Memories Awakened By Old Photos

My first visit to Paris.

Dan and I have been going through old photos and we discovered these from the summer of 1976. We were heading to Africa for a summer of research on Lake Bosumtwi in Ghana with a stop in Paris on the way.  This would be my first trip to Paris.  While in Paris we visited with Hugues and Liliane Faure.  Hugues was the Director of the Laboratory of Quaternary Geology in France, and Dan had known him for a long time through their common research interests.    During our long weekend visit Hugues and Liliane took us to many lovely Parisian sites and to many restaurants where we had delicious French cuisine.  It was a lovely visit and for me a memorable introduction to this lovely couple and to Paris, a city I came to love.

Dan, and wth Hugues holding his son Olivier at Montmartre in Paris. (Photo by Liliane Faure.) 1976

Dan and I with Hugues at the Eiffel Tower. (Photo br Liliane Faure). 1976.

It is so nostalgic to reminisce.

Several years later Dan and I spent a summer of research at The Laboratory of Quaternary Geology in Luminy on the Mediterranean with the Faures.  More about that in another blog.

Past Travels: African Safari, Fall 2008

In the fall of 2008 Dan and I led a group of Duke University Alumni on safari in Kenya and Tanzania.  Here are some photos from that trip:

Crocodile sunning on shore (Photo taken with telephoto lens).

Elephant mother and baby.

Dancing with the villagers.

Game watching.

Slippery roads leaving the game park.

Dan and I were in the landrover that turned over.  Fortunately, we had the top closed because we were not going to be game-watching, and just a few minutes before we turned over I had asked if everyone had their seat belts on.  We all did and nobody was hurt.  Fellow travelers in the landrover behind us were able to get our top (which was now on the side) open and we crawled out. Using another landrover they managed to upright the vehicle, and we made our way on to Nairobi safely.

Giraffe browsing.

Mother with her baby.

Ostrich.

Water buffalo.

Tasted And Rejected by a Nile Crocodile

Dan the day after the crocodile attack.  Photo courtesy of Joe Richardson.

On November 11th each year we celebrate a special event.  It was on November 11, 1960 that my husband, Dan Livingstone, and Joe Richardson escaped from the jaws of a Nile crocodile.  Dan was a young research biologist at Duke University and Joe was his graduate student.  It was their first of many trips to Africa. 

Dan and Joe were in the middle of Lake Chishi, Zambia, in a rubber boat taking soundings of the lake (measuring the depth of the water at various positions) in preparation for taking cores of the lake for ecological study.  Suddenly a crocodile attacked, first scraping Joe across the buttocks.  Joe jumped in the water, and the croc came up under the boat. As Dan was trying to kick the croc away it grabbed Dan by the foot through the bottom of the boat.  Now the boat was sinking, but Dan managed to kick loose and he too joined Joe in the water.  Fortunately the crocodile was intent upon sinking the boat and stayed with the boat.  Joe and Dan swam for over two hours before safely reaching the shore.  Both have made many trips back to Africa in connection with their research without encountering another crocodile.

Dan in Africa in the early 1980s.

Dan, this September, enjoying a tour of Italy.

Dan and Joe are known as the "only ecologists who have been tasted and rejected by a Nile crocodile."