Day 5 safari adventure
Too much to see and do so here is today....
Up at 5.30 am for a 6am 2 hour bush walk... Animals to potentially bump into include elephant, lion, leopard, hyena, buffalo, numerous snakes so a man with a gun escorted us as a guide called Raynard, or as Sarah puts it our very own Indiana Jones!!! To be fair we only saw birds... So we are now able to tick more off our 'eye spy' book and learnt about tracking!! However, Sarah was anxious and walked between 'Indiana' and me... Inside she says she was crying at the prospect of being confronted by a lion. From our educational walk we were able to work out that a lion and hyena passed our hut the night before!!! Along with numerous elephants. After breakfast we had a refreshing shower we decided to go and watch the elephants at the watering hole with a few beers. We signed up for a sunset bush drive at 3.30 so had a siesta first. During the bush drive we saw more elephants and birds. We stopped to watch the sunset with a beer and witnessed the remains of an elephant, whom Raymond said had died of natural causes. Fascinating Fact: (grab the tissue) an elephant gets 6 sets of teeth in its lifetime and when they are gone they are gone, they starve to death. Elephants here cannot migrate anymore and therefore the diet in this area is conducive to 60 years as oppose to the Zambian elephants 80 year!! This elephant carcass had its teeth... Therefore this elephant probably died of disease.
We returned to camp for dinner and then observe the elephants into the night. They really are better than any TV programme!!! At one point there was a family group with the smallest elephant we have seen yet... Soooo cute. However with the growing numbers of other elephants coming to use the water hole tempers were rising because the bulls protect the young and give them priority to drink. I wandered off to go to the toilet and when I returned I found Sarah in panic mode!!! Whilst I was away a few had charged at the viewing area and everyone had run for cover!! We later had to embark on the short walk back to our hut in the dark across elephant highway... I'm pleased to say we are both here to tell the story!!!