The first animal we saw in the 'W' national park
Clearly I’m not going to miss a chance to trot out another Africa story, but strangely I managed not to run anything over in all my travels which is pretty remarkable given the distances travelled. Roxana who travelled with me and Richard for the first leg of the trip, and who is a strict vegetarian, was not so lucky.

Wavy lines etc.

I’ve driven though thirty or so countries in Africa and I’ve always made time to visit the national parks where I can, so I reckon I’m making a pretty well informed statement I when I say you should not waste time in the ‘W’ national park in Niger.

Despite the best efforts of the locals Africa surprised me with the amount of wildlife I saw outside of the parks. Once, driving in arid Northern Kenya along a road famed for its bandits, where supposedly every living creature had been hunted to extinction I saw a pair of Gerenuks. In the depths of the jungles of Congo I saw elephant (well bits of elephant in a sack to be accurate). But in the first two hours of driving in the W national park we didn’t see anything larger than a small bird.

Roxana was driving, me in the other front seat, and Richard in the back with the guide. Suddenly in the middle road we all spotted the first real animal of the day – A tortoise. Me, Richard and the guide all claimed the sighting and pointed, but Roxana just turned around and said “where?”. There we two distinct bumps as we ran directly over the tortoise with front and back wheels.

I volunteered to walk back to inspect the damage. The shells on these animals are pretty tough, but then again the Camel weighed in at three tons fully loaded. I returned to the car to report that surprisingly enough it looked like it was going to be OK, though it was leaking slightly. If you’re reading this Roxana, I was lying.

www.camelworld.com

Length? 18 months and 70,000km
(strongp, Tue 27 Dec 2011, 17:15, 4 replies)

tell Roxanna
I just cracked one out on her bra pic.
(username failed moderation, Wed 28 Dec 2011, 15:26, closed)

she's single - I can give you her phone number if you're that desperate
(strongp, Wed 28 Dec 2011, 18:52, closed)

Well,
that's not very complimentary, is it?
(username failed moderation, Thu 29 Dec 2011, 8:54, closed)

to you or to her?
(strongp, Thu 29 Dec 2011, 12:07, closed)