It was very hot last night and, despite a fan in our room, the air didn’t seem to move. There is no actual glass in the windows, just
anti-bug mesh, so maybe tonight we should leave the curtains open and try to get a bit
of air through.
The drums started at 5:15am to
wake us up and we wandered to the fire pit about 5:45 for tea/coffee and a bit
of cake. It’s was just about light then
and we were all keen to get out to see what animals were showing themselves
today.
We’ve been really lucky with the
people we’ve shared trucks with so far and again we’ve fallen on our feet as we’re
out with the same couple as yesterday – Franz and Liesbeth from Belgium. He’s a plastic surgeon and she is his
receptionist/nurse/theatre nurse and general right arm. They are very widely travelled and luckily
for us speak excellent English.
There are many Guinea Fowl around
and although this is a really bad picture, I hope it shows how they wander
around aimlessly refusing to fly unless absolutely essential.
Ian heard a very good joke about them
-Q: What
do Guinea Fowl and the UN Peace-keeping force have in common?
-A: They both wear blue hats and run around being totally
useless.
When we were at Kafunta Lodge,
lower down in the South Luangwa Valley, we’d heard about Lilian’s Lovebirds,
indeed Hadley who hitched a lift on our transfer had been dying to see
them. I think they are of the parrot
family; they're certainly very noisy and move quickly in large numbers.
I had always thought that hyenas
hunted in packs, but we only ever saw lone ones – to me they really are quite
revolting with their sloping back and shifty expression.
Whilst this baboon shot is
nothing in particular itself, it does show the glorious African light soon
after dawn.
The male Kudu is a beautiful animal
and when they reach maturity the horns have a 2 ½ times twist.
These young male lions are known
as the Numba Boys (from the area they came from).
Unfortunately no one in our truck was willing to nip down and remove the very annoying blades of dried grass!
We sat quietly watching them for
almost an hour, they alternated between sun and shade – I took many, many
photos of these majestic creatures.
After we reluctantly dragged
ourselves away, we came across these Ground Hornbills who had caught a
Leopard Tortoise (one of the little 5) and were tossing it around trying to get
it out of its shell.
And a few Cape Buffalo
We then drove off to Pelican
Lagoon for a tea/coffee break; its one of the last waterholes left and still
quite pretty with a bit of green Nile Cabbage floating around. Lots of birds and Impala drinking.
As we were sitting there enjoying
our break a herd of Elles wandered down and once again it seemed we were in
their way but eventually they strolled past.
There were quite a few young in the herd and this little fellow obviously found his trunk a bit heavy that day so leaned against the tree – trunk!
This one kept a careful eye on us
whilst a few others enjoyed the water.
Then more Elles from the other
side of the bank
