Our guide set us up for low expectations of seeing much wildlife in Chobe National Park this morning. Seems the giraffe, elephants and cape buffalo stay inland until the warmer part of the day when they amble down to the river for a drink and the sandy tracks for vehicles don't go into the bush. So I sat back content to take photos of the moon over African skies followed by the dramatic rise of the sun.
Was I surprised when our driver Motumba took a left turn and circled back to where a leopard was napping in the neck of bare tree branches. As we arrived he yawned (just an assumption) stretched and sat up to look our way. Then he gracefully scurried down the tree and off into the woods.
On our way out of the park gates we all were sharing our excitement about our amazing leopard sighting as we gazed down the valley at cape buffalo arriving at the Chobe river when just in front of us a lioness was meandering along the soft sand tracks. A shared shhhhh hung over our jeep as we sidled up beside her. As if stopping to say hello she sat down and turned to gaze at us. Just then another jeep arrived having received radio contact from Motumba. With purpose she dashed across the road and prowled through the bush as if stalking prey while we drove along beside her (and I pressed the right button on my video recorder!). Satisfied that we'd gotten the best photographs, we scooted on our before being doused with the dust of the half-dozen vehicles coming to see our lion sighting.
Okay, this all happened before breakfast! And every time we think we've seen more amazing scenes than we could possibly imagine, we see something more spectacular. In the afternoon Joan and I took a walk along the river and saw some of the locals catching fish. I've attached some photos of the human sightings that are to me as colorful as the animals.
In the evening we went on another sunset river cruise which was much more dramatic than the night before – the animals but not the sunset. On most days of this trip I've had trouble narrowing down the photos but today was absolutely the hardest!
In addition to the dramatic animals, today we saw a number of Roan Antelope that are very rare and horselike and also a puku which now can only be found in Botswana. And this evening we saw at least 1000 elephants. Evidently many are immigrating from Angola (to avoid the landmines of civil war) and Zimbabwe to escape the poachers that the political turmoil allows. These are incredibly intelligent animals! And they are kind, too. We saw a herd gathered at the waterfront and when another herd arrived they all moved aside so the others could drink. I think we could all learn a lot about world peace by being more elephantlike!
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