OK, let’s try this again — lost the whole entry earlier

OK, I’ll try again, now that I have cussed and sulked for a few hours. Words cannot express how much I HATE this damn laptop!! I told you all about our very lovely day at Bottlierskop (bottle cap hill) game reserve. We got there for the 10:00 game drive, but Marita stayed in the lodge because she’s still recovering from her 7-week flu (her doc said 5-week, but I remember some of my friends and it’s more like 7). We saw gnus, including a golden gnu; impala; Cape Mountain and Burchell’s (now called Plains) zebra; rhinos; giraffes; elephants; lions; cape buffalo; eland; waterbuck, bontebok, two blue crane couples (they mate for life and is the national bird of SA). . . maybe that’s it. A beautiful day, but damn cold up on the mountains. We met a lovely couple from New Jersey and had fun talking to them. They said they would follow our blog, so I hope that’s true. She also said she’d buy my book, Cruisin’ Passion Boulevard, and I certainly hope she does that! It’s on Amazon (plug, plug). Our guide was fantastic — a great wealth of knowledge about the animals we were seeing and we learned quite a bit of new information even after all the game drives we’ve been on.
When we got back, we went up to the main lodge for lunch. What a beautiful place it is! I want to live there. And if I can’t, I want to have a bathroom like theirs. It is the BEST bathroom ever! You walk into an anteroom, with a sofa and chairs, a large shower room off to the left and the handwashing station ahead. The next left are the toilet rooms, men to the left, women to the right. After washing your hands, you take the terrycloth towels and then throw them into this antique thing that looks like a trough and looks like it was originally used for something to do with cooking or agriculture; lovely piece. Over the sinks, another one was turned upside down and copper pendant lights hang from it. Of course there is lovely soap and hand lotion. I love this bathroom! I made Marita come let me show it to her as soon as we got to the dining room.
So we started with drinks and I had a sex on the deck, which is vodka, peach shnapes (god, I can’t spell anything anymore!), tropical fruit punch and whatever else. Ohso yummy. Basically I’m just going to tell you about my lunch because mine was the most interesting. Laird had Italian food (really?!?) and Marita had curry. But I had springbok carpaccio (I gotta learn how to spell this if I’m going to keep having it) and it was mouthwateringly delicious. Then Chef’s Venison Platter, which was crocodile, ostrich, something, warthog and kudu. Crocodile tastes like alligator tastes like chicken. Ostrich, ehhh. OK, but nothing special. The thing I can’t remember was good, but the warthog and kudu were superb! You have to feel very sorry for yourself if you haven’t had it — well, I guess you vegetarians get to skip that feeling. It’s a blessing that warthog doesn’t taste like it looks! After one last trip to the women’s room, we were ready for the trip home. Marita and I walked down the walk to the car while Laird came by the stairs. He reported seeing a small buck, bigger than a dikdik, smaller than an impala. I rushed up the stairs to see and there he was, such a lovely little animal, with stripes down his sides. Marita said it sounded like a cape rebok so that’s what we’re saying we saw.
After writing all this much more entertainingly the first go-round and finishing my cussing and feeling sorry for myself and a lovely visit from Noekie, here I am at the end again. It’s night here, almost time for bed, so goodnight one and all. Oh, I forgot to say: zebra, particularly cape mt zebra because they are smaller, are called pajama donkeys. Everyone knows the Big Five, but today we learned about the Big Ugly Five: hyena, warthog, maribou stork, vulture and gnu. Personally, I would take out the birds and put in rhino and hippo. Anyway, that’s it for us. Oh. We tried to put in a picture of the baby giraffe, but then we lost stuff so I’m afraid to try. Think we’ll try a new entry for pics.