My brother and I grew up watching Jacques Cousteau and Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. We’d see Philippe don a wetsuit so thick he looked like a walrus and go diving under the arctic ice, or watch Jim wrestle an anaconda while Marlin Perkins narrated from the safety of his helicopter. Sometimes, on Sundays after church, we’d watch ABC’s Wide World of Sports where cliff divers would plunge form dizzying heights or Jerry Lopez would thread the tubes of the pipeline. On Saturdays after cartoons were over, we’d flip through the cable channels until we found an old movie like The Bridge On The River Kwai. Once a month, National Geographic would come and introduce us to incredible far away places all over the world. In Cambodia, they have an ancient city crumbling beneath a rainforest canopy. In Indonesia, they have an island with lizards so big they eat goats and buffalo!
We were in awe of all these things, but never really dreamed of seeing them ourselves. I had only been on a plane once by the time I graduated from high school, and I didn’t take my first flight to a foreign country until I was 38. These places seemed exotic, far way, and unreachable.
Today, I’ve been to 27 different countries and spent well over a year of my life exploring the globe. I’ve visited those massive lizards on Komodo Island, and explored the ruined cities of the Ankor Wat complex in Cambodia. One night in Thailand, I was talking to some English travellers over dinner. The next morning, I walked across the bridge on the River Kwai. It turned out, as the Englishman informed me, that just by chance, I was only a few miles away from that bridge I’d seen in those old movies on cable so many years earlier. I’ve lived a life I would never have imagined, even twelve years ago, when at 42, I thought my best years were behind me.
But all these places, and all these sights, and all these experiences, risk seeming mundane after a while. Do I really need to spend a night in Addis Ababa just to get to Madagascar? ADDIS ABABA! Ho hem, how much more time are we going to spend watching this leopard sleeping in a tree. A LEOPARD SLEEPING IN A TREE! Let’s not stop for that Zebra. I’ve seen a million of them. A ZEBRA!
I find myself forgetting to be in awe, but if I stop to remind myself of where I am and what I’m seeing, I AM still in awe. I’m standing on the Skeleton Coast in Namibia. A graveyard of ships where elephants and lions roam the beaches. I’m 10 feet away from the biggest lioness I’ve ever seen. We’re staring each other in the eyes and she could be on me in less than a second if she wanted. I’m on the fourth largest island in the world where an obscure branch of primates went its own evolutionary way 60 million years ago and spawned over 111 species found nowhere else in the world but on this island.
Sometimes I find myself forgetting to be in awe, but I should be in awe of every experience every day. We all should be! 3.5 billion years ago a simple organism spawned millions of descendant species on a single planet in a single solar system in a single galaxy that stands in a universe of well over 100 billion galaxies.
Sometimes I have to remind myself to be in awe. I'm standing on the skeleton coast in Namibia, halfway around the world from where I was born. Ten feet away, I'm staring into the eyes of an animal that could eat me. I'm the product of 3.5 billion years of evolution in a single galaxy out of billions. I'm in the places that Jacques Cousteau and National Geographic introduced me to almost 50 years ago. I AM IN AWE!
One of the creatures I've really been in awe of throughout this trip is the elephant.
The babies can get super cheeky like this one charging our vehicle.
There's clearly something going on in that enormous brain of theirs.
Even their mothers and other relatives can't help, but ponder how ugly baby baboons are.
But, when they reach this stage, they are really cute. It's very entertaining to watch a bunch of baboons this age play with each other. One of the best shows on Safari TV.
Juvenile baboons train for a chance to challenge for leadership with a rigorous daily routine of pushups.
Sometimes, being completely insane is better than being strong. As Darwin wrote, "Nature is a struggle in which the most insane triumph." The Descent of Primates, and Selection in Relation to Insanity is one of his lesser known works. If you haven't read it, it's a must read.
Bat-eared foxes are cute at any age. And Cool! They can hunt scorpions under the sand at night by hearing alone.
You might think you're safe from crocodile attack if the river seems completely dried up. Think again!
Staring into the eyes of a lion, you have to wonder what they're thinking.
Then again, sometimes it is perfectly clear what they are thinking.
This impala hopes the lions aren't thinking about him.
Lions can even bring down eland, the largest of the antelope species.
Birdwatching in Africa is very popular.
On the left, a helmeted guinea fowl enjoys some leisurely bird watching.
Birdwatching is ok for guinea fowl, but I enjoy watching the sunsets. There are too many little birds I can never find among the foliage. "What do you mean you can't see it? It's right there!" So far, I'm pretty good at finding the sun.
Go away, bird! (That's a joke for the birders out there.)
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