That Trip To Africa

Written A Long Time Ago, Posted from Cambodia

Just over a month ago, I took a two-week trip to Africa with my dad and brother. I took over 650 pictures on that trip and was eager to share them all with you. I even made promises. But between packing up our apartment, moving our possessions into storage, and flying halfway around the world (again, in my case), it took me the better part of a month to tag all of the pictures so that you at least know what you're looking at. But the task is finally done, and Matt painstakingly uploaded them to flickr, so here they are at last, in all their glory.

What I've included here in the slideshow is but a subset of the whole album. It includes my favorite pictures from the trip. As with most favorites, sometimes I picked the picture because of the picture itself, and sometimes I picked the picture because of how I felt when I was taking it, or the memory it evokes for me. You're totally entitled to have other favorites. I promise that I'm cool with that.

Those of you who are gluttons for punishment and plan to head over to the flickr gallery to look at the whole set, I want to give you a brief warning. On our safari trip, we were lucky enough to see a "kill." Before I went to South Africa, I thought that the kill was the act of actually KILLING an animal. But while I was there I learned that the kill refers to that actual killing, as well as the dead animal that's being eaten. I have pictures of the latter, and some of them are quite gruesome. The pride of lions currently living in Sabi Sands, all 18 of them (minus the two males, who don't really hunt), took down an enormous male Cape Buffalo. Over the two days that followed, they devoured every inch they deemed edible (they leave the skin, bones, and teeth for the hyenas, who will eat anything). It was an amazing thing to see and hear and experience, and I couldn't stop taking pictures of it. But I recognize that some of you log onto this site first thing in the morning, and you may or may not want to be greeted by images of a masticated buffalo. I get that, so I didn't include any of the dead buffalo pictures in my favorites set. So if you just NEED to get your dead buffalo fix, you're going to have to mosey on over to flickr.

And with that I bring you my trip to Africa, in pictures:



If you haven't figured it out yet, it was an amazing trip. I can't wait to go back to Africa to do safari with Matt someday. And our kids. Because once you go to visit animals in their own home, it seems strange to go to the zoo to see them trapped in a home that we built for them. Getting the chance to see them this way was definitiely worth both the money and the long flight. If you're not getting the message, I'll spell it out for you now: GO TO AFRICA!