Tuesday, April 25th.
We were up
even earlier this morning, at 5, for a boat safari. We motored up and down the
river looking for wildlife but didn’t see much other than a few birds, crocs,
one hippo and a Cape buffalo, but it was relaxing and way less bumpy than the
truck safaris. When we got back Paula divided us into small teams and had us
play a game. She showed us 20 photos on her computer and we had to guess what
the ISO setting was, what the shutter speed was, and what the aperture setting
was. My team won thanks to Mads and Matt and no help from me. Matt said every
team needed a cheerleader. Then we had lunch after which we had a science
lecture on Amphibians led by Dylan. Then we went for our afternoon game drive.
We had Spencer as our guide for the first time. He is a Canadian from
Mississauga and has been here over a year. It was another bumpy hot drive and
since it’s bird week we focused on them. After two hours we saw an elephant off
to our right, right by the road and we stopped. She trumpeted at us, crashed
through the bush to get ahead of us, and confronted us on the road. She was
really upset by our presence as there was at least one very young elephant in
the group. She trumpeted a couple more times and then bluff charged us several
times. Spenser was very cool, talking softly to her, then yelling ‘hey’ when
she charged. On the third charge he slapped his door and talked softly to her
and she seemed to hesitate and back up. Spenser started the truck and slowly
backed up and she seemed happy with that. After we managed to turn around and
get to a safe distance, we had a chat. He was obviously shaken, and his
adrenalin was racing. Spenser warned Yolisa the driver of another truck not to
go that route and she came behind us. We stopped to look at some tracks which
the guides were very excited to identify as aardvark tracks. Yolisa had all of
us from both trucks get out as she showed us a large lump of dried elephant
dung and what she wanted to show us. She lit it was a lighter and showed us how
people used to smoke it while using it as a mosquito deterrent. Many of us, including
me, tried it. It was like inhaling tobacco without the filter, nicotine
or any high. But where else would you get the chance to try that, or even want
to? By that time, it was getting dark and we needed to get back for dinner, so
we split up and drove back to camp. On the way, Spenser was driving, talking on
the walkie talkie and shining a torch into the wood looking for the tell-tale
sign of lighted eyes, and he found a tree with 3 or 4 bushbabies jumping
through the branches. He was very excited about that, as it was another rare
sighting, but I found they were impossible to see let alone photograph. However,
Timo got a couple of good shots. Then finally back to camp to hear that one of
the other trucks was broken down in the dark in the reserve, so they had to go
and rescue them. We had another good dinner after which Bruce and I went to the
bar and had a couple of beer before bed.
mmm..dried elephant dung! will you bring some back so we can try it too? Sounds like it was a pretty wonderful day.
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