Finally, an African Safari With Animals!

You may recall that the safari I took in South Africa was a washout. In an hour of driving around the Addo Elephant National Park, we only saw elephant dung! Today was completely different.

We didn’t see elephants or even elephant dung, but that’s because the private Bandia Reserve doesn’t have any elephants. But we saw lots of giraffes, zebras, rhinoceros, warthogs, elands, water buffalo, ostriches, and more, and I have the pictures and videos to share with you today!

Here’s a vehicle identical to the one we were in for the 90-minute drive around the reserve. I was in the back row of ours:

It was very bumpy, even on what appeared to be smooth dirt roads. I shot this video to demonstrate how bumpy it was:

One of our first viewings was of this heard of water buffalo crossing in front of our parked vehicle.

No doubt to draw the animals toward the roads, there was a truck delivering food along the way. At one location it drew a big and diverse crowd of animals.

We saw several ostriches, including this one that found something to eat on our vehicle.

We also saw quite a few giraffes. Here’s a nice video of several:

Here are some other still photos I shot:

Remember the whole drama regarding malaria and malaria medicine? We had been told that the only place where malaria would be a problem was Senegal. Well, that’s only during the rainy season, which isn’t until later in the year! I put on bug spray, but I needn’t have bothered. We never encountered any mosquitoes or other bugs all day!

There was one lecture after we were all on board and departing for two sea days and then Tenerife. It was David Burgess on “The Backstory to the Manhattan Project.” Having already read “American Prometheus,” the book which inspired the movie “Oppenheimer,” I already knew much of what was conveyed in this lecture about Oppenheimer’s story, but David did add an interesting story about one man who survived the Hiroshima bombing and the Nagasaki bombing:

To leave on a nicer note, here’s tonight’s sunset after we left Dakar:

We continue to be blessed with calm seas.

That’s all for today. Bye-bye!