Wednesday, December 5, 2012

paradise or little bit of hell...

my little safari paradise lodge can quickly teeter on the edge of disturbing prison...
i'll explain. first, if you leave the lodge, the only other stuff in town are other lodges like this one, a chippies supermarket, and a savannah bar, where all the local (men, only) go to drink their faces off and throw bottles on the floor and fight eachother.
so, it's advised to just stick to the premises. premises filled with honeymooning botswanans, or quebecois tour groups. on my game drive today i was stuck with fred and bev from australia and an old swedish couple who pretended not to speak english because fred and bev are SO annoying. i wish i could have played with team sweden but my "hej do!" and knowledge of sköne just didn't cut it. fred has a $5,000 camera lens, like what they use in the press section at wimbeldon, but he takes the crappiest pictures on earth. bev says, fred, take a picture of that there! that plant! that bird! with this really annoying accent. no wait, i just want the sky, with those trees and those clouds. totally bosses him around. fred, i want this, i want a picture of the hippos face, then his body, and then his tail, in 3 different shots, and then we'll blow them up and hang the 3 different parts above the sofa. that kindof stuff. we saw some lions and they were pretty far away, and fred is going at it - but all of his pictures are totally blurry, focused on the wrong thing. he'll email them to me. i had him take my picture with my camera and he cut off half my face. maybe he's blind. fred's big joke in the truck is whose the youngest here who can outrun a ? you there, get out and lure that crocodile over so we can get a picture! hahaha you guys are so funny.
anyway, unlike the other lodges which have these candlelit thatch terraces, our dining room is indoors, air conditioned, and is a buffet death trap. one of the rockers, the botswanans dressed in all leather showed up to provide musical entertainment and at first i did a fist pump, like yeah dude, death metal!  bring it! only, in his really tight leather pants and leather shirt and leather jacket, well, he sings christmas songs, with the voice of barry manilow. it's torture. lionel richie, whitney houston, the hits, all on his yamaha synthesizer, with the programmed beats and synth orchestral sound. i know that thing has more instruments, he could change to electric piano for the stevie wonder but he doesn't. i want to rip my ears out. oh my god, he's actually pretending to be blind and miming the brick wall and door opening. buffet special tonight is calamari stirfry. i shall remind you Botswana is landlocked. in the corner though, there is local fare. caterpillars! not going to try them...hurry up and eat so i can go to my room and watch animal planet and drink duty free wine...yay for eco-tourism!

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