Let's learn about: Botswana! - Normal Fauna (feat. rodents of unusual size)

So one day after dragging my sad, tired carcass home from another grueling derm clinic, the other, non-derm residents came up and asked, in their normal cheerful, well-rested way, "Jeremy! Want to come with us to the Yacht Club for drinks?" My first instinct, as usual, was to spit in their smug little faces and tell them to go get bent -- but then I thought, "Yacht Club?? But Botswana is a land-locked country!" So, my curiosity piqued, I excitedly grumbled something like, "yeah, I guess so... whatever" and then leapt dejectedly into the cab!

Apparently the Gaborone Dam has lead to the formation of a large lake that allows for some of the expats to to tool around aimlessly in sad little catamarans and generally make asses of themselves by calling themselves a "Yacht Club".

Kidding themselves

Their facilities did make for a nice view, however, and there was even a restaurant that served french fries with peri-peri sauce that were reportedly very delicious! But of course when we were there the power was out so the fryer was non-functional. Welcome to Africa! (That's what everyone says when something third-worldy happens in Botswana. We say it a lot. It's like when someone says "It's not that bad" about Cleveland.)

Nice view. Electricity not required.

The horizon is slightly off-level in Botswana

Nice place to watch the sun set

While I was taking pictures of the lake and sunset I happened to catch the silhouette of what looked like a giant gerbil on top of a rock and I thought "What the hell is that?!?" (I also say that a lot).

So majestic 

Giant gerbil 

Possibly good eatin'

Questioning the waitress yielded the name "rock hare". I learned much later that these guys are actually rock hyraxes, which I had heard of before. One might never guess, from their diminutive size, but the wonders of modern molecular genetics has taught us that hyraxes are actually the closest living relatives to modern-day elephants! Despite this, the elephants almost never invite the Hyraxes around for supper and are always making excuses when they're invited to the Hyraxes bar-mitzvahs. Yeah, you forgot. Sure, elephant, sure.

The Gaborone Dam

Another fun thing to do in Gaborone that doesn't require any electricity is to climb nearby Kgale hill (pronounced kah-ley). The information in my resident handbook indicated that it was a fairly strenuous climb, taking about 45 minutes to reach the top, with very nice views of the entire city. It also mentioned that there had been some muggings recently and to be careful. Good advice at any time, right? Evidently the other residents took this to mean that it would be non-stop muggings all the way to the top and they visibly braced themselves for knife attacks every time we passed someone on the trail. Would you believe we weren't mugged even once? So disappointing. I was not disappointed, however, to find the baboons mentioned in the guidebook loitering around the parking lot.

Baboon

George W. Bush

The guidebook also mentioned to make sure your car doors were locked as the baboons had been known to get into the cars in the parking lot and make off with anything that caught their interest. I figured they would probably have some good stuff so I tried mugging one of them but he didn't have squat.

Not a valet, despite what they tell you

A particular species indigenous to Gaborone is the so-called "heavy metal cowboy". I have been on the lookout for these since day one of my trip and have only seen a single representative -- on my way from the airport, no less! So they are appreciably rare.

Heavy Metal Cowboy

This subculture dresses in black leather "cowboy" attire, no matter the weather and attend heavy metal concerts that are put on in back yards and small bars all across Botswana.

Howdy!

Murica

The Pilane Court flats plays host to a dizzying array of exotic wildlife that you can see each morning and evening on your way to and from the bathroom. One must simply glance down at the floor to observe the following:

The Leopard-Spotted Carpet Lizard

Easily startled 

Observe the subtle camouflage. He blends expertly into his environment.

This is the common black shower spider. They are known to inhabit showers and bathtubs and are extremely poisonous, or so I imagine.

Actual size*
*not actual size.

This is a young Blue-jacketed Apple-stealer. This particular one belongs to one of the House-keepers who lives at our flats, and frequently stops by my room to check for loose apples. If you look closely, you can see that she has indeed found an apple and appears to be about to snack on it. They are quite friendly and may be taught simple words in English such as "Hello" and "Bye-bye". 

Blue-jacketed Apple-stealer

Well, that's it for now. I just finished my last week of clinic and have a week of well-deserved vacation coming up. I'm sure there will be lots more pictures to come.

Signing off, from Gaborone.

Tau Game Lodge at Madikwe Game Reserve

Last weekend I hopped in a cab with my trusty driver Elliot and drove just over the border into South Africa and into the 5th largest game reserve in South Africa, Madikwe. The UPenn-Botswana partnership had set up a discounted rate for the rotating residents to stay at what would otherwise be a prohibitively expensive game lodge called Tau. It's really quite extravagant. As I was leaving, a helicopter arrived and Adam Sandler got out with his family. It's that fancy.

 Here is the little bungalow where I was staying.

Number 13, Tau

Here is the fancy, four-poster bed, with entirely unnecessary mosquito-netting.

 I felt like a princess

This was the view that greeted me from my small deck in the morning. All of the bungalows are situated around a watering hole the animals will come to visit throughout the day and night.

Water is for animals only. Please drink from provided facilities.

Panorama feature debut. 

This picture shows how close my deck was to the watering hole. It's there on the left.

The fence is electrified. To discourage swimming, I assume.

After a hearty breakfast of god-knows-what (they were sausages of some kind. I think I saw a hoof), we departed on a game drive in one of the lodge's fleet of land cruisers.

You can have any color you want, as long as it's green.

Madikwe is a very large reserve. Not nearly as large as Kruger, though, and it somehow seemed more sparsely populated. We drove for about 15 minutes before seeing any significant wildlife, something that never happened in Kruger. Kruger is like animal-palooza compared to everything else, it seems. We were rewarded for our patience in a big way, though. Madikwe allows you to drive off-road, unlike Kruger, and this allowed us to get up close to a huge herd of Cape Buffalo that was making its way through some fairly dense scrub. There was probably upwards of 100 animals in the herd, which is difficult to appreciate from the pictures. It was impressive. I didn't even get to see a Cape Buffalo in the wild on my previous trip, and it is one of the so-called "Big 5".

Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.

Some of the buffalo had Ox-peckers on their backs. Our guide explained that it was long thought that Ox-peckers had a symbiotic relationship with the herbivores that they seemed to be "grooming" but it was recently discovered that it is somewhat parasitic. In addition to feeding off bugs, the birds will pick at scabs on the animals and feed on the animals' blood and open them to infection.

Ox-pecker. The mosquito of the bird world.

I would like to take this opportunity to show off the zoom-range of my camera. That's the Canon SX50 HS with 50X zoom, everybody, available at your local camera retailer. 

Doesn't look too dangerous, does he?

We drove on and unfortunately had another prolonged period of waiting in-between significant animal sightings. At least it was really cold.

Lens flare. So professional.

Requisite Horn-bill shot.

These guys are everywhere.

We came across some Zebras just standing in the road. They stood there looking at us, stupidly, for about 5 minutes and the guide eventually had to nudge closer to them with the vehicle to get them to move off the road. Initially you start out taking lots of pictures of zebras, but then you realize there are a lot of zebras and then you get tired of them. By the end of the day we're all like, "oh great, another zebra". If a horse had walked by, we would have been ecstatic.

Zebra

Zebra

Zebra

Another animal that you encounter quite frequently in Madikwe are elephants. They crash around and trumpet and generally make themselves as conspicuous as possible. Their parents clearly didn't pay enough attention to them when they were growing up.

Baby elephant

Adolescent elephant

Bull elephant

We finally came to the only animal that is worth seeing, the lion. This one was, unsurprisingly, sleeping, as they apparently do for about 18 hours a day. The guide informed us that he was about 20 years old, which is a ripe old age indeed for a lion in the wild. He was apparently quite habituated to the safari vehicles as we were able to drive right up close to him and he didn't even budge.

Lion, undisturbed by vehicles close by.

Possibly deceased lion.

Here are some sort of deer. Red deer or something. There are quite a few varieties of deer and antelope (which The Onion defines as "just another kind of f-ing deer") and it's difficult to keep track of them all. I thought this one was interesting because the females have twisted horns ands the males have curly ones.

Doe, a deer, a female deer.

Male Red Deer.

Wildebeest have very poor eyesight and so will almost always be found in the company of other animals. Apparently they will take on the behaviors of whatever animal they happen to be accompanying. So when with Zebras they will stand around stupidly in the road and when with Rhinoceros they will charge around and look tough. 

Wildebeest, evaluating our vehicle as a potential role-model.

Boring stripey animals.

Back at the lodge, I had a chance to sit and watch the animals at the watering hole. I imagine you could probably see just about every inhabitant of the park if you hung out there all day. It would be considerably more comfortable, too. 

Crocodile

Heron

Elephants

Water Buck

There are monkeys that live in the trees within the grounds of the lodge and you have to be careful to close up your doors during the day or the monkeys will come inside and steal things from your room. They're quite entertaining. 

Just can't face the day without that first cup o' joe

Ah, much better

So innocent looking

This guy swiped a quiche right off the table during high-tea and took it up to the roof to eat it. 

Gloating

Om nom nom

He soon came back for more.

Hey, look over there!

After tea, we went on another game drive in the afternoon/early-evening. This guy is a Buster, the largest flying bird in Africa. 

I could fly if I wanted

This elephant had been rolling in mud and had an interesting red color. 

Dirty elephant

Madikwe is one of the very few places left in Africa where it is possible to see African Wild Dogs, an animal that is closely related to modern canines, though not technically a dog. As you can see, they have much bigger ears and quite striking coloring. They are the rarest of the predators in Africa and I felt quite fortunate to see them. 

African Wild Dog

African Wild non-technically-a-dog

The guides all communicate via radio and will inform each other of significant sightings. I have no idea how this one was initially located, as we had to drive through the bush for a good 10 minutes to find it, but I'm glad we did. A family of lions had killed a zebra and were busily munching away at its hollowed out carcass. There were a few adult females and some cubs. Their coloring is really well suited to their environment. When the cubs laid down in the grass I could barely make them out.  

Adolescent female

Cub

Barely visible cub

The sun set while on our drive and we drove around after dark for a little while, with the guide shining a spot light around. 

Sun setting over Madikwe

We had our one and only Rhino sighting during this time and I managed to get a few good pictures. This one is a White Rhino, as you can tell from the rectangular shape of the mouth. Rhinos are incredibly endangered in Africa now, due to the senseless poaching of animals for their horns. Colossally stupid and superstitious people pay exorbitant amounts of money for powdered Rhino horn because they believe it will cure everything from cancer to impotence. I wish there were a hell so that there could be a special place for poachers in it. 

Drinking Rhino

The Rhino's horn is made of keratin, and has absolutely no medicinal properties whatsoever. The entire species is being slaughtered because people can't be bothered to educate themselves.

White Rhino

A Rhino is killed in Africa every 6 hours.

White Rhino

Very soon, there will be none left alive in the wild. 

The following morning, I had another game drive before heading back to Gaborone. This one was quite disappointing and I only saw a few animals. Can't win them all, I guess. I probably wouldn't have been upset about it but afterwards, in the lodge, there were people coming in and gloating about everything that they saw. "I saw 3 rhinos!" "I saw 2 cheetahs" "I saw lion cubs fighting over a zebra leg!" "I saw a unicorn!" It was infuriating. 

Warthog, white from rolling in the dusty road.

When we broke for coffee, we found some ground squirrels that had become quite tame and would approach you, looking for handouts.

Spare rusk?

My foot, for perspective.

There were so few animals that I resorted to taking pictures of trees and landscape. It was horrible.

Tree (dead)

Red-breasted Shrike

We learned all about termites because there was nothing else to talk about. Termite mounds have a very sophisticated air-conditioning system and can regulate their temperature to within 1.5 degrees no matter what the ambient temperature. Fascinating. 

HVAC specialists

On our way back to the lodge, we finally ran across our one and only mega-fauna sighting -- some elephants. So I'll leave you with these parting shots of elephants. My next trip will be to Chobe National Park, in Botswana, which supposedly has the highest density of elephants anywhere in Africa. So get excited for lots more elephant pictures.

Elephant

Zoooom

Signing off, from Gaborone.