Wow! What a week!

Nile Crocodile

I have to start by talking about my adventure on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. I’ve been wanting to go to Chobe National Park in Botswana for a while, and I finally went this week with one of the volunteers. Chobe is just stunning. The landscape is so beautiful, and extremely different to Mosi-Oa-Tunya. There is a wide variety of different ecosystems, allowing you to move between different places and find very different species. There is plains, river, forest, grassland, scrubland and sandy desert-like areas. The landscape is just fantastic, and the wildlife certainly matches! Our total species count for the 2 days: lions, zebra, giraffe, elephants, hippos (one of which got very grumpy at us), crocodiles, monitor lizards, impala, steenbok, jackals (they were super cute!), waterbuck, sable antelope, kudu, puku, cape buffalo, leopard tortoise (unfortunately we didn’t find any actual leopards…), striped mongoose, slender mongoose, squirrel, vervet monkey, baboon, sand snake (found because it slithered into my shoe while I was wearing it), dung beetles (and a million other insects that I don’t know what they were), African hoopoe, African fish eagle, African sacred ibis, goliath heron, little egret, cattle egret, Western great egret, African spoonbill, malachite kingfisher, pied kingfisher, white backed vulture, lappet-faced vulture, cormorant, African darter, kori bustard, squacco heron, African openbill, African jacana, marabou stork, yellow-billed stork, Egyptian goose, yellow-billed kite, swift, Southern ground hornbill, red-billed oxpecker, blacksmith lapwing, helmeted guineafowl, Southern-banded snake eagle, Lizard buzzard, African goshawk, Cape turtle-dove, Grey Go-away bird, white-browed coucal, swallow-tailed bee-eater, lilac-breasted roller, Southern yellow-billed hornbill, Southern red-billed hornbill, Africa Grey hornbill, African pied wagtail, Cape starling, and many many many others that I either couldn’t identify or have forgotten! Phew! That was a pretty decent list! Unfortunately the 3 things that I really wanted to see were leopard, painted dog and hyena, of which we saw no sign bar a few hyena footprints. Particularly frustrating was that apparently there has been a family of painted dogs living by the gate to the park for over 2 weeks, and they disappeared the day before we arrived! But then that’s what makes it interesting - if you could guarantee seeing animals, then it would be a zoo trip not a safari. Our guide “Captain” was fantastic. He tried so hard to find us what we wanted to see, and even he was surprised at how few animals were out on the second day, but based on that species list we still can’t really complain! Neither day went totally smoothly. Firstly, I had an argument with the Zambian border staff that were saying that my visa expired 2 and a half months ago… No my initial 30-day business visa expired then, but I bought a Temporary Employment Permit so I really am allowed to be in the country I promise! Once that was sorted we made it through to the safari. We started off with a boat cruise, on which we saw plenty on wildlife, including a male hippo who was not happy about us being there. He dived underwater and we could just see this trail in the water as he came very fast towards us, and then leapt right up out of the water in a mock charge! We got out pretty fast… If we hadn’t, I reckon he could have tipped the boat! Oops! The rest of the day was fine, apart from the fact that it chucked it down for about an hour, so all the animals hid and we got very wet! Still it was a great first day. We arrived at our campsite (already set up for us) around 6:45, ate dinner, then tucked into bed. Having seen no lions all day, they started roaring not far away during dinner. Very cool to go to sleep hearing lions roaring to each other. We saw them the next morning (thankfully not in our camp) but they were from a distance. We watched for a while to see if they would hunt, but they stayed where they were. 2 of the females played together though which was good to see. We saw frustratingly few animals on the second day - even Captain couldn't believe how little there was out, and near the end he just turns to us and goes "I've looked everywhere  for you, I don't know where else to go". Also rather annoying was that our truck broke down, so for about 2 hours we were driving around with an engine making so much noise that the animals we did see were always running away... We eventually broke down completely just as we were getting back towards camp for lunch, so our chefs came out to help, and after finding that they couldn't tow us, they shuttled us 2 at a time back to the camp. Having said that, however frustrating it may have been it was still an amazing trip and I have no doubts that I'll be heading over again at some point! 

African Fish Eagle

Angry Hippo

Monitor Lizard

Waterbuck

Baby impala!

Family road crossing

Vervet Monkey

Baby jackals playing

Elephant by the river

A pretty fantastic sunset!

My first ever wild lions

By the river

Our very shy sable antelope!

All in a row

Hello!

Southern Ground Hornbill

Steenbok

Face paints

Moustache...

Painting some very excited faces!

The rest of the week has been pretty fun. Monday was all about the lions, doing Dambwa Research followed by by Feeding and Enclosure Cleaning. We cleaned out the pool and removed all the bones and poo in the 8 lion enclosure. I love feeding the lions - they always sound so happy and they make the most fantastic noise. Thursday and Friday I was on Elephant Research and Elephant IDs. We saw a few elephants, but not the super herds of the past couple of weeks. However the elephants we did see included individuals that were definitely present in the massive herds, which would suggest that it has broken up into the old smaller herds. Sierra remains my favourite elephant. While I think big tusks are very impressive on elephants, her lack of tusks just makes it look she's smiling! She's so cute! Kids Club yesterday was fun. No lesson plan again, so we were just playing with the children and having fun with them. Started off with tennis and badminton with a little girl who simply handed me the racquet as soon as I was off the truck, then we started a skipping game with a long rope. We were going to play some volleyball, but it was so hot and humid that no one wanted to even stand in the sun, let alone run around in it! Then we got the face paints out... Oh my goodness! I've never seen them so excited! I spent over an hour sat on the floor just painting cheeks, hands and arms with random patterns! Thankfully they mostly just wanted flowers or stars which made things much simpler. Once I'd painted one lion though? Everyone wanted lions and elephants! I got so totally covered in paint, including a green moustache and beard thanks to the researcher getting hold of the paints! Couldn't he have been slightly more creative?! Yesterday afternoon was back with the lions doing another Feed and Clean session. However, the feed wasn't quite ready... Also known as the donkeys being fed to the lions were still alive...! It was quite lucky that all 7 of us had to be on the same activity, as only some of us were able to handle it... The handlers shot 2, and then we went and helped out with the chopping. So I've now completely butchered a donkey almost by myself! My one was pregnant which was quite sad, but the lions will appreciate that, especially Toka if he gets it! When we were done with butchering, we went and joined the others who had started cleaning while we finished. Being slightly covered in blood, the lions did find me very interesting to follow and sniff through the fence! We fed Toka and Bemba, Temi and Bisa, and the 6 lions in Etosha enclosure. 

Sierra, F52 - Such a cutie!

LE1