Tag: Kilimanjaro

That's So Raven

Well, Dan sure looks like he’s enjoying himself, eh? I’d be a little down in the mouth too, if I’d spent a bundle on a Kilimanjaro expedition and then had to spend it babysitting a kitten. Let’s see how Backpack Kitty “holds her own” vs. that white-necked raven. Quoth Wikipedia:

Most of this bird’s food is obtained from the ground…it has been seen to drop a tortoise from a height onto hard ground, preferably on rocks, and then swoop down to eat it, or even pick it up again if not sufficiently broken.

Maybe Dan was looking on waiting for Kitty to meet its fate (“It was an accident!“) and is annoyed that Summer has interrupted.

Con-tent-ment

Today the ever-erudite Batiuk tips the Funky fedora to Papa Hemingway. Say what you will about Summer (and you do!) at least she’s cheerful about camping in a snowstorm. No doubt that the other tent contains Les, swaddled in his sleeping bag in the fetal position, whimpering and cursing fate for having brought him here.

Ooh La Lava(tory)

It’s one of those “jokes” that makes sense only in print: “Lava” meaning molten rock is pronounced “lah-vah”, but I doubt that anyone pronounces “lavatory” as “lah-vah-tory”, even in Tanzania. I could be wrong.

It appears that the cartoonist is creatively spent after rendering the lush jungle landscape in Sunday’s strip: a Google Image Search for “Kilimanjaro lava tower” turns up images of an impressive, massive monolith. As drawn here it resembles a small slag heap.

Is It Safe? Is It Safe?

Today a couple of the porters, who for once are rendered as more than just black silhouettes, refill the traveler’s bottles with water from what looks like a fairly sophisticated, modern purification system. Yet Dan seems to doubt the system’s efficacy. “They say” the water’s safe…“still…” Does Dan think he came all this way, and paid all that money, just to be intentionally exposed to dysentery?