"I'm going to speak my mind because I have nothing to lose."--S.I. Hayakawa
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Sunday, November 28, 2021

     

Chapter Six:

In Which Marg Comes to the Rescue

 

 "Never trust a computer you can’t throw out a window.”

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Inc.

     


I pushed the button to turn on my travel laptop and waited to see if the crackling noises were still there.    Silence.

    I plugged it into a power source.   Silence.

    The laptop was well and truly fried.   It would not turn on, would not charge.   It lay on the counter at Pangolin Chobe hotel as useless as a rock.

 

                                                    The Crispy Critter


    Marg came to the rescue.   She messaged Shelly in Canada, who would be joining us in Kenya in a few days, to fetch a small MacBook Pro from her office and bring it when she flew to Kenya.  In the meantime, Marg took my camera memory cards and the two external hard drives I had to her room.

    She made a Lightroom catalogue on one of the drives and downloaded all my photos to it, as well as making a copy of the photos to the second drive.  Lightroom is a software program we use to edit photos.   Its use has been a steep learning curve for me and I’m still a beginner at it.

 

    Nonetheless, for the next week, Marg continued to download my photos to my external drives.  The process, which took hours on my laptop, took minutes on her super-Mac, but it still cut into her valuable free time during which she could have been editing her own photos.

 


                                    

                                The two 2TB external drives that would hold two copies of my photos.


    Problem solved for the immediate future though I didn’t look forward to re-learning what little I knew of Macs.   Windows gave me enough problems.

     Once back on the Chobe River, we found birds and baboons to photograph on the way to Elephant Bay.

 




    Baboon infants are carried under the mother’s chest.   When they are older, they ride jockey-style on the mother’s back.

 










A large male walks over and sits in front of the mother and infant.   The infant seems interested in the male's large paw.


















Juvenile yellow-billed stork.





African Mourning Dove





Rock pratincoles staying warm as the sun rises.



"Pensive"




Surprise!   A different, more blonde lion was in charge of guarding the elephant carcass and he had his paws full trying to keep the vultures away.

 



     Whenever he sought shade from the blazing sun, the vultures crept in.   When the vultures crept in, he ran down to chase them away.   And on and on it went.

 








    








 


       

At one point, a water monitor walked through.   The lion paid it no attention.

 




    The lizard is between the lion and the carcass.


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    The next day, the lions were gone.   The carcass reeked of decay.   The vultures and the Marabou storks were closer, but not on the carcass.




     The crocodiles had moved in and claimed it for their own.   There were dozens of crocs lying around, huge malevolent crocodiles.

 


    They had managed to move the carcass even farther into the water. 

     The elephants still came but were cautious.



 Note the crocodile between the carcass and shore.  There is another behind the carcass and dozens in various places along the shoreline.


This was our last look at Elephant Bay, the Chobe River, and our friends at Pangolin photo safaris for this trip. Just before noon we boarded a small plane that would take us to the famed Okavango Delta. 






    The plane took off and headed west.   I looked out the window and saw a long line of smoke rising along the horizon.






     Wait a minute!   Smoke?    No one told us about wildfires!!!

 

 

 

 














Reed cormorant landing.

White-breasted cormorant
Carmine bee-eater
Carmine bee-eater
Pied kingfisher
Water lily
Black-winged stilt
Skimmer
Skimmer
Skimmer
Skimmer
Goliath heron
Goliath heron
Goliath heron
Brunch at Pangolin
I don't know what it is, but it's huge.




 

 

 

 

 

 

4 comments:

  1. The adventures continue. It's nice to have friends like Marg.

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  2. You have no idea how many times she saved my bacon on this trip. And before and after.

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  3. Wow. As IN .. WOW !! Now we Know The Rest Of The Story that dates back to Chapter Two (Was it Murphy or my imagination, but did the power port on my laptop crackle when I plugged it in?) and continued in Chapter Four (My laptop continued to snap, crackle, pop when I plugged in the power cord. My laptop snapped, crackled, and popped even when I unplugged it.)

    Wow and it was a Lenovo no less, the brand that I personally 'swear by' .. I own an Apple Laptop (I have since year 2005) and I still can't use it comfortably so good luck on your new adventure with an Apple MacBook Pro. What a trooper Marg is !! Wowie !!

    We loved the Baboon Mother and her Child. Interesting all of the interaction between the Lions and the Vultures and Marabou Storks and Crocodiles !!

    Cap and Patti

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's been a trial. And there's more of Murphy to come.

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