Dustland Wonderland

The next day we got up early again for another game drive. It was less hot, but only because the sun hadn't fully risen; even without the sun we could tell that rain was on the way. The air was muggy and the sky was cloudy. Breakfast and coffee are served right away in the morning, so for about the first half hour of the game drives everyone is awake and alert. Then, as an hour or two pass, people drift off and wake up only when a fuss is being made about an animal. It is very pleasant to space out in the trucks and watch the landscape go by. On this morning, however, my morning game nap was interrupted by rain. The guides got out and rolled down the clear plastic flaps over the open sides of the truck to try and keep out the rain. No luck, it just poured down from the cracks and we were all quite wet (except for the lucky two people sitting in the middle seats). Luckily the rain didn't last long and the Bots sun dried everything pretty quickly when it came out. The guides drove back to the place where we had seen the dead water buffalo. The day before it had been freshly dead without a mark on it, and now it's insides were eaten away, along with it's eyeballs. Oddly enough, it seems that whatever was eating it stripped away the intestines without taking the partially digested grassy material within. In other words, it looked like something had taken a huge dump in the carcass.

Besides the dead water buffalo, we saw hippos (a lot of them!), water buck. vultures, wildebeest, and zebras. One of the trucks didn't have 4 wheel drive and it keep getting stuck in the deep sand. It got stuck at least four times, which meant that everyone had to get out and push. In addition, our guide hooked up a chain from our vehicle to their to pull. After one such occaison the driver agreed to let Tim, one of the CIEE kids, drive. Lily got to drive another of the trucks. Hers was the truck without 4 wheel drive OR brakes. The guide neglected to mention the lack of breaks until she was already driving.

The next day the morning game drive was fortunately dry, but also very hot. We didn't end up seeing very much. We came back to camp dusty, sunburnt, and tired, but managed to rally after nap and some lunch. We also played a few rounds of Mafia, which was becoming the new CIEE camp past time. It was time for the afternoon game drive which would turn out to be the most exciting drive of all. We were cruising along not seeing much and the truck I was in pulled far ahead of the other two. Suddenly, one of the others truck came zooming towards us at top speed and we could see that everyone was hanging out the of the sides yelling at us. They were screaming about a leopard! At first we thought they were kidding- leopards are the rarest animal to see and it almost never happens. We had been joking about spotting them the whole trip. This time is was real though, so our driver hauled ass and we raced back up the road. We were just in time to see a leopard sunk low to the ground, prowl across the road into the grass on the other side, not far from some impala. The big cat was clearly hunting and our noisy trucks full of excited people were clearly about to mess it up. It's illegal to leave the trails and the game drivers risk losing their hard-earned licenses and paying an expensive fine to do it. That's why two of the three trucks didn't leave the road and one did. I was not in the one that did and I was furious with the people who were because not only did they cause the (skinny) leopard to lose his/her lunch, but they got to see the rare and endangered sucker up close. Damn them! We waited around a bit and the impala heard moved off while giving the alarm cry that meant they had spotted the predator. Meanwhile, a heard of wildebeest we had seen earlier with their young calves, were approaching and didn't know about the leopard. It looked like s/he might get another chance after all. We waited and watched a long time and everyone was hanging out of the vehicles or sitting on the roofs. In the end the leopard didn't manage to make a kill and slunk off into the cover of the trees. We were so lucky that day.

After the excitement of the leopard the trucks moved off in three different directions. Our truck drove for a bit, not seeing much. Evening was coming on and the sun was going down. Someone spotted some elephants and we stopped in our tracks. It turned out that a whole herd, containing old females, young females, calves, and one or two bulls, were ambling across the road right where we were stopped. The elephants were HUGE and in the light of the setting sun they were absolutely magnificent. One of the bulls took offense to us and showed us a power display by mock charging and fanning his ears. It was pretty nerve wracking. The rest of the elephants passed us peacefully and their attitudes ranged from mild curiosity to boredom. Even the tiniest calves were bigger than any dogs. After all the elephants were well passed us we started the truck up again and rendezvou'd with the rest of the group besides a large delta lake. One of the other groups was babbling about some honey badgers they had seen. Damn! I missed the honey badgers! Although, thinking about it, I'm happier I was in the truck which passed through a herd of elephants. The third truck had seen nothing exciting at all. There are some beautiful photos of us as a group beside the lake with the setting sun. You can find them on facebook, of course.