Harry’s First (and Last?) Safari (Part 2 of 2)

{continued from last Wednesday’s post]

Not quite autobiographical.

There followed a predictable period of no action and lethargy. Aldo reached into the ice chest and helped himself to a chilled cocktail in a can. Consuming liquor inside a moving vehicle was prohibited on the public highway, but here in the bush there were no rules. Harry wanted to stay alert and didn’t drink, but he was nevertheless feeling drowsy as the heat of the afternoon peaked.

Harry learned from Joseph, who was narrating to his guest almost nonstop whenever he wasn’t on the phone to his colleagues. There are three types of giraffe. One of them — the Maasai — lives here, identified by their distinctive body markings of jagged spots. Oddly, they eat mainly thorns as their long necks enable them to munch on the tops of acacia trees. Their tongues are tough as shoe leather with a surface rough as sandpaper. Giraffes appear calm as they stride elegantly across the wooded grassland, and, for the most part, they probably are. That’s because predators, including the big cats, are wary of them. An adult giraffe can defend itself and the young ones by swinging its head in a powerful downward arc, dealing a single, lethal body blow to the attacker.

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