I’m a Safari Suckbag!
Thursday, August 24th, 2006So as i’ve explained, the Safari experience is quite amazing. The beauty of seeing all these amazing animals is unforgettable. Even if you hated animals you would still find yourself mesmerized. Camping, and truly experiencing the outdoors makes it even more exciting. Falling asleep to the chorus of animals sounds is great. However, with all the good does come some bad. Like any splendid place you visit, you always want to get a few good photos to capture the moment. Going home and looking at them is always good to help remember the journey. Due to the small zoom on my camera it’s not always easy to get a good shot of some of the animals as they move quickly and are sometimes far away. With that said, i’m just as satisfied to admire them with my own eyes and I know I won’t forget that. When I saw a Lion or an Elephant, i wasn’t thinknig:
”Where’s my Camera?” I was thinking, “Holy Crap, there’s something running down my leg, oh, and there is an elephant as well.”
I think I was in the minority of people I saw out on Safari. I think most of the people spend more time looking through their lense at the animals than they do with their own naked eye. Everyone is too caught up in trying to get some cover shot for National Geogrphic or Lonely Planet. Now quite honestly if you’ve seen a few Zebra’s you’ve seen enough. They are beautiful creatues but how many damn photos can you get of a freaknig Zebra?
One particular incident really threw me over the edge onto this tirade. It was at the end of our second day in Etosha National Park. It was a nice treat that they had a shop where I could get a soft drink….ooooh so refreshing. I wandered over to the shop and selected an Orange Fanta, I couldnt’ wait to wrap my lips around the bottle. There was one gentlemen in front of me with two bottles of wine he wanted to purchase. I had pulled some change from my pocket to pay for mine, it wasn’t expensive and I knew that the guys bottles of wine were going to cost him the equivalent of about $10 U.S. Dollars, very cheap. Now you have to picture this guy. He was draped from head to toe in the traditional safari gear, that basically shouts out to everyone:
“Hey i’m a safari Loser…just thought i’d let you know in case you were wondering.”
He had the tan trousers on, the tan shoes, a vest with pockets in it and a camera that had a zoom lense so big it could take a photo of an Elephant taking a crap on the planet Uranus. This freaking lense was huge. Had you put this camera around the neck of Giraffe it would have dragged across the ground as it walked. So ultimately i smiled and laughed to myself at this guy, until he busted out his American Express card to pay for the wine. At this point I stopped laughing. In the middle of Namibia it’s not exactly easy to process a credit card. They basically needed to send smoke signals to the credit card company to get this damn thing processed. 20 minutes later he was done and I could finnaly purchase my orange fanta, which by this time was pretty warm.
When you se all these people it makes you wonder why they even come on Safari. They stay in these fancy lodges, that have satellite TV, kitchens, the whole deal. Why not just rent a movie about Safaris at home, get dressed up, hell, by a rifle if you want, and sit there and watch it? I just don’t get it. Sadly enough going on Safari does seem to be a rich mans’ sport so i’m lucky enough I manged to afford and enjoy it.
Gagnonius