Thunderstruck

May 8, 2009

Last night, we were joined by an older English lady who works for a tour agency and was conducting a site visit. It became immediately clear that the managers were pulling out all the stops to impress her, including preparing a very delicious, very fancy meal.

One of the managers who used to be an executive chef in the wine region created a meal to send us out in style. We had an upscale version of eggplant parmesan, an incredible truffle risotto with “chicken supreme” and a lemon tart with orange sorbet.

After dinner outside on the deck, we retired to the bar area and conducted a fairly reserved and polite conversation – much different from the previous night’s Britney-fueled antics. The English lady retired first, followed by the French honeymooners. Again, it was just Charlotte York, our cute ranger, one of the gay managers and me, enjoying some wine and discussing South African culture and politics.

We also teased the cute ranger about how the annoying Frenchy was so overt about her crush on him. Charlotte York caught her gently placing her hand over his during the morning drive and we enjoyed ribbing the cute ranger about the way she tried to entrap him with her red lipstick and her chunky-heeled shoes.

And earlier in the day, I found that the annoying Frenchy had left her camera behind. After doing the right thing and turning it into management, I had the brilliant brainstorm of taking the camera and deleting all her pictures of our cute ranger. Oftentimes, I wish my brain worked just a bit faster.

While we were hanging out, an impressive thunderstorm rolled in. With each flash of lightning, the entire night sky lit up in all directions and it began to pour hard. Being from San Francisco, Charlotte York and I just enjoyed the weather and took in the African rains. Most amazing was the strong, clean smell of the rain.

When the storm let up a bit, we went to bed. While Charlotte York was still ready to party, I was fading fast and had to play the role of party pooper. In the end, I think it was for the best since we again had to wake up at 5:30 this morning for our last game drive.