d hopefully be reunited with our luggage, and then off to Pilanesberg, where we’ll meet the hippos. On one of our spins, we saw a bunch of old people dressed in white playing Bowls. Boy, does that look like fun. It seems like bocci to me—that is, you throw out a little ball, and then throw bigger balls (ha ha) and try to get the closest to it. The best part was the one player (see photo) who grabbed a big hand full of butt long enough for me to take a picture and then some. The other best part was that there was an attendant cat, who just sat watching the game being played. I have a picture of him, too, in case anyone is interested.

So our driver came at 10:00 to “collect us”, as the receptionist said, and he was an older white South African guy who had clearly spent too much time in the sun. His name was John, and he whisked us away to Jo-burg airport, and then walked in with us to the luggage people in case there needed to be yelling. John rules. So our luggage was in fact there, but here’s some more good news bad news: it was raining in Atlanta when we took off, and since our baggage didn’t make our flight, it sat on the tarmac for a very long time, and all of our clothes are soaked with runway water. YAY! But we didn’t find that out until we got to the Ivory Tree Game Lodge, so it was like an extra special surprise.

More about John. So John was brilliant. He answered all of our annoying touristy questions (what kind of tree is that? What kind of tree is that? How about that one? And that one?) and then went on to tell us all about the South African Power Crisis, the Zimbabwe economic disaster (turns out John is originally from Zimbabwe) and also that I (Shannon) have been pronouncing Lesotho wrong my whole life (Lu-sue-tu, for anyone who wants to know). We really wanted to ask about, you know, Apartheid and stuff, but despite our weariness (each of us did a whip-lash falling asleep turn in the car) we decided that would be socially awkward and insensitive. He also told us about the platinum mines, and we saw all of the shanty towns built up by the migrant workers, most from Swaziland and Zimbabwe. The poverty was intense, and most people are living in tin shacks. There were goats and cows free ranging, but honestly, through Jo-burg and Pretoria, the landscape looked a lot like the American South West. John told us that the free range cows cause trouble in the winter, because the tar gets hot, and they sleep on it, and cars totally run into them. Oh the car-nage. (right? Huh?) The origin of John is a mystery. He’s worked in Ethiopia, Qatar, Sudan, and a million other places, and when we asked him what he did, he made a vague reference to a transport company—perhaps a diamond smuggler? He told us all about the outdoor sports (including bowls), and also, his ride was a Benz. Perhaps he didn’t work for any company, but just seeks out interesting tourists to tell his stories too. In any case, we hope he is our driver for the return, because then we’d be friendly enough to ask about all the racism.

Breakfast Blog

Sunday Morning--Jo-burg

So it's 8ish am here. It gets super "Oh my god it must be noon and I've overslept and maybe I'll never get my luggage" bright at about 5am, and since there is no clock in our room, we had to turn on our cellphones and drunkenly do the math to figure out what time it actually was. When we asked the bellhop (who was not a giraffe) last night if there was a clock in our room, he looked at us like we were nuts. Touche, bellhop.

A few notes. One of the most important things to do in a new country is watch tv. This is double true on a new continet. There's mostly American tv down here, but their "sports" channel is hilarious. Cricket? Cycling? DARTS? I'll give you cricket and cycling as legit sports, but we all know darts is total bs. Also, they had an informercial for this magic stuff that got rid of scars and liver spots which was made from SNAIL GOO. GROSS. They kept talking about snail goo like it wasn't disgusting, and on the infomercial, happy housewives were letting these huge-ass anthropomorphized snails crawl over their hands which were then all slimy with snail snot. HOW IS THIS A GOOD SELL? In any case, we showered and brushed our teeth, which was totally awesome. As most of you know how vain I (Shannon) am, you can only imagine how difficult it is that I have no product in my hair, and have been wearing the same pair of pants since Friday. I'm sure everyone would love to see a picture, but I'm the camera woman, so screw that. In any case, I am hoping to get downstairs and take a picture of our breakfast entertainment, which consisted of the African weaver birds outside the restaurant window.

So we had the continental breakfast, and there was fruit and granola. Aw hell yeah. Delicious, life giving granola. Oh, and water! It is so arid here, and if it weren't for the potential of traveler's diarrhea (yay) we would be mainlining from the tap. Anyhow, we looked out the window, and since Shannon's Mom used to make her watch Nature shows, er, that is, since Shanon got to enjoy nature shows with her Mom, she knew that the yellow birds with the creepy red eyes weaving nests (okay, so that was a give away too) with long strands of grass were, well, weaver birds. It was pretty awesome to watch them work, and their deftness with just their beak put our manual dexterity skills to shame, as cereal to spoon to mouth was presenting problems so early in the morning.

After we leave here, we go to the airport and (hopefully) retrieve our luggage, and then it's off to Pilanesburg to see some Hippos. Let's see who gets eaten first! (Hint: It will be Shannon)

Holy Sh*t, we're totally in Africa

Items:

1. Ou est la grande, laide rose, et grosse-sac? Poor Big Ugly Pink (Shannon's suitcase, loaned to her by her sister--thanks Danielle!) and FatBag (Lizzie's suitcase) did not show up with the rest of the suitcases when we arrived in Johannesburg. Sob. We went to the helpful baggage dude, and our luggage decided that it liked Atlanta, and wanted to stay there for a while (I blame bitchtard, because while Lizzie and I can run, big ugly pink and fatbag can't), so our luggage should hopefully be arriving tomorrow aboard Air France. Stop kidnapping our luggage, French people!

WE SMELL SO BAD. HOW BAD? SO BAD. Sure, we both brought a spare pair of underwear or whatever, but we've been on a plane for 22 hours with that spare pair of underwear. Yikes.

2. Our driver totally schooled us. We were a little late for our pick up, because WE WERE TRYING TO FIND OUR &*^# LUGGAGE, and he had left, and had to come back, and lectured us for a good 15 minutes about how to be better on-time citizens. If he hadn't been driving on the wrong side of the car and on the wrong side of the road like a crazy person (okay, so that's how they drive down here, but I still don't trust it) and also talking on the phone while driving stick during a thunder storm, we totally would've yelled back. Right.

3. Things seem, so far, anyhow, to be excessively sexualized. There was a huge billboard by the side of the road that said "Pimp My Bride", which was showcasing a wedding ring you could buy for your fiancee. Tres Romantic, I highly recommend comparing your future wife to a prostitute, or a car you've put hydraulics in. Also, every person we've encountered has flirted excessively with us, and trust me, we look like the ass end of hard times, so it sure as hell ain't our delightful beauty that is eliciting this.

4. IT'S RAINING! WE TOT(O)ALLY BLESSED THE RAIN DOWN IN AFRICA!

Once we've been able to sleep, shower, and for the love of god, brush our teeth, there will hopefully be an exciting coriolis force post. We've already checked it out, and it is suhweet!

Dispatch Two--35000 feet above Namibia

Search and Seizure! We flew into Dakar, Senegal, at five in the morning local time. (I believe this would have made it 1 in the morning local Boston time, but you can look that up if you’d like.) We landed in an airfield, which was bizarre, because we were hoping to land in an airport, where we could, you know, buy some water, get some diet coke, walk around and avoid deep vein thrombosis. Unfortunately, to even walk around in Senegal, you need to fill out some sort of immigration card, so losers stay on the plane. Then the crew comes over the PA and announces that we’re going to be boarded by the local authorities who will be conducting a baggage and passenger search. Take off that bright red sleep mask and find your passport, hide that panda pillow and locate your boarding pass. We all groan, mostly because of the aforementioned spicy beef, and groggily await the storm trooping.

The most polite storm trooping ever.

The local authorities consisted of about 5 or so young men, some of whom were removing trash as they kindly asked if this was your bag. Why yes it is! The only weird part was the ripping the chairs open. We each had to move into the aisle while the authority, in his authoritative vest, pulled the cushion of the chairs up (poor soul. Spicy beef) and checked for weapons of mass destruction. Silly authorities, the weapons of mass destruction were just sitting in the chairs! Except for the occasional snagged seatbelt, it went off without a hitch, and we were sent back to park butt for our eight hour flight to Joburg. Our only complaint now is that we totally asked for the pancakes, and they gave us some weird egg concoction instead, and also some (pictured) unpasteurized Senagalese coconut pineapple and vanilla yogurt. We both, in our delirium, thought this was some sort of drink, and dehydrated from the flight, tore into it, only to do a plane version of a spit take, back into the container. Yeowa, that’s nasty. So far the swig of bizarre yogurt with a weird looking (Mexican?) dude on it hasn’t killed us, but we’ll let you know. Since we’d already faced death by yogurt, when they came around with questionable looking ice cream, we totally tore into it, and almost simultaneously dropped it on ourselves.

Mmmmm!

Next stop, Africa! Land ho! (That’s what she said, right? Right? )

Dispatch One--Somewhere over the Atlantic

Time to Destination: 3 hours and 52 minutes. Okay, that’s just until Dakar. Then it’s another 7 or so hours, but at this point, who’s counting?

So our flight from Boston to Atlanta was delayed by a wicked bitchtard (official flight attendant lingo) who decided that her 45 foot 200lb suitcase would FIT JUST PERFECTLY in the overhead compartments. Of course it didn’t, so she got into a fight with the flight attendant regarding the laws of physics. Finish her, Einstein! My favorite kind of bitchtard is the bitchtard who is rude as hell and then assumes she’s been horribly, horribly wronged. Yes, queen of the douche nozzles, you write that complaint to Delta. And here’s your complimentary punch in the teeth. Sorry, we’ve been on a plane for a long damn time. In any case, because of said fighting with flight attendants, we had to haul some serious arse and run all the way to our gate, Home Alone style (except neither of us have children that we accidentally left behind to foil a Christmas time robbery and learn about the importance of family. At least not that I know of.) to catch our connecting flight to Dakar. In any case, it’s a good thing we decided on the work-out clothes pajama look, and it’s a good thing that Lauren made Shannon run that half-marathon, because she kicked it into high gear and with Lizzie throwing hard elbows, we were able to make it right after the final boarding call, out of breath and smelly as we were.

Then came movies (Indiana Jones 4 for Shannon. Holy crap that movie is stupid, and Get Smart for Lizzie. Hilarious! Sometimes) and dinner (it was no cube steak, but there was an Oreo-laden brownie. Shannon only eats Oreos in brownie or ice cream form). After that came the music.

Ahem.

So maybe ONE of us was flipping through the music selections, and the other one of us had already chosen and was listening to music, and say SOMEONE pointed out that the Spice Girl’s greatest hits were an option, and the other person, her ears full of rockin’ tunes, yelled “OH YOU’RE LISTENING TO THE SPICE GIRLS?” cue the record spin off. NO. NO, I’m listening to Feist right now, surely. Oh look, there’s the Dream Police by Cheap Trick! All of these cool tunes! Who would possibly be listening to something so vapid and craptastic as…

Really really really wanna zigga zig haaa!

Also, an important side note about dinner. We just learned that we’re not allowed to actually leave the plane at our layover. Dinner, though passable in terms of taste, if your tastebuds have been mostly killed by over dosing on aspartame, like ours have, had that excellent vague categorization “chicken” or “beef.” Well, interesting *note* on the beef. Not just beef, kids, but rather….spicy, spicy, peppery, bowel-tickling beef.

So yes, the last two hours have been a fun olfactory adventure!

La La La La Logan

Wooooooo!

So we've made it this far, on time, through security, and now we're hunkered in front of Pizzeria Famiglia, where the pizza dude (pictured) is Tourette-ishly shouting "GET YOUR PIPING HOT PIZZA HERE" to an audience of two. Please note the following bad news/good news situations:

Bad News: Lizzie's bag is super fat, and had to have a big orange "HEAVY" tag affixed to it.
Good News: Neither Shannon nor Lizzie had to have a big orange "HEAVY" tag affixed to them.

Good News: Lizzie remembered her Yellow Vaccination booklet
Bad News: Shannon did not

I wish the airplane had wireless, or whatever, but fear not, friends, we'll be sure to save multiple word documents for posting once we land in wherever the hell it is we're landing. Dakar or whatever. Also, we're both shamelessly wearing pajamas. How embarrassing.

She's Coming in 12:30 Flight

Big day tomorrow! We'll be in transit until Saturday, when we'll arrive full of vim and vigor (and tylenol pm) ready to face a new continent. Until then, blogging might be intermittent, so we figured we'd give you something to do while you waited for us to post. (As I'm sure you'll all be waiting with bated breath). Here is a link to a video of a song that will be referenced possibly in every other post.

TOTO OWNS

Please review said video, and talk amongst yourselves. Possible topics include but are not limited to:

• what the hell?
• why is the sexy librarian stamping a passport?
• where can I get glasses like the drummer?
• screw that, where can I get glasses like the keyboardist?
• why are they playing on a stack of books?
• what the hell? No really? What does this video have to do with the song other than having the word "Africa" in common?
• holy racism, batman, is that a "native" with a spear and shield?
  
• nice sweatband cuffs, keyboardist!
• at the end, is the librarian dead, or did her glasses just fall off? Did the band kill her? Are they going to keep peeking creepily from behind the books, or are they going to do something about the fire? Come on, guys, unless you expect that the rain in Africa is going to put it out...

Minature Portrait of a Lady

I am in it for the travel-sized toiletries.

Hippo Preparedness Seminar

FACT: More people in Africa are killed per year by Hippos than by any other animal

FACT: Hippos love marbles

Solution to potential death-by-hippo-attack: Carry pocketful of marbles, throw at hippos as necessary

Gonna take a lot to drag me away from you

Hello!

Ahhh...the initial post. We (your hosts) feel that most of what would normally be said in the first post is summed up by the title. Yes indeed, Shannon and Lizzie are going to Africa, namely South Africa (with a brief detour through Senegal), including Johannesburg (or Jo-burg, for the hipsters), Pilanesburg (I don't know what the hipsters call this) and Capetown (Penguins). Topics to be discussed include hippo safety, the coriolis effect, jet lag, and probably diet coke because that's how we roll. We're hoping you'll be able to follow along on our adventure, not that this will save you from a lengthy slide show upon our return.