Godzilla

 This is the Boulton’s Namib Day Gecko. 

This gecko finds a baobab tree and just wants to live there alone. But other small reptiles will try and invade the tree and this gecko has to stop eating leaves and bugs to defend its tree. As an introvert I often feel like this gecko. Traveling with your family is fun but sometimes you just want your own fricken tree and for everyone else to stay off it. So as Karen, Jim, and my mother go look at super old rocks I have elected to stay behind. It is almost 2pm and 85° in the shade and I just wasn’t feeling it. We had a wonderful morning with elephants and giraffes (a future post) and I am now relaxing in our outdoor campground and enjoying the breeze. 

This is the giant plated lizard. 

This lizard lives in small family groups and is very protective of them. It is one of the most stubborn lizards because when threatened it simply inflates its body between two rocks and wedges itself in so nothing could pull it out no matter how hard they tried. I am stubborn and love my family so I also relate to this lizard. Unfortunately everyone else in my family has those two traits as well so there are often at least two navigators and one consultant. Sometimes I feel bad for our driver that has to listen to us debate the differences between the phone map and the paper map and whether the road is called C56 or D1975. For the record both maps are fine and work well but both are hard to figure out sometimes. 

This is the Namib Rock Agama. 

They live in large family groups of 10+. We have a close family unit of around that but we don’t all live together like they do (although with all the places we stay and the other guests there it feels like it). But both the males and females are wonderfully unique. So much so that they look like different kinds of lizards and that is what I can relate to. I wonder if one of them likes to eat pink bugs every morning at breakfast. I wonder if a few of them let out a horrible caterwauling that they call song or if some of them need dark liquid before they fully wake up. Leaves a lot to the imagination doesn’t it? 

So as I sit here on my rock of choice (a couch) I consider reptiles. There are things I can relate to in all of them even Godzilla. I can understand being woken up and wanting to destroy whatever caused it. But I would never want to be a lizard. Because they are solitary creatures by nature and despite the arguments, the endless singing, the grumpiness after being in the car all day, and the endless tirade of pink pills and bowel talk; I love my dumb lizard family. And I wouldn’t want to take this trip without them.