A loooooooong time ago

When I was little I had a great friend her name was Melli and she lived next door to us in Gizo. We had so many fantastic adventures together. If nothing else I am grateful to facebook for putting us back in touch. This was Melli, her Uncle, and I at the beach when we were about 7 years old. We were both really short so we looked closer to 4 than 7, ha ha ha.

The Rock Hyrax

I have been, for the most part, uploading these in sequence. However for this post I am uploading a bunch of pictures of the rock hyrax from all over the place because we would come across this funny little creature in the strangest areas. There are two varieties the rock hyrax and the tree hyrax. We saw tons of rock hyraxes sitting atop large boulders in the Serengeti so when we saw this little guy in a tree at a rest stop we assumed it was a tree hyrax...not so according to Prospa it is another rock hyrax, in a tree.

Monkey

The vervet monkey is sometimes called the turquoise monkey. I couldn't figure out why at first and then I read a bit of the guide book that said something along the lines of "they become particularly colourful when agitated. Huh...

Then we came across these little monkeys sitting by the roadside. Take a good look at the last picture uploaded and you will see why they are sometimes called the turquoise monkey.

If it smells like phunk it must be us!

I would argue that the success of any trip depends a very great deal on who your traveling partners are. Valerie and I were really lucky. Emily and Kelly were so much fun! We enjoyed our time with them. Their sense of humor and adventure made the trip that extra bit better. There was a span of about 4 days when we couldn't bathe so we didn't smell very good. No one harped about it. We did make fun of one another but that almost goes without saying. I want cool tats on my feet like Emily. The video posted above is of poor Kelly, he falls asleep in any kind of moving vehicle, this is him sleeping and his head bouncing around.

Lion in a tree

We saw two animals on our safari that were wearing radio collars. This lion had a huge leather collar on, I'm not sure if you can tell from these pictures though. I wish blogger would let me post bigger photos.

Hello Creepy

This is the secretary bird, and one of the creepiest looking birds we came across. It isn't really clear in this picture but the area around the birds eyes is bright red. Then they have this fan of black feathers that stick out around it's head. This bird is a hunter, as we stopped to view this pair they destroyed another bird's nest and ate her eggs.

Black Death

The cape buffalo also know as the black death. This animal is a member of the "Big Five" which is the top 5 most dangerous animals in Africa, the list includes; lions, leopards, elephants, rhinos, and the cape buffalo. Looking at them you wouldn't think they were so very scary, all they seem to do is stand around and chew their cud. Apparently they are are notoriously unpredictable and capable of inflicting massive damage with their horns.

Safari Part 7

Christmas morning. I probably took more pictures of this group of elephants than of any other group of animals. It was amazing.