Stars, wireless providers and a safari

The funny thing about the southern hemisphere is that the stars are actually different. You look up at night, see a zillion stars and then you realize you are on the other side of the planet.

Back on earth, this afternoon we had a very promising meeting with the largest local wireless provider -- if we can get them to work with us on this project, it would be a major windfall. I think the meeting went really well; the head of their regional marketing group liked our ideas, spent more than an hour with us and agreed to help us out initially. We'll see whether they come through or not, but it looked good.

Elsewhere on planet earth, this morning my little team got a special treat. Those two lovely SAP (South African Police officers) husband and wife couple, Ozzie and Cornelia took us to a private game reserve. We had to promise not to disclose the name or location because it's the private property of some gazillionaire they know -- he has more than 200 rhino (each of which cost about 200,000 rand) not to mention Kudu, Giraffe, buffalo, warthog and roan antelope...to mention a few. The owner of this private reserve protects these rhino by removing the horns -- this way, poachers are disinterested. He also makes sure the property is free of predators that would harm them. It was simply incredible. We were just a few feet away from these animals.

At one point the rhino actually charged me and Anil...we thought we were done. but it was just trying to intimidate us (it worked) and it stopped short of us by a few feet -- a thin wooden fence was between us. Gulp.

Here are the rest of my photos from today.