Such Mixed Feelings

Spent a couple of nights at Talamati, which has no cell phone reception and then a couple of nights at Lower Sabie, which has cell phone reception but apparently the cell system can't be used for data.  Every time I'd try to log in, I'd get data for about a half second and a few things would load and then it'd kick me out. I started seeing some hints of a terrorist attack on Paris but didn't have any real information.  Today we moved to Crocodile Bridge and now I have data.  I still don't understand the extent of it, but am aware of a terrorist attack in Paris and another attack in Kenya.  I'm sitting in the outdoor kitchen/dining area of our little bungalow, looking out over the bush, listening to the birds and yet I'm saddened and discourage by my own species.

There's a neuroscientist named Robert Sapolsky.  He studies the neuro-biologic affects of stress and did his early research on baboons in Kenya in the '80s.  He's written a lovely book - one of my favorite books of Africa - called A Primate's Memoir.  Anyway, he's spent years studying chacma baboons. I saw him interviewed once and he said that he didn't actually like them very much.  He described them as a species that spends about 3 hours a day feeding itself, freeing up about 9 hours a day for making each other miserable.  Sound like any other species you know?

I've often thought of people as baboons with guns.  Take the propensity for violence and meanness that you sometimes see in baboons, supercharge it by giving them the means to instantly kill large numbers of themselves, and - voila - you have humans.

I know not everyone sees it that way.  I'm not an optimist.  It doesn't mean that I give up.  I feel compelled to try and make this a better world.  But in the end, I don't see how humans survive the mess that we're making.

All of this casts a pall over my time in this beautiful country. I'm trying to set it aside and focus on what I can see and feel and can directly control.

So, we're here.  I'm typing.  Gina's napping.  We spent two stinking hot days at Talamat, a very nice little camp.  Did a morning bush walk on Saturday.  It was warm but there was much more humidity and it seemed like the weather was changing.  Drove to Lower Sabie that afternoon and it was cooler (mid-90s rather than over 100F) and you could see the humidity building.  Saturday night we had thunderstorms.  Last night we also had multiple thunderstorms. Today dawned cool, very windy, overcast and humid.  We took a long drive, stopped back at camp to pack and have multiple espressos and then drove to Crocodile Bridge.  This is a small camp right on the border of the Park.  I'm looking across a dry riverbed and seeing cultivated fields. I hear an occasional dog bark. It's our first time at this camp and I'm not sure.

As you'd expect with this kind of travel, we've had a few nagging issues.  We have a slow leak on the left front tire. I think there's something broken in the suspension because whenever we back up and apply the brakes (which is often), it makes an awful racket under load. That squealing sound is exactly the thing you don't want when backing up from an irritated elephant.  The retaining screws on the contact ring for the rental 600mm lens have worked their way loose.  I don't have the tiny screwdriver necessary to repair it, so am using the blade on my Leatherman to try and keep them snug enough not to lose them but without rounding out the screws.  I'm having to tighten those screws once or twice a day.

Sightings and photography have been less than I'd hoped but then I'm never satisfied as a photographer.  We did get a glimpse of a leopard yesterday.  We also photographed fork-tailed drongos hassling a snake (a boomslang I believe, but will have to get someone more educated than me to confirm).

Here are a few, small images.

I wish all of you peace. I hope for the day when the cup of violence and hatred is full enough that we can set it down for a while. Hope the day comes when it's enough to see the sun rise, to breathe clean air, to hear the birds and to make a good life for our families and ourselves.