Month: November 2009

The “Bollywood to South Beach” Voyage, part 12

The Bollywood to South Beach Voyage – Regent Seven Seas Voyager, October 29-December 18, 2009

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Twelve

November 12 (Thursday, Day 15, Mombasa, Kenya) (Continued) –

Lilac breasted roller

After lunch we had another game drive as we wound our way out of the park.

More after the jump . . .

The speed turtle
Two turtles
Lion tracks. Fresh.
Dik-diks. They were always in pairs.
A spooked dik-dik. Its companion looks on.
A colorful bird
Baboon troop
Monitor lizard
Mongoose family living on an old termite mound
Ostrich family
Ear-flapping elephant

Here’s the list of the animals that we saw: lioness, giraffe, elephant, zebra, spotted hyena, common baboon, gazelle, impala, antelope, oryx, hartebeest, Kirk’s dik-dik, warthog, banded mongoose and monitor lizard. We saw these birds: lilac-breasted roller, some kind of bustard, hawk and eagle. We saw these animals many times and after awhile we didn’t even stand up to see more zebra, elephants, impala and gazelle! The highlight was when a group of giraffes walked in front of the van. Snookums went on an East African safari about twenty years ago and saw all of these animals except for the monitor lizard so even she ended up seeing something new!

Next: The drive back to Mombasa!

The “Bollywood to South Beach” Voyage, part 11

The Bollywood to South Beach Voyage – Regent Seven Seas Voyager, October 29-December 18, 2009

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Eleven

November 12 (Thursday, Day 15, Mombasa, Kenya) (Continued) –

Stuck

Toward the end of our 3-hour game drive as we were nearing the Voi Safari Lodge for our lunch, our driver decided to pass the van in front of us and ended up getting stuck in the sand. What a moron. There was no need to try to pass the other van. The other van tried to push our van but that didn’t work so then they got a cable and supposedly connected it to both vans. Oops! It wasn’t connected to the other van. They finally got it straightened out and we got to lunch about 10 minutes later. This would have been comical except for the fact that Snookums desperately had to use the bathroom for about the past two hours and was in pain most of that time and was getting increasingly worried that there was going to be a mess on the seat. Alas, when we finally got to the lodge and she stood up, Filbert assured her that her shorts were clean. She cut in line at the women’s room and obtained the necessary relief.

More after the jump . . .

Let’s try a push
Maybe you should latch the winch?
Or, just tie a knot in the darn thing!

We then enjoyed a nice lunch in a lodge that had an awesome view. Filbert enjoyed the complimentary Tusker beer. Voi Safari Lodge is perched on a hill so the lodge overlooks the plains and a watering hole. We could see a lot of elephants on the huge plain and some at the watering hole. There were rock hyraxes sunning on the ledges, too.

At the lodge:

Another colorful lizard
Little bird at the lodge
Skink and flower
Rock hyrax
The view
Marabou stork at the watering hole below the lodge
Another view from the lodge
Filbert and Snookums at the lodge

Next: The second Tsavo East game drive!

The “Bollywood to South Beach” Voyage, part 10

The Bollywood to South Beach Voyage – Regent Seven Seas Voyager, October 29-December 18, 2009

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Ten

November 12 (Thursday, Day 15, Mombasa, Kenya) (Continued) –

The game drive through Tsavo East National Park continues . . .

Stork on final

More after the jump . . .

How many zebras are in this picture?
A roll in the dirt
Impala, posing
Impala girls
The male of the herd and his kids
Giraffe crossing
Giraffe seem to like roads
Elephant with five legs
Giraffe, lunching
Three giraffes

Next: The Voi Safari Lodge!

What could possibly go wrong?

Posted for our amusement at Tigerhawk,[*1] a recently-received e-mail:


Let me get this straight.
…we’re going to pass a health care plan written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn’t understand it,
passed by a Congress that hasn’t read it but exempts themselves from it,
to be signed by a president that also hasn’t read it and who smokes,
with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes,
all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese,
and financed by a country that’s nearly broke.
What could possibly go wrong?

It’s melting!

No, not the Wicked Witch of the West . . . the equally wicked Global Warming/Climate Change pseudoscientific cult. The product of defecation is hitting the rotating air circulation device now. And that product is spattering all over everyone who has been convinced that The World Is Getting Hotter And We Are All To Blame.

Don’t think so? Then you haven’t been paying attention.

Or, you’ve been watching CNN, or even, God help you, MSNBC.

Some links:
Climategate: “Men behaving badly” – a short summary for laymen from the irreplaceable Watts Up With That.
How to Forge a Consensus [*1] from the Wall Street Journal;
More AGW Controversy [*2] from Richard Fernandez;
Pretending the climate email leak isn’t a crisis won’t make it go away [*3] from George Monbiot at the U.K.’s Guardian;
There Was Proof of Fraud All Along [*4] from Vincent Gray at Pajamas Media.

The bottom line is fraud. Fraud on a scale never before seen on this planet–literally. Not just scientific fraud. The really expensive kind–the money kind of fraud, as in a confidence game. “Get the confidence of the mark, then take him for all he’s worth” sort of fraud.

Global Warming/Climate Change isn’t just a simple hoax the New Piltdown Man. It’s the New Eugenics. From the same so-called “progressive” side of the political spectrum. And, for the most part, for the same reasons. To “make things better.”

Why do so many grandiose schemes to “make things better” actually result in things getting worse?

Thought for the day

From The Road To Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek, 1944, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, 1994, The University of Chicago Press.


It is a revealing fact that few planners are content to say that central planning is desirable. Most of them affirm that we can no longer choose but are compelled by circumstances beyond our control to substitute (central) planning for competition. The myth is deliberately cultivated that we are embarking on the new course not out of free will but because competition is spontaneously eliminated by technological changes which we can neither reverse nor should we wish to prevent. This argument is rarely developed at any length–it is one of the assertions taken over by one writer from another until, by mere iteration, it has come to be accepted as a common fact. It is, nevertheless, devoid of foundation.

Excerpted under Fair Use for purposes of non-commercial education, discussion and comment. Any transcription or typographical errors are mine.

The “Bollywood to South Beach” Voyage, part 8

The Bollywood to South Beach Voyage – Regent Seven Seas Voyager, October 29-December 18, 2009

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Eight

(Remember to click “read more” if you’re looking at this from the main medary.com page to get the whole article!)

November 12 (Thursday, Day 15, Mombasa, Kenya) –

In the van, on the dock

Our day started early since our trip to Tsavo East National Park left at 7:30. We boarded our non-air-conditioned van with pop-up roof for our 60-mile drive to the park. The 6 of us each got a window seat which is ideal for a game drive. We were on the main “highway” that goes from Mombasa to Nairobi. We saw some trucks, very few cars and even fewer bicycles (and basically no scooters or motorcycles). Many people were walking along the highway and half of them were barefoot. We don’t know where they were going. We would come upon a “village” every few miles or so that seemed to be made up of a few one-room “buildings” and some one-room “houses” way behind the buildings. Most were made of the red clay dirt. It was interesting to see the men and women working in the fields. They appeared to be personal farms and the workers (maybe husband and wife?) were hoeing with what looked like homemade tools.

More after the jump . . .

A roadside shop
Upscale shopping options
A big herd of cattle
Flowers along the route
A furniture shop
The corner hardware store

After a quick stop at a curio shop for a bathroom break, we were on the road again. The bathroom did have toilets and toilet paper, but they didn’t flush since there didn’t appear to be any water in the tanks. The curio shop and bathrooms were obviously for tourists and no one else. It was the only place like it we saw due to its large size and relative “prosperity”. We also encountered our first wildlife when we saw a male (grey with red stripes) and female (teal blue with an orange head) lizard. (By the way, this shore excursion wasn’t one of the complimentary ones that Regent offered and did cost $199 each. It was well worth the price.)

The rest stop
Male lizard at the rest stop
Female lizard at the rest stop
The entrance to the park

Next: Into Tsavo East National Park!

The “Bollywood to South Beach” Voyage, part 9

The Bollywood to South Beach Voyage – Regent Seven Seas Voyager, October 29-December 18, 2009

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Nine

November 12 (Thursday, Day 15, Mombasa, Kenya) (Continued) –

A bird in the bush

We got to the game park and the driver/guide popped the van top. We could all stand up and still have about 1 foot of clearance. One of our first animals that we saw was a lioness walking. We were surprised to see this since lions usually rest during the heat of the day. This park doesn’t allow for off-road driving so we couldn’t follow her. Anyway, we were fortunate to see her since when we talked to other people on this game drive, they didn’t see any lions. She was really camera-shy, walking behind a lot of bushes, so Filbert didn’t get a photo of her, much to his chagrin. He’d look up, see her, try to aim the camera as she’d pass behind a bush, look up, see her come out from behind the bush, try to aim the camera as she went behind another bush. This went on for a while.

More after the jump . . .

The safari vans
Baboon in the shade
Yellow-beaked hawk
Termite mound
Three ostriches
Hyena in a puddle
Hawk
Find the ostrich chick
The warthogs were shy. This one hid behind zebras.
Two elephants
Driving around nature

Next: The drive continues . . .