Ever since we have been together my wife has enjoyed doing the NY Times Crossword puzzles. She can even do the impossible Saturday one. I have never been into the puzzles but one day when I had some time I looked at one (it was a Monday and thus the easiest one) and lo and behold I finished it in about 30 minutes! Now I can’t stop doing them (unless they are the really hard ones – hey I am still a rookie). What I do love is the African clues and many times there seems to be one in the puzzle.

Last night my wife was tackling the Sunday puzzle and 69 down had the clue “A Starchy staple of Africa.” It was for a 3 letter word. We were both stumped. Know the answer? Well it turns out, [of course!] to be a yam. Yes, yams are very plentiful in Africa.

What many people don’t know is that a yam is not the same as a sweet potato. Authentic yams are white-fleshed, starchy tubers that come from Africa. They have rough, scaly skin and are long – some can grow up to seven feet in length-and are cut and sold in sections. They do not have a sweet taste but a starchy taste. I have good recipes for sweet potatoes. Does anyone know any good recipes for yams?

OK here is a question. Which is more expensive – a trip to New York or a Safari in Africa? If you think Africa guess again. A day in NY is more expensive per person than a day on Safari. A typical safari day will cost between $450 and $550 per person per day (yes you might find cheaper ones but as I said in my prior blog on costs make sure there are no hidden costs). Let’s look at the cost of a typical New York vacation day.

And seriously which one offers the sights you would rather see?

Don’t think that animals in the wild will eat anything.  Sometimes they can have very discerning palate.

In South Africa an orange farmer was constantly perplexed when year after year a troop of baboons would descend from the mountain on his orange groves and out of thousands of orange trees to choose from would always go to one particular tree and strip it completely of all of its fruit yet would not touch another tree.

The farmer had no explanation for this and finally decided he had to find out why.  He discovered that it was different variety from all the other trees he had with fruit that was sweeter and ripened earlier than the other trees in his orchard.  He later discovered that he had a brand new variety of a mineola orange!