Good times, bad times

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Saturday I mostly spent catching up on e-mails, blogs, and so on. I ran a solid 12 miles in the morning and felt great afterwards, got my work done, and then in the evening I crashed a Zambian wedding reception (I was working through the morning before the internet cafe closed, and missed the ceremony, but evidently it was just a traditional Catholic wedding). There were some differences from American wedding receptions, to be sure-- the bridesmaids and groomsmen had a number of rehearsed dances that they performed over the course of the party, there was a "matron" whose job seemed to consist of hovering over the newlyweds and making sure that they performed all their ceremonial duties, and the scheduled performances, rituals, and speeches took so long that there was really only about 15 minutes for actual dancing. Oh, and each person only got a tiny, bite-sized portion of wedding cake; mine didn't even have icing on it.

So, I have some good news and some bad news about the safari trip from Sunday to Tuesday.

The good news is, my safari to South Luangwa was fantastic. We essentially ran the table in our first evening drive, seeing a leopard (the rarest animal to see in the park), lions, hyenas, elephants, giraffes, hippos, several species of antelope, and buffalo. The nice thing about this was that it allowed us to relax about finding the rare sightings for the rest of the time, and just enjoy better photo opportunities, and generally enjoy the game drives. We got a little into birding, since there were plenty of odd birds to see, and it let us entertain ourselves with a scavenger hunt of sorts when we didn't see any big game around.

The lodge was something between "rustic" and "luxurious". It was rustic, in that we were right across the Luangwa River from the park, and had hippos, antelope, elephants, and baboons walking across the field next to the site, and occasionally into the camp. It was luxurious, in that the place had a swimming pool and a natural hot tub, served a huge lunch buffet every midday, and a four-course meal every evening. We definitely wouldn't have been able to afford it if it hadn't been included as a package deal together with the flights and game drives.

So, you ask, what was the bad news in all this? Basically, as I was packing up to go on this trip, I discovered that I couldn't find my camera. I eventually realized that I may have left it in the internet cafe on Thursday when I was doing my usual blogging and e-mailing. Today I got my first chance to see if it had been turned in, and it seems that it hadn't. So, there goes my camera, but more importantly, all the pictures that I'd taken so far this trip. Luckily, Rebecca and Amanda have been taking plenty, but it means that my blog entries from here on are likely to be text-only. Kind of a bummer.

What that means for all of you is that unless I can find a way to transfer the pictures to my flash drive, you all miss out on the safari pictures, as well as the ones that will be taken in Zanzibar this coming weekend.

OK, back to work now, have a good week everyone! I may not be updating again till Monday or Tuesday, but we'll see how things work out.

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