A Giraffe in Brooklyn

A Hyaena in Brooklyn

La Duree

Breakfast in Paris

Camping near the Buffalo Fence

Last weekend I went camping with four girlfriends on Hilary’s new farm near the Buffalo Fence.  It’s an easy one-hour drive from Maun and Hilary had never spent a night there before

We set up camp atop a small escarpment so we had a view of mophane copses and tall, fluttering yellow grass.  Botswana is as flat as a pancake so any hint of a vista is a treat to savor.  After Christiane got a bush fire going we opened up snacks and poured Bombay gin and tonics.  We watched the Southern Cross come up and made promises to get up before dawn to see the rare alignment of Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Venus.  After dinner I climbed up on top of my Land Rover and shook out my bedroll.  I hate sleeping in a tent or on the ground.  I much prefer sleeping under the moon and stars and above a masterful piece of diesel engineering.  Unfortunately we heard no wildlife at night.

The next morning we had coffee, hard-boiled eggs, and campfire grilled cornbread with a small slick of butter.  After breakfast we walked to Hilary’s “amphitheater,” a perfect circle of thick mophane trees with soft bushveld grass in the center.  It felt ancient and pagan.  In the very center water collects in the summer and elephants drink and play.  In the winter all that’s left are deep gouges from their feet in the dried mud. 

For the rest of the morning I sunbathed (with lots of sunscreen) and read my kindle on top of my Rover.  After a lunch of snacks we packed up and drove back to Maun.  

We set up camp just in time to enjoy the sunset.

A feast of snacks before dinner made by yours truly.

The perfect sundowner.

Sunset

Cornbread warming on the fire.

Ever British, Hilary made her own egg cup.

Goop's blondies with multi-colored marshmallows.  Yummy.  We ate them all.

Pepper in a Box

Pepper likes to nap in very unusual places.

Elephant Trophies

Last weekend I had brunch at Hilary and Ronnie's house.  Ronnie is a professional hunter and after we ate he showed us his customized elephant-skin-cutting tool.  Being a good Maun crowd we all peppered him with questions on how to skin an elephant and how to extract the trophies (tusks, feet. tail, etc) and were quite the captive audience.  Christiane and I especially loved his elephant tail bracelet which you can see below.

This is part of an elephant tail ready for a wrist to adorn.  Christiane suggested adding silver to make it into a bangle and I'd love to have that on my arm.

This is Ronnie's weathered and beaten elephant bracelet.  Underneath it has a silver clasp.

I'd just like to add a note about hunting elephants in Botswana.  There are two hundred thousand elephants in Botswana (most of them in the north) and hunting doesn't even make a dent in the population.  Professional hunters like Ronnie take the utmost care with what they do and are in fact the best deterrent for poachers.  A hunting safari has a lower impact on the environment compared to a photographic safari and conserves more land.  If you want to see Ronnie in action you can catch his TV show on Versus Under Wild Skies.  I watch it on Sunday mornings in Brooklyn when I'm missing Botswana.