Six Words: Predator, Employ, Metal, Beginning, Farewell, Uniform
When you go on safari, the most memorable moments are likely to be when you are on a game drive. Before beginning the drive you check to be sure you haven’t forgotten anything. You’ll probably need to apply sunscreen and maybe bug spray. Have your binoculars and a camera, a hat, and some water. Then you climb into the vehicle and off you go. Your ranger/driver has an amazing ability to find their way around the dirt roads and they do just as well off-road. Some places also employ trackers to ride on the vehicles. The rangers employ radios to stay in touch with other rangers, letting each other know when they have an interesting sighting, but they don’t speak to each other in English. In the Kruger National Park area of South Africa the language is usually Xitsonga. In Tanzania it is probably Swahili. In Botswana it is Tswana. The Rangers/Guides speak in the local language so that if they think we’re on our way to see a leopard but the leopard has moved away by the time we get there, we aren’t disappointed because we don’t know what we missed.
Various types of antelope become common, giraffes are graceful, elephants are always amazing, but everyone wants to see the predators. Although the animals are completely wild, they do become accustomed to the metal animal-like vehicles that have four round “feet” that never leave the ground and that can travel very fast and so they usually leave the vehicles alone. Game drives are always unique. They’re never uniform.
Alas, eventually, there is always a time to say farewell. But every time, each day leaves us with a sense of awe and reverence for what we’ve seen and photographed.