Day 3 Noon

Was it Kipling who said "Only mad dogs and Englishmen venture out in the noon day sun"? Beats me. The usual routine has been morning drive, breakfast, spend some down time, then evening tea and evening drive. But today, I decided to go on the 11:00 nature walk. For a day that started out so cold, it is surprising how warm it is. (Like the central Oregon desert in summer).

Our guide is another of the rangers, Lyson, who's goal is not to make a hike of it, rather to show us some of the small things that are missed while we are rumbling around in the land rovers. So here are a few things I learned:

• The bark of a thorn tree can be made into a very good rope.
• The twig of the "magic bush" makes a good tooth brush because of all the tannins in the wood and also is used by water dowsers.
• Burrowing spiders can live up to 20 years, but teasing them out of their holes with a stick can be deadly for them. Apparently they make one hole, but if it gets broken, they forget how to make another.
• Termite mounds are the exhaust vents for the entire termite colony - the inlet vents have no mounds - and are used to carefully maintain temperature. The termites don't dig for wood, they haul that stuff down underground, defecate on it, it rots and grows a particular fungus, and THAT is what the termites eat. Basically they are farmers.
• Aardvarks dig holes to get to termites, but they don't live in them, warthogs do live in them when the aardvark leaves - until the hole gets filled with warthog parasites, then the [oops forgot to write it down] that likes the paracites moves in, followed by badgers, bats, snakes. Basically the aardvarks are construction contractors for everyone else.
• The Marula tree (the classic "leopard tree") has many uses, the leaves can be made into a poltice for bee stings; the bark makes a tea that will stop the itch of chicken pox; the root can have the sap blown out and if put into the eyes, will wash out cobra venom and prevent blindness; and the fruit us used to make a liqueur called "Amarula" which looks like Baileys, tastes different and is great in coffee.
• Elephants like the Marula fruit too and will eat it when they can. Their digestive systems are so poor, that they cannot digest the seed, which they then distribute, ensuring the continuing populations of marula trees.
• And, as if that were not enough, elephants when they eat things other than Marula fruit, only digest about 30%. The rest is excreted and the dung looks mostly like a chunk of twigs; guess what, it gives the termites a head start. And, if the termites "bug" you, then a "smudge pot" of elephant dung will drive them away along with other bugs.

Now you see the picture, and I know what you're thinking, that's not Patton standing by Lyson holding the smoldering poo. He must have been too smart to fall for that one, right? Naah, you just can't see the smoke in that picture.