For a summer holiday destination, our hardworking colleague Casey Luskin selected South Africa and just sent along these cool vacation snaps. Casey and his wife got there by way of Dubai and had an opportunity to view the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa. These pictures were taken from a balcony on the 159th floor:

(Not really. It only has 163 floors to begin with.)

Casey sampled a Starbucks and weighed the merits of coffee in Seattle versus the United Arab Emirates:

(Conclusion: About the same.)

On arriving in South Africa, they had the opportunity to visit Kruger National Park — an obvious highlight of the trip. They saw:

Dueling rhinos:

An awfully cute baby rhino and its mom:

Impala:

Nyala:

Ayala:

(Not really, just rhymes with impala and nyala.)

Why did the baboons cross the road?

(Peer pressure.)

Giraffe:

Lions eating a giraffe:

(Not the same giraffe as pictured above, Casey assures us.)

One monkey scratching another:

A warthog enjoying a siesta:

Wildebeest, a/k/a gnu, doing what gnus do:

The world’s southernmost baobab tree:

(I see from the Kruger National Park website that the baobab tree is sometimes called the "upside down tree" because it looks as if the tree has been inverted, with its roots at the top instead of how you expect. Make of you think of anything? See pp. 371 ff. of Darwin’s Doubt.)

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