Lilacs and Memories
Two reasons why safaris aren’t just about seeing the Big Five — lions, leopards, rhinos, Cape buffalo, and the African elephant.
We met a couple from Wisconsin during our safari. They’d come to celebrate fifty years of marriage, having been on safari in Botswana years before with their three children.
They’d just returned from their first day of game drives and she was eager to share a story of joy. She explained how the Lilac Breasted Roller bird had been one of the most brilliant animals she’d seen in Botswana, then told us that she’d seen another Roller during the afternoon.
She shared with us how the experience had brought back vivid, meaningful memories of family time spent years before in the bush.
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One of the first animals we saw on safari was indeed the Cape buffalo … but it wasn’t a buffalo in its prime leading a herd or mothering a newborn. It was an old animal, no longer of use to its herd, banished to the plain’s fringe with others of its kind.
Our guide named him “Old Soldier.”
I wondered about all the battles he’d won and lost over the years — and how much time he had left.
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