Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Guides

While my guide on the Zomba plateau was excellent, he reminded me of some not so excellent guides I had on previous trips.

A couple of conversations with our guide on Mulanje:
“What kind of flower is that?”
“That’s a wildflower.”
“Do you know what kind of wildflower?”
“A red wildflower. It’s often confused with the orange wildflower.”

“Wow! What kind of bird is that?!”
“An eagle.”
(already knowing I shouldn’t ask) “What kind of eagle?”
“A flying eagle.”

Our guide at Nyika identified a suspicious number of birds as Ogre Buzzard.
"What’s that?"
"Ogre Buzzard."
(completely different looking bird) "Wow, what kind of bird is that?"
"Ogre Buzzard."
After the 4th one Nick and I stopped asking.

3 comments:

Bcbrady said...

Conor,

Ah, people in glass houses should never throw stones! If only you had left out the quite certain assertion that the mongoose is only found in Africa!

Love,

brendan

Conor said...

What if I go and delete that part now? Where else are they? I hope you don't say NY state.

Unknown said...

Mongooses are distributed throughout North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Asia living in a variety of habitats from forests to open woodland, savanna, semi-desert and desert. Chiefly terrestrial, some are aquatic or semi-arboreal.
love,
Mom