im - 4/15/2008 12:15:00 PM

There aren't a lot of Surlies in South Africa. Paul has one though, and writes every once in a while to say hey. Today's email from Paul was special because it reflects a regional ..erm... flavor most of us won't relate to directly: "I took my young nephew riding at some nearby trails. You often see a troop of baboons there. There's another troop on the nearby peninsula that's famously crabby and always nicking tourists' food and leaving them with nasty scratches and cardiac arrests. While they are pretty adorable – beautiful ticked coats, intelligent eyes at the start of very long snouts, lovely black hand and foot leather – they are damned powerful and can snap your bones should they so choose. Anyway, the troop where we were doesn't seem bothered by cyclists, or maybe just not keen on granola bars and Go Juice, so you can just ride right past them. We had just passed a mother suckling 2 young as she looked for fleas and things in their coats and were watching some young ‘uns gambolling about when we noticed a large one up a tree at the side of the road. Another larger one scrambled up the bare pine trunk and joined it about 8 metres up. We had to pass right under them, and my nephew was looking a bit nervous (he's only 10), so I took the inside lane. Imagine my shock when I was assailed by a murky golden shower alighting on the forest floor one ‘q factor' away! I'm not sure the Lovely Ms would have welcomed me home if the bugger had hit." Nope, not a lot of baboons around here. But we do have lots of dog shit. So we have that going for us, which is nice. -----