BOTSWANA: BABOONS AND HIPPOS AND WILD DOGS AND CHEETAHS AND A LITTLE BIT OF EVERYTHING ELSE

We slept very well on our first night in Kadizora Camp in the Okavango Delta and woke up about 15 minutes before our 5:30 wake up call. We quickly washed and dressed and were escorted to the common area by KT as it was still dark and we were not allowed to walk around the camp in the dark without an escort. He left us there for 30 minutes to have our morning "coffee" (a mug of hot chocolate) and some dry but surprisingly tasty biscuits (aka cookies). At 6:30 we were on the road:

KT was ever vigilant in looking for signs of wildlife:

Good morning, Botswana!

 Our first sighting of the morning was a pair of regal waterbuck:

Next we saw what seemed to be a pretty nonchalant herd of zebras, but then we noticed that there was almost always one keeping his eye on us while the others grazed:

 A couple of giraffes were enjoying a fine dining breakfast in the thorny acacia trees:

 I shouldn't complain about my age spots, right?

Next up, Pumbaa, which is what KT called every warthog that we saw:

Those are gnarly tusks:

Then a few skittish impala . . .

. . . and right around the corner was the Baboon Treehouse:

The baboons were busy eating breakfast, which looked a lot like marula, the same fruit Franklin the Elephant in our camp liked to eat:

Baboons are proficient climbers:

Even the babies can scamper up the tree trunk with amazing speed:

 

They also have a great sense of balance:

What they don't have is a handsome face:

I know, overkill on the baboon pictures, but I promise this is about 1/5 of what I have. They were so fun to watch!

 What is this? Could it be a foot bridge?

KT never felt the need to detour around the water. We just plowed right through it, and sometimes the vehicle had only a few inches before we would have been water-logged.

One of these things is not like the other. Can you find the one that does match?

In one large red lechwe herd, there was a lone tsessebe, an animal I had never heard of before this trip:

The tsessebe is much larger than the female lechwes in the harem, and he seemed to get along just fine with the male lechwe sheikh.

A tsessebe is distinguished by its almost bluish skin, a bit like the skin of a wildebeest, and by the giraffe-like hump on its upper back:

Beautiful Botswana. This field makes me think of the cotton fields in the Southern United States:

We came across a swiftly flowing stream with some large boulders in the middle, a place KT had decided would be a great spot for breakfast. He had brought along some hot chocolate, egg salad sandwiches, and muffins for us.

He pointed out a trampled track that led from the water to the bush and warned us that if we ever saw a hippo coming down one of those tracks, we'd better run (no, that wouldn't work) PRAY.  Hippos on the move are very deadly animals. Notice that no one is ever riding one in movies like Swiss Family Robinson.

We weren't the only ones enjoying some breakfast by the water. It was one of the rare times we saw other vehicles full of people while we were out driving: 

Say, what? Those rocks are hippos, and you're letting us get out of the 4-Runner?

There were about eight hippos in the water, and occasionally they snorted or grunted noisily to each other in pig-like conversation.

 Back in the 4-Runner, we encountered a large elephant herd.

They came closer and closer to our vehicle: 

Look at that baby!

He/she was just barely visible in the tall grass:

Judging by their two-toned skin, some of them had been swimming in the stream:

We had been so engrossed in this herd that we didn't notice a mother and baby had been separated. All of the sudden an elephant we had not seen on the other side of the road trumpeted angrily and moved aggressively toward us. Even KT had not noticed she was there! KT didn't waste any time getting out of there.

After we were a safe distance away, KT told us a story about an angry elephant that had stuck her tusks into the front of a vehicle filled with six tourists, a driver, and a spotter, and had lifted it off the ground, swinging it back and forth. KT and another driver drove up quickly from different directions to serve as a diversion. They managed to scare off the angry elephant, and then all three vehicles drove quickly away. The frightened and very upset tourists demanded a full refund from the camp and an immediate flight out.  "Very unfortunate," KT said.

Bob had heard that the Okavango Delta was a good place to see African wild dogs, also known as painted dogs or painted wolves. With about 6,600 left in the wild, they are one of the world's most endangered animals. Bob had told KT on our first day that he would like to see one, and KT had said that he would try but would make no promises. He himself had only see wild dogs a few times. However, KT heard another guide had seen a pack that had an alpha female who had recently given birth in a den. Wild dogs are social animals, and the rest of the pack was most likely hanging around the den until the pups were old enough to join them.

Just as KT had found the leopards the day prior, he found the wild dog pack by driving off road and following some obscure directions given to him by the other guide. We arrived to find EIGHT sleeping dogs, tired from the morning hunt and sprawled out on the grass among some bushes:

We tried to be as quiet as possible . . .

. . . but clearly we were disturbing their morning nap:

They almost look like the neighbor's German shepherd:

. . . until you see the bizarre mixture of colors and patterns on their fur. No dog I've ever seen has a coat as crazy as this, not even the speckled hyenas:

Their ears are huge and round, like two satellites on their head:

No two have the same markings:

I especially like this one:

The white around its neck reminds me of the lace collar Ruth Bader Ginsburg wears with her judicial robes:

Their front legs look especially skinny, but apparently they can run up to 44 mph, which is faster than a leopard:

Bob, who took this final picture, was over the moon with this once-in-a-lifetime photo op:

Towards the end, KT jokingly said, "Bob, why don't you get out and stand with them so that Judy can take a picture?" Not catching the intended humor, Bob started to climb out of the vehicle, at which point KT said in a rather panicked voice, "No! No, Bob! I was kidding! Don't get out!" As with other wild African animals, though these look like pets, they are far from being tame. In fact, they are known for ripping their prey apart while it is still alive rather than strangling it first as lions do.

Yeah, stay in the 4-Runner, Bob.

Time to move along:

After the wild dogs, Bob handed KT a sizable tip, saying "That's for the leopards and the wild dogs."

We had detoured at the beginning of the drive to the area where KT heard cheetahs had been spotted, and we had looked carefully, but we had not seen anything. We went through the same area again after seeing the wild dogs, and when KT spotted a cheetah looking alertly at us from behind a tree, he began to laugh. "Cheetahs!" he chuckled. "Now you are gong to have to give me more money!" He thought it was pretty hilarious. (And Bob did indeed add some more money to his tip.)

 What KT had found was a mama cheetah and two cubs:

We were pretty excited, as you can imagine. A week earlier, we had been able to pet a couple of these magnificent felines at Cheetah Outreach near Cape Town, but I think seeing them in the wild was an even bigger charge than touching them in an enclosure had been.

The cubs:

The mama:

Once she saw that we weren't going to bother her babies, she relaxed:

Cheetah cubs have what looks like a mohawk running down the back of their heads and between their shoulders:

Every now and then the mama would sit up and scan the area for intruders:

Then she would plop back down onto the grass with her cubs. It's impossible to tell who is who in this picture:

The spots remind me of this Dr. Seuss book (even though the main character is a dog):

"All this sleeping is making me so tired."

"I know, dear. Just close your eyes like this and go to sleep."

"I'm trying! I'm trying!"

"Hey! He kicked me!"

KT told us that cheetahs are the only cats that don't scavenge--they only eat what they kill themselves. Also, they are at the bottom of the food chain. Every other carnivore eats them. That's why they have to run so fast. They can reach speeds of up to 75 mph in short bursts, making them the fastest land animal in existence.

We had been gone from camp since just before sunrise, and it was time to return for lunch and a nap before our next outing. We said good-bye to the cheetahs and headed back to camp. KT pointed out what is locally known as a "sausage tree" (for obvious reasons):

The official name is the Kigelia tree. These seed pods are eaten by elephants, giraffes, baboons, hippos, and a few other animals, but we were not about to try one.

 

Water, water everywhere!

Hey! A bridge! Well, KT didn't think we needed it:

Wait, is that a bald eagle??? Nope. It's an African fish eagle. Isn't it gorgeous?

A waterbuck is hiding in the bushes . . . 

He looks a lot like this reedbuck who is hiding the tall grasses:

Their horns remind of me Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty:

Thanks, KT! It was a day to remember!

Next up: Animal sightings IN camp.

READING

 I loved Whatever You Do, Don't Run: True Tales of a Botswana Safari Guide by Peter Allison, an Aussie working as a safari guide in the Okavango Delta and trying to compete with all the local Botswanian guides. The author recounts a series of hilarious vignettes covering everything from cranky tourists to flooding his automobile in a croc-infested river.

Both my husband and I read this book, and we found that we could identify with many of the experiences the author relates. This is a GREAT book if you are planning a trip to the Okavango Delta.