Up at 6:30 AM, breakfast at 7, a civic lesson on the geography and the people of Botswana at 7:30, and a departure for the airport in Kasane at 8:30 AM. We headed to the Okavango Delta, the largest inland delta in the world, for stays in the Wilderness Tented Camp II and Moremi Tented Camp.
Onks and Chris Rock give us a civic lesson on Botswana.
Here I am saying goodbye with Onks (front), Chris Rock (back), and Nick (right).
I'm standing next to Onks so you can see how tall he really is.
During the drive to the airport we learned the names for the groupings of various items: group of buffalo - bellow; group of elephant herds - parade; group of hippos - pod or raft (single hippo - iPod; 3 hippos - tripod) Ha ha, just a joke! group of crocodiles - float; group of owls - parliament; group of crows - murder; group of geese - gaggle; group of baboons - troop; group of mongoose - mob.
Our favorite expression from Vitalis, our trip leader, is when he needs to stop and tell us something..."Sorry to interrupt your most beautiful conversations."
One of our favorite bits of information concerned the zebras and how to tell the females from the males. According to our guides, the male zebra's tail swings left to right, and the female's tail swings right to left. We got a pretty good laugh from that one. (I saw right away that the equipment on one of them did not lend credence to that theory).
We had to take 2 planes to the Okavango Delta, a 12-seater and a 4-seater. Iris and I will get to try the 4-seater on the way back to Zambia. We landed just a few minutes after noon, and took the long way around to the camp, using the time for an afternoon safari. Since much of the area we were exploring was part of a nature conservancy, we were escorted by France, a conservancy representative, and we were allowed to go off road for our safari adventures. We saw a red crested korhen, blacksmith plover, lions, impala, kudu, red-billed hornbill (AKA flying chili pepper), tsessebe, wildebeest, giraffe, zebra, crimson breasted shrike, steenbok, kudu and warthogs. The air was fragrant with the smell of both wild and silky sage, but in Africa, sage is not eaten; instead it is used as insect repellent (more aromatic than OFF! any day).
Southern giraffe and Burchell's zebras.
Lilac-breasted roller.
I am fascinated by the warthog's beautiful long mane of hair
and his kneeling down to eat.
Steenbok.
A Hammerkop ponders his reflection in a small pond.
Even lions enjoy sunning themselves.
A huge yawn.
A pair rest in between rounds of passion.
The highlight of the day and evening safari drives was definitely the sighting of the 2 male lions and the one female lion. We also played the role of voyeurs several times while we watched the one pair mate over and over and over again in 15-20 minute intervals. Our guide, Mozilla, told us to be ready with the cameras once we saw the female rise up and work her body up against the male, then lay down before he mounted her. Good thing we knew what to expect ahead of time, since it was over in less than one minute. It was spooky how their sounds were so like the human sounds. They would then lie back down and start anew in about 15-20 minutes. Apparently this goes on for 7-10 days! I don't know how anyone or anything could keep this up for that long before being completely exhausted.
The male lion on the prowl.
The male and female lions make eye contact.
The female initiates the mating by rubbing up against the male.
Wham, bam, thank you ma'am.
Since Wilderness Tented Camp was located in a remote area, there were restrictions on the generator usage, so we had power from 5 AM-7 AM and once again from 6 PM-11PM. We were issued flashlights for each tent, and, even though we had a boardwalk from tent to tent, we needed to be escorted at dark (good thing because on the way to our tent, the walkway descended to 2 ground level crossings where we were exposed as easy pickings to any carnivore who happened to pass our way. In fact, when we asked if any visitors had ever been killed on the ground crossings, we were told no, but that 2 staff members were killed by lions in another camp - one guy on his way from the kitchen and one woman on the way to the toilet).
Entrance to Wilderness Tented Camp.
The camp loo with a view.
Our home away from home for the next 3 days.
Another awesome, comfy bed.
Forgot to mention the wonderful ponchos on these jeeps. In Kruger we had wool blankets to protect us from the cold. In Botswana we had green hooded ponchos with a wool lining. As long as you kept them wrapped around you, you were as toasty as could be.
Group of owls = parliament? That's a hoot! ;-)
ReplyDeleteI want you on my team when we play Trivial Pursuit!
Your pun about the owl is a hoot! My picture of the owl is almost the same shape as the wigs the Brits wear in Parliament.
ReplyDeleteI was trying to memorize all that info in case in might come in handy during a game of trivia.