Today we started our safari. We are traveling with 2 other Peace Corps volunteers, Shannon and Steve, and a group of 6 from Spain. The Spaniards don't actually know each other - they booked through the same travel agent who specializes in African travel. 2 more Spaniards will be joining us tomorrow.
We started by driving through Chobe National Park along the Chobe River. We saw hippos, baboons, kudu, impala, warthogs, impala, crocodiles, elephants, and a new one...giraffes! There were several females with younger males. The males have darker spots than females, but both get darker with age. The males also have black "horns" on their heads, while females have blonder, fluffier "horns". Oh, and their gestational period is 18 months, without a breeding season per say. No thanks.
We saw a large family of elephants sleeping in the shade. The larger ones cannot lay down because their heart will stop because they weigh too much. Instead, they will stand in the shade of a tree for up to 4 hours.
Everywhere you look there are dead trees because there are so many elephants here. Lucky (our guide) said that outside the park you are allowed to hunt them because the populations are so large - something I was not happy to hear. Even though the trees are dead, other animals can live in them, such as squirrels, mongooses and birds.
The road we drove on is very soft sand. We are in an open-air land cruiser, so we are pretty dusty and wind-blown. We picked up our baskets up at the park gate, so we'll have to smuggle them back in. :) We stopped on the side of the road to have lunch, along with tons of flies.
We eventually made it to Savuti, and drove around a little before we headed to our campsite. We got word of a leopard sighting, so we quickly headed toward the spot. He was very hard to see at first because in the middle of the day, the cats all sleep inside the bushes out of the sun. After a while, he finally came out of hiding, but he was still far away.
While we were sitting there, we happened to look behind us, and a large bull elephant was walking right behind our vehicle. He was so quiet, no one ever heard him. This area is known for the largest population of bull elephants.
We finally made it to our campsite and our tents were all set up for us. Tori and I are sharing a tent. You can see through the top and see all the stars - very pretty! It got very cold at night, so we got all bundled up in our beds. There were birds chirping as if it were morning, which got annoying after a while. In the middle of the night we were woken up by a low rumbling sound - elephants drinking out of the river behind our tents! (The guides also heard lions, but no one else did.)
Day 10: Monday, August 16th
We woke up early this morning to go on a game drive. It was freezing cold! My mom's little thermometer said it was 35ยบ! Yikes! We had to go out while it was still cold to have better odds of seeing cats. And lo and behold a leopard crossed the road right in front of us. But he got scared and ran off before we could get a picture. We said he was late for a lunch date. And of course there were more elephant herds and babies! And impala...everywhere. We decided that they are Botswana's equivalent of rabbits.
We had a coffee and snack break in the middle of an opening. There was a jackal off in the distance watching our every move! It was around this time that I finally started peeling off some layers and didn't need a blanket covering me in the land cruiser.
We started heading back to camp and saw a steenbok (the smallest antelope in Botswana) and wildebeest, or as they call them here...wild beest.
Back at camp we had a yummy brunch and then had some downtime. We all had our first experience with a camp shower, which is basically a bucket hanging from a tree with a shower nozzle on the bottom it. They also went to the Savuti airport, more like a slightly paved area with steps they roll up to the plane, to pick up the other 2 Spaniards.
At around 3:30 we headed out on another game drive. We stopped at a rocky hillside where we climbed up to see some rock paintings. We also saw some elephant bones. Elephants usually die when they're older because they have worn down their teeth and can no longer chew their food, and eventually die of starvation.
No new animal sightings, except for maybe some antelope - there are too many different types for me to keep track!
Just as the sun was setting we found another leopard. This time in a tree with his kill - a kori bustard (a giant bird that looks like a roadrunner). I'm not sure if my pictures turned out because the light was very low.
Another filling dinner with amazing dessert - chocolate bake! Hopefully it won't be as cold tonight!
Day 11: Tuesday, August 17th
This morning was not as cold as yesterday, but it was definitely still chilly! There were some visitors in camp during the night...there were leopard and hyena footprints! Glad they didn't try to get into anything!
We had to pack up camp after breakfast because we are on the move! We are headed to Khwai, which is still in Chobe National Park. It took about 5 hours on a very bumpy road. I'm talking Indian Jones style, flying off your seat and landing back down hard...over and over and over again. We ended up breaking off both shock mounts on the trailer and a cross-beam on the vehicle became un-welded. And the extra gas cans we had in the back started leaking because the lids blew off.
We stopped by the river to have lunch and we had company - 2 elephants bathing in the water. One even went all the way under so all you could see was his trunk sticking up out of the water. Then they started "dusting" themselves to help keep cool. Very neat to be so close and watch this.
We kept driving for a few hours after lunch until we got closer to Khwai. We thought it was funny when we crossed the bridge in Khwai and were reminded of the movie. We all started whistling in honor of it. We had to keep taking different roads because the water was too deep for the jeep to go through. There were many places where even a week ago there was no water, and now it is too deep to drive. Fortunately, because of one of our detours we got to check off another animal on our list...zebras! I was very happy because I was starting to wonder if we'd ever see any. Still no lions or cheetahs though!
We eventually ran out of options and had to go through deep water. We had to take all the bags out of the trailer in order to keep them dry. We made it across safely (and dry), and had one more obstacle before getting to camp - a log bridge. We had to walk across it because if there was too much weight, the logs will crack.
We finally made it to camp, which was set up next to water. (This ended up being my favorite campsite of the trip.) After a quick bathroom break, we went out on an evening game drive in search of lions. No such luck, but we watched a beautiful sunset and listened to the frogs. They sound like high-pitched metal chirps, instead of the normal frog sounds we're used to.
We headed back to camp, avoiding the resident baboons, and after another filling dinner, quickly fell asleep resting up for another long day.
