SAFARI – DAY 6 (Moremi Game Reserve, Botswana; mobile tent camp)

 

Woke up at 3 AM (well, we do go to bed at 9 PM and I can only sleep so many hours) and lay for two hours listening to the hippos and a hyena around the camp.  At 4:30 AM I smelled the staff start up the cooking fire in the camp kitchen and at 5 AM I watched a staff guy walk into our camp with a huge flashlight, chasing a hyena out of camp.  Toto, I am not in Kansas anymore.

TRIVIA ANSWER: How far do hippos typically travel in a night? 10 kilometers

We got up and dressed in the dark by the moonlight that came into the tent windows, went outside to wash up (that’s as far as we are allowed to go until the staff sets out all the lanterns and gives us the OK).  Let’s see, what should I wear today?  Hmmmm, put on some clean clothes?  But why?  My clothes from yesterday aren’t really stinky – so I’ll wear the same stuff.

By 5:45 AM we stood in the dining tent (the side facing the pond is completely open) and watched three hippos who were up on the bank grazing.  They were amazing to watch.  The guides kept a close lookout to make sure we were safe.  What a way to start the day.  By 6:30 AM we were off on a game drive – in general, we spend 6-7 hours a day on game drives.

Drove back to the impala first thing.  The impala was not there but tracks showed that hyenas ate some of it and then dragged the rest off to the reeds, where we saw a huge crocodile, which probably ate the rest.  New sightings for today:  hyena, crocodile, really large storks (6’ wing span), and finally, a lioness.  We’ve decided to do a dung montage, so my sister is taking dung photos.  We starting to get a good collection, too.  Had a tea break in the bush at 10 AM (tea, coffee, and cookies served on the hood of the Land Rover).  Learned how giraffes mate and how they give birth (I asked because I was trying to figure out the physics of how they handle the heavy front end of the males on top of the relatively light-weight hind end of the females).  It turns out that the male practically stands upright on his hind feet and only lightly rests his front legs on the female.  And when giving birth, the amniotic sack does not break until the baby is dropped on the ground – it helps to cushion the fall.

Interestingly enough, the hyena we spied resting in the grass looked kind of cute and fluffy.  She was alone and just sitting in the dry grass and had a gash under one eye.  She eventually just laid down and instantly became invisible.

On the afternoon game drive, we finally saw zebra and saw some kudu really up close.  Had to drive through some deeply flooded roads – water up to the floor boards.  Luckily these vehicles are built for this with an air intake like a snorkel that is mounted on the corner of the windshield.

In general, this tour group is a very good group of people – there are 16 of us.  No complainers, no whiners, no constantly-late people.  There are a few birders, so they tend to flock together in one game truck and the rest of us mammal people tend to herd together in the other truck.  The birders reading this are probably sighing with dismay when they see stuff like “a whole bunch of birds.”  We are encouraged to move around between the trucks and to sit in different seats on each drive so I actually sat in the birder truck a few times.  Very different focus when looking at wildlife, but interesting.  On one game drive we stopped near an elephant with a baby and the birders were all excited about some birds on the other side of the truck.  So they spent the time busily looking in their bird books and looking at the birds, while I gazed at the elephant.  Talk about ignoring the elephant in the room!  At least there was plenty to look at for everyone.

DUST!  Everywhere.  A fine dust finds its way into places I never knew could get dusty.  Really everywhere – all over my camera, in my ears, up my nose, covering my shoes, embedded in my clothes – you get the idea.  I’ve given up being clean or unsticky – between the heat, the sunscreen, and the insect repellent, I just always feel sticky.  On the other hand, although I get sweaty, the sweat and my clothes dry so fast that they don’t seem to get stinky.  So we are wearing the same clothes for two and three days at a time – most everyone is doing the same.  I should’ve packed fewer clothes.

TRIVIA QUESTION:  Which three animals are amble walkers (they move both left legs and then move both right legs, unlike horses and cows)?  I’ll give you a clue: animals that are significantly heavier in the front are amble walkers.  Answer in tomorrow’s post.