A Walk in the Park

First we must apologize because there are no pictures to accompany this post. Yesterday just didn't seem like the sort of day that would need a camera. But the story is too fabulous not to share.

May 1 is a holiday in Botswana -- Labor Day. Because we had the day off, we booked a walking tour at Mokolodi (the game park 15 minutes outside of town, see previous posts for more). We arrrived at 10:00 am for our tour (as booked several days before) and were told that we couldn't have a booking at 10:00 because the walks were done at 7:30 and 4:00. We sorted that out and finally set off with our guide to experience Mokolodi on foot.

Our guide explained that most likely we would not see many animals because they come out in the early morning and late afternoon but we didn't mind about that. We really just wanted to be out in the fabulous fall weather walking around seeing the park from a different perspective. The guide seemed to want to make up for the lack of animals by pointing out all the different plants and quizzing us relentlessly about them but otherwise it was a lovely walk.

We started out by the Animal Sanctuary which neither of us had paid attention to before. They keep injured animals there and then release them back into the park when they are well again. Some of the animals are never well enough to leave the sanctuary. There is a pair of grey fluffy vultures there that are absolutely hilarious. They can't fly so they'll never leave the sanctuary. One of the them followed us around as we walked the perimeter of the fence. It was just weird. We'll get a picture of him the next time we're out there.

Then we walked along examining animal foot prints and poo and saw a couple of wart hogs. We stopped to drink some cokes that the guide had brought along and then we rounded a corner and came up on a giraffe. Yep it was quite a moment. He was standing there having a snack off the top of a tree and we just stood there about 15 meters away. It was such a totally different perspective and feeling just walking up on a giraffe without any fences or cars or any barriers. It was so, for lack of a better word, natural. We could have stayed there all day checking him out but our guide started getting bored so we headed off.

As we walked back to the park entrance we came up on the one thing that Thom wanted to see. That's right, ostriches. Thom had recently seen the "Dirty Jobs" episode about the ostrich farm and was ready to wrangle ostriches. Well it turns out that undomesticated ostriches aren't really into being wrangled. From ground level they are really big (and goofy).

So that was it. We headed home and the rest of the day was just as fabulous.