Africa Trip Report - Part 6

We are getting near the end of the Africa Reports. Only 2 more days after this...

MAY 16th
Our morning drive was really more of a drive than a wildlife safari. The hills and grasslands of the Savute Marsh are a nice change to the endless mopani trees we drove through to get here. We stopped at the San rock paintings and to be honest... they are a bit disappointing. Having been to the American southwest on multiple occassions and seen the large amount of indian rock paintings they have there makes this one little painting of a handful of animals seem ... underwhelming.

We did see some kudu and then some cute little dwarf mongoose sitting on a log trying to get warm in the morning sun. A handful of elephants, impala, and giraffe filled out the drive.

We stopped for lunch along the Linyanti River where our lunch mate was an elephant having a mudbath along the rivers edge. It wasn't much longer before we got to the Linyanti camp. This was a lovely camp with tents along the ede of the river. There was one tent that was set behind a tree which completely blocked the view of the river. Not sure why they set it up that way, but of course, we were assigned that one tent. Luckily, Richard was kind enough to switch tents with us so we could have a lovely view.

The afternoon game drive was around the Linyanti area with lots of elephants and mopani trees. We did see a rather HUGE African Eagle Owl. Holy cow, that is a large owl! We also got charged by an elephant momma. We were driving along the road when momma ele trumpets and flaps her ears off to the side. She and baby ele slowly back up away from us into the trees. After she had backed up quite a distance, we start up the truck and proceede onward. For some reason, that set off momma ele and next thing we know, she is running after us down the road. The cutest thing... her little baby ele was running right along with her. Eventually, they veered off into the trees and we headed to our sundowner spot for yet another fantastic african sunset!

On the way back to camp in the dark, we spotted a few more of the giant African Eagle Owls, one of which had pinned a guinea fowl on the road.

MAY 17th
The night was filled with tons of sounds.... lions in the distance and hippos outside our tent in the river. I just loved the sounds of Africa at night... an amazing symphony.

We left early for our morning game drive hoping to see some lions or wild dogs....but that wasn't to be. We did see lion and leopard tracks on the road, but they always seemed to be going the opposite direction we were headed.

We did see some cute warthogs, fighting impalas, a troop of baboons complete with momma and adorable little baby, kudu, a beautiful Bateleur Eagle, more irritated and charging elephants, and a hippo pool with about 12-13 hippos floating around.

After our siesta, we again headed out through the trees. Besides the ever present elephants, we saw some waterbuck and prancing impala.

After our sundowner, we saw some spring hare and scrub hares on road on the way back to camp and a lone hyena.

You can see all the Africa photos at my smugmug site.