The open air game ride this morning resulted in a seeing a
herd of elephant cross the road (to get to the other side, of course) and it
was wonderful to watch the babies hanging on to mamas. An additional surprise was an African
Wildcat, which is rarely seen. I think
he was attracted to Willie the K-State Wildcat on my shirt. Anyway, he was also very hard to photograph
but his orange ears are visible. In
addition, we saw a Goliath Heron, some really cool looking birds, some more
monkeys, cape buffalo, but no giraffe today.
Some in another jeep saw a leopard but from the picture I saw, it was as
hard to photograph as the wildcat.
We are going out again at 3 so hopefully, a leopard is in my
future.
No leopard. Again.
However, we did see another lion sleeping under a tree. He was probably six feet long, all stretched
out on his side, with his back legs spread out, like he wanted a belly
rub. A wart hog sauntered up the road,
posing for all the cameras. We saw a
bush buck, which is kinda like a deer or impala, but just a little different
markings. They mate for life and both
the male and the females fight off potential homewreckers. In the deserted termite mounds, which are
huge, we saw dwarf mongeese that take up residence once the termites
leave. They are small like chipmunks and
not very attractive but anything that small and furry is going to be determined
to be ‘cute’ by the tourists. We decided
that zebra and giraffe have Thursdays off as we did not see any all day.
I noticed again how beautiful the terrain is, so much
different than I imagined Africa. It’s
lush and green and the weather is perfect.
I am so glad to see this country.
Tomorrow we leave for 2 days in Johannesburg before flying
to Zimbawe and a day trip to Botswana.
