Zowie, From Before

This guy is giving all the saPHari truck riders a welcome aboard lecture. We learned the difference between horns and antlers, we promised not to annoy the animals, we heard about the parks mission to protect and restore endangered species.

We also heard an extended and fervent rap about rhino horns. This issue of killing rhinos for their horns just drives these guys NUTS. The horns, they told us on more than five occasions, have no medicinal properties whatsoever. They have no magic, no Nothing. Rhino horns are nothing more than densely packed hair and finger nails.

So if you want an aphrodisiac or a cure for cancer, eat your hair, bite your nails, just don’t kill the rhinos.

Her very most favorite animal…

When you get your ticket for the truck you also get a spiral bound ‘home made’ seeming booklet put together by the staff themselves, with a great representative shot of all the animals and a loving rap about them. Everything I forget I will copy out of this book and pretend like I remember.

But what are These!?!

The environments in the park are divided into four parts, East Africa, South Africa, Eurasian Plains and Asian Waterhole. This guy, the Cape Buffalo lives in both East and South Africa so they have some in both parts of the park.

My streched out hand would not cover his nose.

The Fringe-Eared or Kilimanjaro Oryx. His markings are a good story. The dark strips hide his real eyes and those dark spots on his ears are meant to be taken by the bad guys as big scarry eyes making Mr Orxy seem much bigger than he really is.

Or is this a Gemsbok? Or a South African Oryx?

They have two kinds of rhinos, the Indian or Greater One-Horned Rhinoceros and the Southern White or Square-Lipped Rhinoceros.

We see here a couple of Square-Lipped girlfriends. They go everywhere together and have yet to take much interest in the male. Whenever one of them does try to have a date with him (have a date – guidespeak for – you know…) it just ends badly. The guy is a bit of a dip apparently.

We heard a Lot of ‘People Magazine’ style stories about all the family groups. The guides were total gossips and loved to relate who was with whom and who had just lost out to whom. ‘It’s a soap opera out there’ was one of their favorite expressions.

I thought I had an idea of what these guys were like – mean for example, and not very interesting. Wrong. These guys seem utterly prehistoric and were No Doubt the model for the velocoraptors(sp) in Jurassic Park. Totally. You remember the ones.

They have that same swaggering motion as they approach with undulating boa-like necks, driving, pushing forward purposeful heads and far too intelligent and complicated eyes moving forward moving scanning for opportunity. Oouw.

That’s right. Giraffes, in your face. Again, they have two kinds. The difference is rather subtle so I won’t bore you.

At the upper right you can see the rail for the regular tour tram. This is an example of how well animals can camouflage themselves.

In order of preference, according to the guides, the best method to avoid being lunch:

1-blend into the environment
2-blend into the herd
3-get outta Dodge
4-fight

The Three Stooges.

Maybe not enough face to guess what this is…

Where’s Waldo? Once you see one you’ll say oh, there, and there, and there, and there, and there…

P&G friends from NY here on their annual family get-together at a very cool place in Carlsbad. It was a wildly recommendable place – sort of a cross between the Sea Breeze in Redondo and a funky condo project from the 50s.

Out the door and down the stairs. Turn the other way out the door and you on the tourista main drag with restaurants and shops.

Standing in the door of a bar catching reflections through the window onto the mirror. Made me stop…

Us. The woman in sun glasses did the driving and she had on her front seat a rather overwhelming collection of camera gear. This woman was Ready.

Since they are a breeding facility and according to them, wildly successful, they can get several births a day during the busy time and with each birth they have to send out a team to check on the mother and to test and tag the young one.

Her face.

Besides the tram tour and the PHauxPHotosPHari there are dozens of displays, shops, eating opportunities, shows etc etc there at the Wild Animal Park. I was too bushed to do much more since the heat and blazing down sun had sucked the life outta me…

See that leafy looking tree thing? It’s a woman on stilts. She’s resting now to gather a crowd and soon she will move out to the rhythm of the Peruvian pipe band playing around the corner.

It had cooled down enough we though to just sit on the tram – we payed for it after all – and see how things were later in the day.

The trucks rolled through that road down there. You can see what’s what with your one hundred and forty five bucks.

Nice, but far.

Art-ish?

This is the Indian rhino. The guides treated these guys like GIgANTic pets (here kitty kitty?). We couldn’t play with the two horned variety because of the way they are built, they can’t get their heads up to the truck but the one-horns just Love the truck.

This mass of mussle and stomach has his head inside the truck cabin and the guide is petting his face. Another couple of rhinos were pulled up alongside. We all dropped apples into their gapping maw (oh yeah) and pet their soft smooth face. At one point the person with the bucket stopped pulling out apples and the rhino gave the truck a hey-you nudge.

We almost keeled over.

Rhinoceros. Impoceros.

Javan Banteng, they look so sweet and healthy. Beween here and the San Diego Zoo they have extensive medical facilities and everybody looks healthy out in the field.

One thing they do here, unlike Nature, is bring out the dump trucks every morning to clean up the poop. They recycle the stuff of course, into fertilizer. They also aerate and treat the waterholes and river-like-things for mosquitoes. It surely does keep down the ickies and during the whole trip on the truck we were not troubled at all by bugs.

The birds were tough to catch – this is really the only one I got, an East African Crowned Crain. Actually he was easy to get. He followed us for a while, posing.

A common site, various species hangin’ out. See the very smallest guy with horns, up on the crest of the hill? He’s guarding his territory and the females are all his.

Female hoofed animals look for males with the biggest most symmetrical horns or antlers. The bigger the better – it means the male is healthy and strong enough not to lose any part of his headpiece to battle.

Some males even have bright markings to stand out in their environment. This is so the females can think, Wow, look how he stands out and yet he survives. He must be Hot! I wish I could have a date with Him.

I’ve seen what look like real fights in the movies and on National Geo specials but here they basically push each other around and then decide a winner. The guides say they just know who won without anyone having to get hurt.

The fam. These are the ones that can’t lift their heads because of the huge mussle mass on their shoulders that keeps their head attached to their body.

He-loooou.

Absolutely unforgettable and well worth the hundred and forty-five bucks. Assuming of course you can afford to blow a hundred and forty-five bucks which is a heck of a lot of money.

All the animals within a quadrant share the same water hole.

Here’s an interesting story: These are all herbivores in the open areas but they do keep some tigers in one enclosure and some lions in another. The cat enclosures are positioned upwind from the park so that their scent floats downwind all over the area. The idea is to keep the animals alert and acting more naturally.

Is this a location or What? Not that it has to be this exact place but there must be plenty of places like it…

A group was gathering to set-up chairs, flowers and an arbor, the string trio was tuning up.(The wedding coordinators were at 619.501.3543.)

Seaside Haiku

Toe squiggles in sand,
toe touches the sea and wave
surprise! soaking pants.

Paul and Gretchen are here for our summer outing – this time Down South for a stop in La Jolla and then we’re hitting the Wild Animal Park PHoto PHaux saPHari, PHun.

Taking pictures in the dark without flashburn.

Mostly La Jolla is of the ‘low profile but lots of money to throw around’ style of architecture. These two hotels are on a slightly larger scale but still, don’t they just woo you with promises of comfort and civility.

takin’ a break.

At the entrance to Wild Animal Park we find their patriarch and symbol. The guides told us a long story of his history at the park – something about maybe the first of his kind to breed in captivity and he fathered 50 of this rarest rhino, or something…

See all those dozens of amazingly colorful butterflies? You had to watch out or you’d sit down on one by mistake. You don’t see them in this picture? Me either. That’s because I took about a dozen shots in here and got exactly zero recognizable butterflies.

Let this be my first opportunity to report that it was a nasty hot day and it was Sweaty in there. It was hothotHot outside and inside, you’ve got hot and water and that makes hot and humid = SWEATY.

(I have given myself permission for three comments in total with resepct to the relentless heat to be followed by comments along the lines of ‘why Me? why is it always Me?’. One down.)

The La Jolla seals. Go out of your way. It’s a bonding experience. I screwed up the exposure. Bummer.

more.

This is the Here Comes The Bride path that leads into the public park shown in the next slide