We saw many of the same animals and birds.
Then they spotted some wart hogs on a termite mound and headed there. As we approached, the typical thing with these hogs happened. They saw us, the five, seems there are always five, and ran away. Mom first, three kiddies, and big daddy. Seems we usually only see them from a distance, and only their ass ends.
We approached the mound and stopped. We then noticed a large old hog with his head sticking out of a hole, and three others in another hole. Covered in dirt/dust. Eventually two more bolted and headed "for the hills". Boy can they run. And finally big daddy got out, stared us down and split. Very cool. Same old animal, new experience.
Further down the road we enter a field with elephants. Yup, another elephant story. We can across two adolescents. The older of the two postured with us, mock charged, we didn't budge. The younger one seemed to just eat and play and copy the older sibling.
We drove ahead further and came across the rest of the herd. There were a couple of really small young ones. Now they started backing off slowly. A couple of the bigs ones staring us down and trumpeting. Scary noise. As we watched, they pushed the young ones back a bit and other other ten or so formed a straight line across us fro left to right, most of them facing us. Then they froze in their tracks and went silent. Some of them with their trunks high up in the air. Smelling us we were told.
As I type I hear the grunts of the hippos outside my window. Cool.
Anyway, they then did a mock charge in unison. Very scary. All these beasts charging at once, will they stop. We started the jeep and were ready to bolt, but they stopped. Turned around and left. Same old animals, new experience.
After sundowners, on our way back to camp, with the the lights on and PD shining the big light left, then right, then up into the trees, then back - searching for any predators that may be lying in wait - when we spotted these two green eyes in the woods. Off road we went, as always, on the chase to see what this was. We found it, a small cat, we think it was a Caracal.
Back at camp as we drank at the bar awaiting dinner, off the deck in the water we here a grunt and the splash. One of the guides flashes a light. And there it was, a huge huge hippo coming up to our lounge. We are told he visits this time every night. He was huge. He was then spooked and I couldn't believe how an animal this size could turn on a dime and get back in the water. A few seconds later blow water from his nose out into the night air.
We were then told that a leopard visited the bar three days ago while the bartender was cleaning up. He froze, stood still, ie froze, stared him down until the leopard left. That is what you are supposed to do. Only food runs. We were also told he did a uniform change after that.
We were also told this is the camp to view wild dogs. A couple of weeks ago while all the jeeps were out looking for them. They came to camp and killed an impala right there off the bar deck. Staff called the trackers to let them know what they were looking for was right here at camp. They raced back.
We met a lovely couple from Malaysia, Sindy and Basil. I hope i spelled their names correctly. They are on a pretty big adventure of there own. They are Nikon people. Gotta love Nikon people. lol
We've heard many stories, tomorrow we make more of our own.
