Jet-Lag and Sleep-Dep

Greetings, gentle readers.
After a fitful night's rest at what was until recently a Holiday Inn in Johannesburg and a pursuant two and a half hour's trek northward toward desert, wilderness, and general bush territory, what we find is this:
Apparently, following up a marathon series of flights and activities across the globe with a series of early mornings and late nights is a poor idea.  When the driver arrived to convey the three of us north to Pilanesberg, I was muddled enough to think that we were going to do some kind of trendy yoga somewhere, and that the driver had introduced himself as "End-Row."  I thought it was some sort of cute sports nickname.
Well, the driver's name is actually Andrew, and the most famous yoga performed in Pilanesberg was probably some sort of breath-control and wriggling contortion exercise performed by the many miners lost in countless cave-ins in the subterranean platinum mines that dot the landscape.

The less-glamourous side of Sun City.

Pilanesberg and Rustenburg are smack in the middle of some of the richest platinum deposits on Earth.  Historically, whenever there is valuable stuff in an inherently dangerous place, a vast economic discrepancy manifests.  Poor, hungry folk end up scampering around in perilous danger, and slobberingly rich owners earn fantastic profits on their investments.
Pilanesberg is the fourth-largest national park in South Africa, and Rustenberg is the home of the only private venue of the 2010 World Cup.  It's therefore appropriate that, immediately adjacent to this conflict between ecological conservation and resource exploitation on a Norilsk-scale is Sun City, the Las Vegas of the southern hemisphere, and a poster city for decadent excess.  But I can save my rants about unionization, xenophobia, and the Royal Bafokeng for a later time.
Anyone who has worked with me at Castle Rock should recognize the name Hartbeespoort.  I wrote a series of science and biology items on hypereutrophication.  I expounded upon the causes, symptoms, and stages of eutrophication.  Now I've actually seen the bright green scum that fills the lake.  My pictures thus far don't do it justice, so I'll revisit this topic after I've got better photographic evidence.
Anyway, made it to Bakubung Bush Lodge along a number of roads that have been equipped with toll-collecting equipment that hasn't yet been activated (and won't be if people will heed the example of southern Ontario and avoid privatizing roads) and past motorists that were very courteous and communicative.
In South Africa, if you're driving a slower vehicle, or are uncomfortable travelling as quickly as the speed limit suggests, you pull to the left margin of the road and activate your hazard lights to let people behind you know that they can pass you.  Those that pass blink their four-way lights in return to thank you for your magnanimity.  And in this simple way, road rage is made a distant and alien concept.  Everyone expresses respect and acknowledges the graciousness of their fellow motorists, rather than gunning them down.
Finally, I spent the waning hours of the day in a bush vehicle, chasing the "Big 5" animals of South Africa and trying to capture them photographically.  I'll probably publish a full album of this stuff, but I'll try and hit you with a couple of tasters.

The original source of the Vuvuzela, the B-flat kudu.

If you look really closely, you can see a rising full moon.

Like all mammals, these things have seven vertebrae.  Yes, evolution is a cute thing.

Our accommodations here are spartan, but tolerable.  The weather is quite agreeable from a Canadian point of view, but chilly and inhospitable according to the native population.  As I head off to bed, daunted by the 0430h early morning alarm that is to rouse me and send me back into the bush for some more safari fun, I'll let you have a look at the meagre surroundings that cushion me to sleep.

Until next time, good night England and the colonies.
—mARKUS