Tired....

No riding today, thank all that's holy. Had a poor sleep last night – couldn't get the landscape to stop rushing by, despite being so tired it physically hurt. Jet lag and a hard, fast, time-constrained ride are not a good combination. But I am on a game reserve in Africa, so no more whinging.

I was woken up (sort of) by Tumi, who was to be my guide for the day. You see, we were going on a safari, which sounded rather fun, I must say. Relatively cool today, only about 22 degrees. After a very good breakfast and lots of coffee (these South Africans seem to only serve instant – I must have a word with the authorities) we boarded an 8-seater 4x4 and went bushwhacking. It only took a minute or so for us to spot a rhino, then warthogs, a giraffe, hippos, springy deer-like thingys, and ostriches. At this point I was on sensory overload, and after each sighting I simply said hi and bye to each animal... “hi warthog.” In my zoned-out state I just couldn't absorb it all. Later, while I was checking the oil on the BMW, two elephants sauntered past. I did have the wherewithal to ask another guest to snap a quick photo just to prove to you that I'm not making this all up. I'll have to wait until later to upload it to the blog, as everyone here seems to employ glacially slow dial-up connections.

And then it pissed down with rain for the rest of the day.

We did get a couple of hours of respite from the rain in the early afternoon, at which point we were hustled off to meet the two elephants that are in permanent residence in Bayete's park. These elephants were orphans that the park purchased and imported. They're free to roam around at their leisure, but they do have two handlers, who seem more like friends to the big animals than they do captors. I got to feed, touch and interact with the big galoots, which was an astounding experience that I'll treasure forever.

Dinner, beers and bed capped off a thrilling day.