All the Animals

If you've been paying attention to the past few posts,* you've noticed that we've run into a lot of animals without trying. I'm pretty convinced that if you sit in one spot long enough in some of these destinations, you'll see almost every animal stroll by.

In Botswana,** however, we made an effort. And we were rewarded. We stayed just outside the Chobe National Park and spent three days gawking at animals on game drives in the park, gawking at animals from a boat through the park, and gawking at animals at the lodge outside of the park. These are their stories.

Presented in a seemingly random animal order!

Elephants!!!!!!

Extreme Elephant Bonus: Swimming!!***

Giraffes!!!!!!

A thing I learned on this trip was how good giraffes are at hiding. You don't see any at all and then you turn a corner and there are a dozen chomping on trees around a bush. As a 5'3" person, I aspire to hide as well as they do in plain sight.****

A hyena!

I don't know if it's the animal itself or the number of times I watched "The Lion King" as a child, but they creep me out.*****

Baboons!!

Hippopotami!

Crocodiles!

Jackals!

Impalas!

Buffalos!

Monitor Lizards!

Birds!
We saw so many birds. I took hardly any pictures of birds because the iPhone camera is not built for that sort of thing and there was zero scenario that I would remember any of their names. But here are a few bad pictures of the prettiest ones I did deem photo-worthy.

Zebras!!

LIONS!!!
The random order did save the best for last. We saw lions on the last day we were there and visited them twice. In the morning there were five lions that were feasting on a kill from the previous night of an elephant. By the afternoon, three more lions had come to join them.

As a true genuine WARNING, the lions pictured below are eating a dead elephant. So if you don't want to see that, you should stop now. Fortunately for all of you, the pictures do not capture the smell of a rotting elephant so I give you this warning picture of AT with the odor.

And one more in disbelief of how close we are to the lions and how incredibly unbothered they are by us driving around in large cars staring at them. At one point there were about 7 giant cars all roaring around them unfazed.

But now the real deal:

As every cat owner can recognize, the lions immediately went to take a nap in the sun after gorging themselves. And every cat owner will also recognize this picture:

Not a roar, just a really good yawn.

There were other animals, too- kudu and waterbuck and the actual bird from "The Lion King"- but it was better just to watch them.

In other news, there were people and beautiful vistas and that one time I thought I was Georgia O'Keeffe and that one other time when AT and I accidentally matched all day.

As always, I have thirty million more pictures than you're seeing here but this time also one fantastic elephants on parade video. Regardless, the pictures do not do it any kind of justice. Come to Africa. Take a safari. See the world or at least a dozen elephants walking gracefully along the beach.
-KT

*Kudos to you because there is no quiz! If you are just now joining us, this blog entry, much like the Big Gay Sing 2, will make sense as a stand alone.
**Country 150 for me! I will also get a pin. I plan to wear it nowhere but with pride.
***But I done seen 'bout everything, when I see an elephant swim.
****Or to be 5'5", but this one seems easier.
*****It's obviously the latter but I'm pretending to be sophisticated. And two inches taller.