2022 Okavango Safari     May 20^th    Day Four

At some point through the night, I was awakened by the sounds of a hyena near the tent. The hyena being one of my favourite animals, its other worldly calls out there in the darkness brought a smile to my face. But other than that pleasant interruption, I slept soundly through to 05:00am.

Today was Transfer Day – the day we say goodbye to the Khwai area and move to a camp in the huge Moremi Game Reserve. All our kit had to be packed and loaded onto the vehicles and after a quick breakfast, we were on the road to Moremi by 06:00am

Before departure Malcolm and I did well to remember to collect our Trail Cameras. The only thing mine had picked up was the local baboons drifting by behind our tent.

Trail Camera image of a Baboon sat on a log behind my tent

As soon as we set off, the camp crew started the work of striking camp and transporting everything to our new site. As we would enjoy a leisurely day viewing the wildlife, the camp crew would be working flat out against the clock to have everything set up prior to our arrival.

We exited the serpentine track through the mopane woodland for the final time and turned left onto the dusty highway towards the three loosely connected villages that make up Khwai. It looked pretty much like a ghost town as we drove through. Once again, it was bitterly cold, and at 06:20am most sensible people were only starting to think about waking up, never mind getting up.

One group that were up and about, searching for breakfast, was a family of four Southern Ground Hornbills. They were rummaging around under a tree looking for tasty worms, insects, or small animals. These birds are endangered for a number of reasons. The most significant reason is damage and loss of habitat. But they also have a very slow rate of reproduction which doesn’t help. A breeding pair cannot raise young without the assistance of at least two, but more likely, four other hornbills. Youngsters must train as assistants for the first six years of their lives before they are able to go on and breed themselves and recruit their own assistants. In many parts of Africa these large black hornbills are considered to be harbingers of death and ill fortune. Although these beliefs can lead to the birds being persecuted and killed, in other areas they are thought to be so unlucky that people will go nowhere near them.

Southern Ground Hornbill            Image by Hans Veth

From a near by tree, the progress of the hornbills was being monitored by a large Chacma baboon who didn’t seem to have much enthusiasm for being up this early… a bit like myself.

Chacma Baboon contemplating the day ahead

We stopped to watch a male giraffe browsing and had time to look closely at the wonderful patterns of his coat. From a distance it looks like a random collection of dark splodges against a much lighter background. But each of those splodges is unique from all the others. They do not have regular shapes and nor do they have smooth edges. Some are shaped like leaves that have been nibbled at by caterpillars, some are geometric shapes that have frayed edges or have been cut by pinking shears. It was good to take time to absorb the complexity of the patterns.

Giraffe Hide

As we approached the gate that marked the entry into the Moremi Game Reserve, we had to cross a bridge known as Third Bridge. On previous occasions I have been driven over, and also walked over this amazing wooden structure. It is about 50m in length and is made entirely from thousands of wooden poles. On this occasion there was very little water under the bridge. But at different times of the year, depending on the annual floods, the bridge itself can be under water. Running parallel are remnants of previous wooden bridges that have not stood the test of time. They are an example of why metal or concrete bridges are not used. Nature will always win out in the end and these wooden structures will decompose naturally without causing pollution.

Third Bridge

The bridge’s rickety appearance is enough to make any sensible driver to slow down. As you cross it, the whole bridge flexes as you bump across the surface of wooden poles. Even so, a sign advises, “SLOW DOWN ON TOP OF THE BRIDGE”.

Having navigated this bone shaker of a crossing, you enter the game reserve gate. Interesting artifacts greet you under the huge entrance gate canopy. A collection of giant sun-bleached white bones, massive horns and skulls, are all decoratively arranged. There are elephant femurs standing upright, black spiralling kudu horns over a metre in length, and enormous buffalo and elephant skulls staring blindly at you as you approach.

Elephant bones

We followed the meandering track into the reserve and one of our first encounters was with a troop of Chacma baboons lazily picking their way through the woodland to our left. On our right-hand side, there was a large wide-open expanse of grassland and a breeding herd of around twenty elephants grazing around the periphery of an area of water. The grass was high and obscured many of the baby elephants from our view. But as we watched them in the distance, the herd slowly but surely started to move. We were hopeful of better views as the elephants looked as if they would cross our track ahead of us. We crept forward and positioned ourselves in the best position to watch.

Breeding Herd of Elephants

They were certainly in no great rush, but then again, neither were we. To our left baboons still foraged and explored their way through the trees, some sitting quietly watching the humans watching the elephants. Then one by one, led by the matriarch, the elephants, including several youngsters, crossed in front of us and entered the domain of the baboons.

About thirty metres or so into the trees, in a spot where the bushes obscured all but the backs of the elephants, the matriarch stopped. She paused for a minute or so, and using her trunk, gave herself a dust bath before moving on. Her trunk would rise, and great clouds of grey dust would shower down over her body. The next elephant in the queue repeated the process as did most of the herd. It reminded me of a line of cars waiting for their turn to go through a carwash, except in this case it was for the application of dirt rather than the removal of it.

Dust Bath

Once the herd had crossed, we moved along the track and around to the other side of the trees to see if they would emerge there. As we parked up, another safari vehicle joined us and pulled up alongside. The driver spoke to Partner and handed something to him. It was my head torch! At some point, bouncing along in the back of the vehicle, it had fallen out of my pocket onto the track. Come nightfall, your head torch is your most important bit of kit, so I was incredibly lucky to get it back.

Our mid-morning break was at a beautiful location called Hippo Pools. As the name might suggest, there were hippos aplenty along with herons, storks, geese and ducks. A yellow billed stork was searching for food in an area of shallow water covered by not green algae, but red algae. It’s half open bill sweeping back and forth in the water whilst its feet did a sort of tap dance to disturb whatever creatures were lurking under the red growth.

Yellow Billed Stork in red algae

We spent the best part of an hour parked up here taking in the sights, sounds and smells. Crocodiles lay basking in the sun soaking up the heat. Hippos grunted and snorted from different areas of the pool and occasionally, one would get out for a walk about, or one would be forced out by a bigger hippo.

Hippo Pools

Lunch was a picnic of large sausages and potato salad. Then it was back on the road, and this was another long straight road. It was a single sandy vehicle track which cut through an extensive area of mopane forest. It seemed to go on and on and on…

It was bouncing along this road that my irritation levels started to increase. I was becoming increasingly irritated by the constant stopping to check out tiny birds. Whilst I like birds, I am not interested to the degree that I need to know if a bird is the ‘long toed’ variety of a species, or if it has white eyebrows, or if it is No 273 on some list that was deficient of a tick.

This trip was supposed to be a tour focusing on mammals. But some of my fellow travellers were only interested in birds – to what seemed to my eye, an obsessive level. We would drive past a herd of impala snorting and fighting in a mass brawl, but stop to identify a bird and debate if its legs were pink or red.

It was, as I have said, a long, long drive. The state of the track meant that for prolonged periods of time we were being bounced continuously up and down in the back seat of the Toyota Landcruiser. Weariness and frustration at the birders badgering the guide to stop at every hint of a bird, even if it was tiny and a hundred metres away, saw my blood pressure rising. The fact that there is a version of this safari which focuses on birds seemed to make it even more annoying. What were these twitchers doing on my mammal tour?

Looking back, I now know there was a major factor at play here that I was unaware of at the time. I didn’t know it then, but I was starting to fall ill with Covid 19. The fit and well version of me is a happy good-natured person who is interested and fascinated in all forms of wildlife, including birds. Although my health was going to deteriorate over the rest of the trip, it wouldn’t be until I returned home that I would get confirmation that I had contracted Covid. My suspicion is that the young woman with the toilet brush eye lashes who sat next to me on the flight to Johannesburg and refused to wear a mask was the generous donor of the virus.

My flu-like symptoms would increase each day, whereas my tent mate Malcolm who also caught the virus  remained asymptomatic. He would develop health issues of his own by busting his ribs in an argument with a Toyota Landcruiser. These vehicles verge on being indestructible which was not the case with Malcolm’s ribs. It should be said that Malcolm does not carry a lot of extraneous weight, so when he missed his step disembarking from the vehicle and slammed into the metal bars at the side – it hurt. I on the other hand, carrying a bit more in the way of bodily padding would simply have bounced off uninjured.  The Scottish contingent of this trip were destined to end up a sorry diseased and injured pair.

But I digress. We did eventually arrive at our new campsite. It was very different from our riverside location in Khwai. A main track ran between the side of a large open area of savannah on one side and woodland on the other. Our camp was off this track tucked into a small clearing about 50 metres into the trees. The meal tent was set up in the centre and all the guests tents formed a rough circle around it.

Darkness soon fell but the sunset left an amazing deep red sky with the dark shapes of the trees above us standing out against the crimson afterglow.

Dinner started with a wonderful, curried apple soup. It was a soup I had never heard of before and was curious to try. It was one of the best things I tasted on the whole trip. The main course was buffalo stew which was also wonderful. I am so glad that the gathering symptoms of Covid did not affect my sense of taste. Although, if we were to come across any more elephant carcasses, I would have quite happily given up my sense of smell.

After a beer sitting by the campfire I retired to my tent and fell into an exhausted sleep unaware of the hyena lurking in the bushes a few metres away.

11:36pm –  A hyena strolls past the remnants of the camp fire next to the dining tent.

A YouTube video showing some of todays wildlife can be seen at: Okavango Safari Day Four

19^th May              Day 3

Today was ‘Mokoro Day’.

Those of us who were going down the river on a mokoro were permitted the luxury of a long lie in bed until 07:00am. The four who did not fancy the mokoro, they were up at 05:00am to go on a game drive.

Craig, two tents away, was one of the ones who had to rise at 05:00am. As he got himself organised, his head torch brought a false dawn. It had the power of a World War 2 anti-aircraft searchlight and lit up my tent every time he turned around. But soon he was gone, and I relaxed, laid back and closed my eyes.

As I was drifting gently into a deep slumber, a hyena, uncomfortably close to the tent, started to whoop. I lay there listening to it. A hyena’s whoop can be heard over several kilometres away. This one was about seven metres away. Having completed several whoops, it thankfully moved off into the bush.

As, once again, I was drifting gently into a deep slumber, a pair of hornbills started squabbling loudly in the tree next to the tent. Having resolved whatever dispute they were having, they eventually, and thankfully, shut up.

As, yet again, I was drifting gently into a deep slumber, a Southern Ground Hornbill, a bird the size of a turkey, started to greet the day with its distinctive deep bass  ‘boom, boom, boom, boom…’

Trying once more to drift gently into a deep slumber, my bladder woke up. Defeated, I accepted that my long lie was well and truly over.

I rose from my camp bed, dressed and headed along to the dining tent. I said ‘Good Morning’ to Alfred, the member of camp staff who waited on us with both food and drink. Across from the far side of the river, the monotonous ‘boom, boom, boom, boom’ carried through the still morning air.

“Do you hear that?” asked Alfred, “What animal do you think is making that boom, boom, boom noise?”

I replied, “I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I don’t think it is an animal. I think it might be a bird.”

“Okay.” said Alfred, “What bird do you think it is?”

“My suspicion is that it is a Southern Ground Hornbill, and that you were trying to con me by asking what ‘animal’ it was.”

A huge grin spread across Albert’s face, eventually erupting into a roar of high pitched laughter. He had learned that a Scotsman who has just emerged, bleary eyed from a tent, looking close to death, (I’m not naturally a morning person), is not that easily fooled. The still laughing Alfred dived into the meal tent and emerged with an apology in the form a hot cup of coffee me.

As long as he kept me supplied with coffee in the mornings, he would always be Alfred the Great to me.

At 07:45am we left camp for the Mokoro Station which was about a kilometre up stream. There were four mokoros for eight of us. Malcolm and I climbed into our craft and our mokoro captain turned out to be called ‘Octopus’.  Standing at the rear of the mokoro, he pushed us out into the stream with a long punting pole.

The Mokoro – The best form of transport in the Delta

I have been lucky enough to have done two previous mokoro trips. It is a wonderful way to travel, utterly relaxing and magnificent for your mental health. For those suffering from stress or depression, mokoro trips should be available on the N.H.S. Moving silently and gently you glide past water lilies, reeds with tiny frogs attached to them, malachite kingfishers and stunning small bee eaters abound. African fish eagles, open-billed storks and African darters perched high above on branches as Octopus propelled us along. Deep within the reeds, a saddle-billed stork searched for frogs and small fish, and a lilac breasted roller picked insects out of the air.

Malachite Kingfisher – Photo by Bob Brewer

As we moved down stream, we passed our camp. It gave us a whole new perspective of where we were living. We shouted across to the camp staff, ordering coffee on our return.

Our fleet of Mokoros passing by our camp site

We eventually pulled up onto the bank and went ashore for tea, coffee and rusks. Octopus entertained us with some of the riverside plants and their medicinal uses. One tree had velvety soft leaves. As he pointed out, there are no shops out in the delta, so these leaves were an idea substitute for toilet paper. Andrexia Veriegata

Then he showed us the toothbrush tree. He snapped off a twig and shaped one end to use as a toothpick. The other end of the twig, he frayed, and it became a highly effective toothbrush, as was evident by his ultra-white teeth. He then showed us how to prepare and eat the bulbs of the water lilies, a delicacy also enjoyed by the local elephants.

We walked a short distance along the bank of the river until we were overlooking a large pool. At a glance, it was possible to tell there were no hippos in this pool. However, where the river narrowed further downstream, five large grey boulders could be seen amongst the reeds. Octopus shouted and clapped his hands, and the boulders miraculously came to life.

Resident of the Hippo Pool

Hippos feel safest in water they can submerge in. The sudden noise of clapping was enough to make these hippos, a bull and four females, make their way towards us in search of the deeper waters. We gnawed on blocks of rusk and drank our coffee as the hippos grunted and snorted. Speaking to Octopus, I told him that I recognised the pool from previous visits. I told him about being here in 2019 to go on a mokoro trip and bumping into the guide I had in 2016 – a lovely man called Shadrack, but better known as Shadow.

Octopus smiled. “Shadrack, the ‘Shadow’, is my uncle.” It is a small world.

Refreshed, we left the hippos in peace and returned to our mokoros for the return journey up the river.  The mokoro captains picked water lilies from the river as we glided along. The ladies were presented with necklaces made from the flowers and the men were given Robin Hood style hats made from the round leaves of the plant.

Malcolm relaxing with his Water Lily Leaf hat             Photo by P. Gudgeon

We sailed past our camp on our way back to the mokoro station. There were good natured shouts of “Get the kettle on!” directed at the camp staff who laughed, waved, and no doubt muttered a few comments back to us.

View from the front seat of the Mokoro

Back in camp, our lunch of Beef Stroganoff and pasta awaited. It was here that we were reunited with the four who had risen at 05:00am for a game drive. It had been a difficult decision to choose between the mokoro trip or the game drive, and it seems that on this occasion, the mokoro might have been the wrong choice.

The four on the game drive had seen mating baboons, herds of zebra numbering in the hundreds moving into the area, and they found the leopard. But not only did they find the leopard, they witnessed it make a kill right in front of them.

The leopard had been walking past them when it realised there was something in the long grass. It instantly adopted the stalking pose, moved slowly towards its prey, and pounced. Right in front of the lucky four, the leopard caught and killed an African Wild Cat.

But hey, we might not have seen a leopard kill, but we had hats made out of lily pads.

Over the siesta period I sat and chatted with another member of our group, a retired Chief Superintendent of Police. It soon became quite apparent that his experience of police work was very far removed from mine. Even so it was interesting to hear about his progression through the ranks.

Siesta over, we piled into the vehicles and set off in search of the wild cat killing leopard, and hopefully her cub. We drove out through the mopane trees and onto the highway. After a short distance Partner stopped the Landcruiser, reversed a few metres, and turned into the scrub and bushes. Only a couple of vehicle lengths off the highway there were several lions, all flat out and sound asleep. It was quite obvious that these lions had no plans for moving anything other than their tails or ears in response to the activities of the flies that buzzed around them.

A lioness not in full hunting mode

So we left them snoozing and pushed on down the highway in search of leopards. Those who had been out on the morning game drive and had witnessed the kill, directed Partner to the general area. Deep within some bushes the leopardess lay stretched out in the shade panting in the heat. Less than a couple of metres away from her was her cub, munching on the body of the wild cat.

Leopard mum relaxing while junior feeds

We spent the next 30-40 minutes quietly watching the cub and its mum. It was hard to put an age on the cub but it was perhaps somewhere between 6 – 8 months old. It was learning the art of stripping all the fur of the carcass, separating the meat for eating. It would try, not always successfully, to spit out great chunks of fur.

Leopard cub enjoying its meal

Every now and then, the wild cat’s striped tail would stand up to attention as the leopard cub manoeuvred the body into a better position. It was a striking image to see this small spotted cat devouring a small striped one.

Spotted cat eats striped cat

Mum moved a couple of times just to keep herself in the shade as the sun moved around, but she always kept a watchful eye on how junior was doing. They were both completely unphased by our presence, almost as if we were completely invisible.

Inevitably, word had got out to other safari vehicles, so we withdrew and left the leopards to it, before others came to see them.

We cruised around for a short while seeing many different birds, including Africa’s heaviest flying bird, the Cory Bustard. Herds of impala were plentiful. Some were over thirty strong, mostly females with the occasional young male, being lorded over by a dominant adult male. He would snort and strut his stuff keeping his hareem in order and making sure they did not stray from his control.

Other herds were made up of bachelor males, or the ‘Loser’s Club’ as Banda called them. These were males who had been unsuccessful in gathering their own herd of females. Testosterone fuelled frustration resulted in dramatic outbursts of mock fighting and chasing by these males. One minute they would be browsing peacefully, and then, in an explosion of snorts and barks and dust, the herd would burst into life. Impalas went running in all directions and fighting any other male that got close to them. Then as suddenly as all the mayhem had kicked off, peace and quiet would return to the herd and grazing and browsing would resume.

Over the VHF radio we heard the news that the lions we had seen earlier were on the move and they were hunting giraffe. Partner spun the vehicle around and made haste to the area we had seen them. We hung onto our seats as the Landcruiser bounced speeding along the uneven tracks. There was no sign of the lions when we got there, and despite there being no track to follow, Partner drove off into the bush in search of the action.

Giraffe on lion alert

Up ahead we saw standing proud above the undergrowth, the necks of three very alert giraffes. They were all looking in one direction, and there, about 150 metres away, were the lions. However, they were most definitely not in hunting mode. It was hard to tell just how many lions there were. But it was certainly a big pride. They were stretched out in amongst the bushes and long grass and at a guess there were somewhere between 14 – 18 of them.

We parked up and watched them for a while, and as we did, the giraffes slipped quietly away into the bush and disappeared.

Navigating holes, bushes, logs and termite mounds, Partner carefully picked his way back to the highway and then on down to an area by the banks of the River Khwai. Once again, there was an abundance of birdlife and lots of elephants. Two big bull elephants had waded out into the river and stood belly deep feeding on the reeds and tall green grasses.

Inevitably, we drove past the elephant carcass which continued to mature beautifully. A male lion with a bulging abdomen lay a few metres away, seemingly oblivious to the horrific stench. Looking down on the scene from two tall trees, was the multitude of equally well fed vultures.

The smell meant we did not linger, and after a brief stop at the green algae pool, where the lone grumpy hippo had been joined by several others, we headed back to camp as darkness started to fall.

Last rays of sunlight

Driving along the highway track, Partner suddenly brought the vehicle to a halt. Slowly slithering off the track into the grass was a puff adder. This is the species of snake that accounts for more human deaths than any other throughout Africa. The symptoms resulting from a puff adder bite are all horrendous and are potentially fatal. But I assured myself that this snake was obviously the only one in the district. It was at least 500 metres from my tent and in the bitter cold of the night it would not be able to travel very far. That was my rational as I erased the sight of the deadly serpent from my mind.

The camera shy, but deadly, Puff Adder

A much more pleasant distraction was delicious squash soup, followed by curried chicken and rice, and a wee glass of Merlot, (or was it two?).

Bed and instant deep sleep and a plunge into serpent free dreams brought the day to a close.

A YouTube video of the events of this day can be viewed at: Okavango Safari Day Three

18 May     Day Two

Chattering hornbills outside the tent woke me up a couple of times in the early hours of the morning. But apart from that I slept soundly. The camp staff woke us at 5:00am. There was a definite chill in the air and as I switched on my head-torch, I could see my breath in the air.

Yellow Billed Hornbill

It was still dark as I made my way along to the meal tent. The Bell Frogs were now silent, and it was birdlife that was starting to welcome the new day. Having dodged the elephant dung, or ‘elephant muffins’ as Banda called them, I settled down to a breakfast of Bran Flakes, strawberry yogurt, toast and honey, pancakes and instant coffee.

Before climbing onboard the Landcruiser, I made sure I was wearing a jumper with a fleece on top for good measure. In the sky there were the first signs of dawn, and the promise of warmth to come.

We negotiated the five minute drive, twisting and turning along the serpentine track through the dense mopane woodland before emerging onto the main ‘highway’. Although still no more than a sandy track, the ‘highway’ was wide and straight and allowed the guide to accelerate to much higher speeds. Higher speeds equated to increased wind chill and within minutes, I was wishing for something more substantial than my jumper and a fleece.

Mongooses crossing the Highway

We endured the intense cold for about 10 – 15 minutes before leaving the highway and heading into the bush. We suddenly came upon a clearing containing a large bright green water hole. It was a strange sight. The greater part of the water surface was covered in the most vivid green algae. Around the periphery were lots of white faced whistling ducks and Egyptian geese. Blacksmith Lapwings peeped and cheeped in annoyance and irritation, and out in the middle of the water, a hippopotamus surfaced from the depths with a grunt, coating his head and back with algae in the process. A green hippo was not something that I had seen before.

Egyptian Geese by the green algae waterhole

We had heard reports that in the area there were not one, but two elephant carcasses. Where there are carcasses, there is a strong chance of predators, vultures and horrific smells. The location of the first carcass was identified by some large trees festooned with around 70 white-backed vultures. As we set course to investigate, the sickly-sweet stench of death came drifting through the morning air.

White Backed Vultures gather near the elephant carcass

Large parts of the carcass were still intact, but it was non-the-less a grim and grizzly sight. Lions had been feeding over night and were suspected of snoozing somewhere in the thick of the scrub bush nearby. The vultures all looked well fed perched up in the trees. This poor elephant was going to keep a lot of creatures well fed for days to come. What had caused its demise was unclear, but it was likely some sort of disease or infection rather than predator attack.

With the malodorous air making everyone in the vehicle gag, we moved swiftly on.

Up ahead, a much more attractive distraction presented itself. A stunning male impala bathed in the golden morning light crossed the track in front of us. There is something about impalas that I love. They have the softest most beautiful facial features, and they move with an effortless grace. Many guides regard them as being of little consequence as they are so abundant. But they are the mainstay of many of the big predators and play a vital role in the food chain. The action of elephants, of which there are many in the Okavango, helps generate extra browsing for impala and their numbers have increased as a direct result.

Male Impala

After the beauty of the impala, it was back to elephantine unpleasantness. Feeding at the side of some mopane trees, a male elephant stood with his backside towards us. This poor lad had a serious infection around his anus. The root of his tail was badly swollen, and the area was oozing copious amounts of white puss. It was not a pretty sight and looked really painful. Even flicking his tail to brush off flies must have been so uncomfortable for him. Fortunately, we were upwind so I am not in a position to describe the smell to you.

On a much smaller scale, and significantly cuter, we drew up beside something else with a trunk. Several dwarf mongooses (I’m reliable informed that that is the correct plural) had made their home in a horizontal decomposing fallen tree. They were soaking up the warmth of the morning sun. Some were on the top of the trunk. Others scurried through the grass underneath, and some popped in and out of a cavity to grab a quick look at the bank of cameras staring at them from the Landcruiser.

Dwarf Mongooses

We moved on past more impala and a few zebras, before spotting another tree with vultures. We were heading for our second elephant carcass of the morning. This one proved to be much older and the greater part of the body had been devoured. Even so, there were a couple of spotted hyenas munching on some of the tougher remnants.

The sole of one of the elephant’s front feet was facing us. It was covered in white droppings from where vultures had used it as a perch. The beast’s rib cage was distorted and upright, reminiscent of a section of a storm damaged garden fence. As we watched this gruesome scene, two more hyenas joined their fellow clan members at the dinner table.

Spotted hyena amongst the elephant ribs

The power of a hyena’s jaws is incredible, and these hyenas were using theirs to happily rip off chunks of the most distasteful looking stuff, causing the hyenas to drool, and generating moans of revulsion from those of us looking on.

Time to move on in search of prettier things.

We parked up next to a large waterhole surrounded by long grass. It was time for coffee and biscuits. The heat of the coffee through the sides of the aluminium cups proved to be really useful as hand warmers.  Sometimes, being an experienced safari enthusiast give you an advantage over the novice. Both Malcolm and I were alert to the type of biscuits our guides were putting out with the coffee and tea. There were dark brown chocolaty looking ones in a see-through bag, and in another bag some chunky, bland unappetising lumps of rusk. While everyone was drawn to the chocolate biscuits, Malcolm and I quietly attacked the rusks. Light as a feather and harder than brick, you needed the jaws of a hyena to bite into them. But they were spicy and every bit as wonderful as when we enjoyed them back in 2019.

As we chatted and stretched our legs, we watched a couple of Jacana (sometimes known as Jesus birds because they appear to walk on water) using their huge feet to balance on some water lilies. Then from the right, three beautiful white storks came flying in before gently landing on the far side of the waterhole.

Suitably refreshed and significant quantities of rusk demolished, we climbed back into the vehicles and set off once again. We had gone no great distance at all when we pulled into a clearing and stopped. One of the vehicles had a puncture. The land was quite open around this clearing in the trees, so it was safe for us to get out and walk around.

Partner and Banda set about changing the punctured tyre and we took advantage of the situation by soaking up some of the warmth from the morning sunshine. One of the trees on the edge of the clearing had the most remarkable surface. The trunk and upper branches looked as if they were constructed from a giant Cadbury’s Flake. It may have simply been an odd type of bark or possibly the dead remnants of some creeping vine that had enveloped the tree.

Cadbury’s Flake Tree

On the ground a pair of Red-billed Francolin scraped around in the dust looking for titbits to eat. Their routine was to put their head down in search of food for around three seconds, rise their head to check for anything that might kill them for around half a second, repeat. I was obviously not deemed to be the type of creature who would eat a Francolin and so they allowed me to observe them from just over a metre away.

A Francolin passing some elephant muffins

Back on the road again we stopped to watch a small troop of Chacma baboons wander past. One small youngster was failing to keep up due to its compulsion to climb each tree trunk it came to. Another youngster had adopted the more sensible approach of hanging from its mother’s under carriage. This strategy involved little effort on the youngster’s behalf, refreshments just a turn of the head away, and carried no risk of being left behind.

Young Chacma Baboon

As the heat of the day built, elephants were emerging from the woodland in search of cooling water. A group of five bulls had wandered into a lagoon and were being observed from the edge by a sunbathing crocodile. It can be incredibly easy to miss a crocodile, as they lie motionless they resemble so many fallen limbs of dead and damaged trees.  It can of course work they other way. Many tree branches or fallen limbs get mistaken for crocodiles, or ‘Log’odiles as they became known. There are also other wooden animals to spot, such as Wart Logs.

Lurking Crocodile

Four of the bulls mulled around in the shallows whilst the fifth one wandered off through the lagoon into the long grasses growing on the far side. One bull in particular looked to be chilled out, standing ankle deep in the water with his huge trunk draped over one of his tusks. The tip of his trunk would occasionally point in our direction to check out our scent, and then he would point it at the water surface and lazily exhale, creating a burst of ripples.

Trunk Curl

All the time we were there, the crocodile never moved a muscle.

We left the creatures of the lagoon to their midday paddles and turned to head back to camp for lunch. On the way back we watched a pair of hamerkops searching for a frog for their lunch, and several groups of zebras seeking out some shade.

Hammerkop

As we drove into camp, we got our first real look in daylight at the location and the layout of the tents. The camp was set up on the banks of the Khwai River, although because of the high grass and reeds, it was difficult to make out that it actually was a river and not just a small waterhole.

Lunch consisted of salad and the most amazing mince that demanded the indulgence of second helpings. Appetite attended to, I returned to my tent to indulge in a bush shower. A bag of warm water, around the size of a Tesco plastic carrier bag, was suspended from a tripod. That was for both Malcolm and I to shower with. We would take it in turns at going first to make sure we stuck to our half bag of water.  As I was getting myself organised for my shower a noise from about 40 metres away proved to be a lone elephant crossing the river at the edge of camp. In a documentary about camping safaris, I had seen an incident where a snake dropped in from an over hanging branch to join a lady in her shower. My ears were on high alert in case I was about to be joined by an elephant in the shower. Thankfully there were no such interruptions.

Refreshed, I got dressed and popped around to the rear of our tent. Some Chacma baboons were passing by as I set up two trail cameras to capture any nocturnal visitors to the camp. My presence was completely ignored by the baboons as they went about their daily rummage for food.

Before setting off again, there was time for a coffee and a couple of slices of cake containing large quantities of green glazed cherries.

Our afternoon game drive target was to find a leopard which had been sighted in the area. As we cruised around the bush the leopard was nowhere to be seen. Then, in the distance we heard the distinct alarm call of francolins. As we approached the francolins were calling excitedly and several iridescent blue Burchell’s starlings had joined in the chorus. There was obviously something causing the birds to react like this, but it was not a leopard. It was a mongoose. It was in the long grass munching on a francolin chick. A tragedy for the distressed francolins, but an important meal for the mongoose.

We never found the leopard, but in our search for the illusive cat, we were treated to sightings of several elephants, zebra, impala and several exquisite little bee eaters.

The exquisite Little Bee Eaters

We parked up the vehicles on the edge of the green algae waterhole for a sundowner drink. The geese and ducks were settling down for the night around the waters edge. The grumpy hippo was out in the middle, and he would occasionally erupt with a series of loud grunts and snorts. As darkness fell the sky above turned from burnished orange to dark red. The last of the ducks and geese had flown in and claimed their positions by the waterhole. Then it was time for the bats to take to the sky. There were hundreds of them, swirling all over the water feeding on the abundant insect life. It was mesmerising to watch them perform their aerobatics against that gorgeous African sunset sky.

Ducks flying in at sunset

As we drove back to camp in the dark, the guides searched for nocturnal animals with a spot light. Impala, kudu and hyena all made an appearance for us. Then, there was that stench again. We were approaching the elephant carcass. Two young male lions were gorging themselves. These animals have an amazing sense of smell. The stink was horrendous to the unsophisticated noses of us humans, so what it must have been like for these lions sticking their heads inside the body cavity? It didn’t bear thinking about. It is always great to see lions, but on this occasion we did not linger.

In camp, we took time to take in the amazing African night sky. The stars were stunning. Banda talked us through the constellations on view as the bell frogs chimed all along the riverbank.

Dinner consisted of brown onion soup, lamb chops with green beans and a garlic mash. All washed down with a cheeky glass of Merlot.

While we dined a hippo walked along, immediately behind our tents, before slipping into the river. As I retired to bed, I could see the dark shape of the hippo a few metres away in the river.

Trail camera image from the rear of my tent.

Tomorrow we would be joining it in the river. Eight of us were going out for a trip in Mokoros, the traditional canoe used in the delta. As I drifted off to sleep, the hippo grunted a loud “Goodnight” to me.

The link below will take you to a video of some of the events detailed above.

Okavango Safari Day Two