sit down and look at my vacation pictures or I’ll stab you
Hey yeah. Stuff. Blog. Typing. Summer is over, did you hear that? So now it’s almost time for fall, and people gushing about how they love fall, and other people bitching about the people gushing about how they love fall, and so on and so forth. How’s that Web 2.0 treating you? So great. So great that all the humans can air their shitty little ill-considered opinions and document their dumb super-ordinary experiences. The following are some of mine! Read on! (Or don’t.)
Sigh. Hold on, let me get a melonballer and scoop out the “Bitter Old Hag” bit of my frontal lobe. Sometimes it takes over.
Despite my current snarly mouth, summer really was great. We took a Big Huge Trip to South Africa. Here are a few of the highlights.
FRANKFURT LAYOVER: Frankfurt was having a horrid heatwave and their trains are really not as simple and straightforward as they like to advertise, so we ended up in a weird part of town that was full of junkies and smelled like hot garbage. Found a restaurant, had sausage and beer, back to the airport. Oh well! Better than spending a layover in the duty-free, I guess.
CAPE TOWN: Man, this city is greatcakes. We rented a car and it was only briefly terrifying to watch LT drive on the wrong side.
This is a dude selling newspapers in the road, wearing a homemade hat.
This is the most baffling sign in Cape Town. This place had no real door, just a garage door, and was closed every day that we were there. Here is Nora being baffled.
Here is us petting a cheetah at the Cheetah Outreach Center. This photo is a bit hoverhand-y but I assure you I really did pet him. His name is Joseph and he is kind of fat and chill.
LOOK AT THE PAWS. And the non-retractable claws. And the sleepy face.
We went to the Cape of Good Hope and Nora made me climb up a scary mountain. She pointed out that “climbing a mountain” is a bit of an exaggeration, since there were stairs almost the whole way. I’m glad I gave in and overcame the terror, because there were great views at the top and these funny little mountain guinea pig things running around.
Of course the best bit was the penguin beach. It’s a good thing I don’t live in Cape Town. I would be at the penguin beach all day, every day. I would bring a chair. It’s Saturday, Mimi, what do you want to do? Penguin Beach. AGAIN? Yes.
After a few days we indulged LT’s inner dork by taking a fancy overnight train from Cape Town to Johannesburg. It took about 26 hours, but it is nowhere near as terrible as a long plane ride, because you have the freedom to move around, the sleeping compartments are very charming with their little fold-out everythings, and they constantly offer you beverages and food. That’s my wine in the foreground.
On arrival we rested for one night in a ridiculously over-the-top hotel called “The Residence.” Nora swam and “relaxed” in the sun. I don’t find a face full of terrycloth relaxing, but to each her own.
I walked around taking pictures because every square inch of hotel was crammed with antiques and gold and crystals and silliness. Witness our bathroom mirror.
At around 4 pm a hotel employee arrived with three bites of puff-pastry-and-Brie under glass, as well as two shots of some random liqueur. “Apertif?” Okay.
I was sad to miss the breakfast the next morning because I knew it would be similarly ridiculous, but it was time to go on safari. Five hours and several roadside bathroom-and-biltong stops later, we arrived at the game lodge.
Holy shit, so nice. View from our cabin’s porch. I could sit here and watch elephants and monkeys while reading a book.
The basic routine on safari: they knock on your cabin door at 5:30 in the morning. You go grab some coffee or tea in the main lodge, partly because caffeine is life-affirming and partly, I suspect, for the staff to get a visual that you actually got your ass out of bed. In the jeep with lap blankets and hot water bottles by 6 am. Drive around, look at animals.
By the way, the trackers earn every penny of whatever they make. They can identify every bird, every plant, every half-erased paw print in the dust. On one drive we got a radio report of a “fresh leopard poop” and raced off toward it. That was the first time and probably last time that will ever happen to me.
Nora is considering “safari tracker” as a career choice here.
A little bit after sunrise you stop and have coffee and biscuits in some scenic spot. I look very windblown here.
You get back to the lodge, have a cooked breakfast (two chefs on staff), and then it’s time to do whatever you want. LT and Nora often went to a hide, which is a little house on stilts near a watering hole, to take more animal pictures. (The staff will pack a cooler with beer to take with you.) I often opted to nap and look at their pictures later. Except one day, when I went on a walk with Nora and the trackers. Although my butt looks weird here, I had to include this photo because I GOT TO HOLD THE GUN.
Then you have lunch, then another safari drive, stopping at sunset for cocktails, and back to the lodge for yes, more food.
It was so, so great.
Friendly/curious warthog, who booped our jeep with its nose and then trotted away.
Baby elephant, less than 1 day old. No clue how to use her trunk yet.
Mother and baby rhino. Did you know that baby rhinos make a meeping noise? This baby wanted to nurse but mom wasn’t into it at that moment, so she followed her mom around going meep meep meep.
More baby rhino.
Excuse us, ma’am.
Pile of lions.
Leopard, presumably all done pooping.
Nora with the remains of a dead kudu. It didn’t smell so great.
One of our trackers exercising with the remains of a giraffe leg. Feel the burn. Feel the decaying, lion-bitten burn.
This plant can kill you or blind you. But rhinos like to snack on it.
Buffalo with bird on its head.
Nora’s sunset giraffe picture.
Eventually we had to go home, and reentry was hard. Where are the lions? (HEY WE’RE RIGHT HERE, say my two cats. No. Not cutting it.) Where is my chef?
Sorry for the vacation dump but I had to get that out. Another entry is in the works, with all the Smartypants fuckery you’ve come to expect: photo-free, profanity-heavy, light on the linear logic, straight out of your narrative nightmares.
—mimi smartypants blessed the rains down in Africa.