Apologies - A Bit Of Catching Up

Our days have been packed, our hours few, our internet, hinky.  I asked Joe why we never seem to vacation where the internet is GREAT!  Hmmm....must investigate Estonia.

When last I posted, we had just done an afternoon drive.  So, the next day we did an excursion to St. Lucia, a cute little beach town...very touristy.  After a fairly long drive, we pulled into town and up to the dock of the estuary for a boat ride.

The estuary used to be part of the bay/ocean, but 18 years ago, there was such a bad drought it got cut off from the ocean.  Since then, it has evolved into a freshwater lake.  It's full of bull sharks (remnants of the ocean days), crocs, hippos (about 800 of them), snakes and lizards, and a wide variety of birds.  Our boat was full of incredibly obnoxious people who were seemingly unable to follow the simplest of instructions (like, please move out of the sight line of the captain).  These dipshits made the entire voyage almost intolerable.  

Here are some snaps from our voyage of the damned.

lots and lots of hippos

lots.  They're called pods.

Can you spot the Goliath Heron?

Laughing to fight back the tears.

Nice croc...would make a great handbag.

After the boat trip we stopped for lunch and a bit of shopping before heading out to the beach.  This is the Indian Ocean.  Not too cold, but very, very windy.

Back from St. Lucia, our guide took us on an evening drive.  Apparently lots of different animals come out at night.  Unfortunately, we didn't see any of them.  And not because it was dark.  I have to assume they were hiding behind bushes snickering at us.  Lovely sky, though.

On Tuesday, our game drive took us to Phinda, a much, much larger reserve (50,000 acres).  That means lions, but we also came upon a cheetah mom and her two cubs.  Enjoy...

these are the cubs

Mom

Mom on the left; cubs, middle and right

Time to move on.

Aha!  Wabbit twacks.  Nah, they're lion tracks, silly!  

Suddenly the wind changes and you get the first whiff of something dead.  It's like nothing you've ever smelled before...unless of course you HAVE smelled something dead.  It's a nostril-flaring, nose-crinkling, eye-squinting smell.  It's between rotten eggs and bad milk.  It's brackish and putrid.  It's scatological and earthy.  It's lip-curling and shoulder-scrunching.  It's dead.

We came upon a cape buffalo carcass (probably died of old age, rather than a predator kill) that had been ravaged by lions.  

Let's go find 'em!