Leopard, Leopard

Last night’s sleep was wonderful! The bed was very comfortable. Unfortunately our neighbor snored pretty loudly, loud enough to rival Dad. At first I thought it was a hippo grunting, but then realized it was the guy in the chalet next to us.

We had a wakeup call at 5am and then headed over for a breakfast of cereal and toast with our guide for the day, Billy, who was also the one who picked us up from the airport yesterday. He’s such a nice and funny guy. He is so knowledgeable about the animals and also very funny in some of the comments he makes. He is also Malawian, so that scores him points in my book. J

This morning we had Joel along too, who is a guide in training. His exams are a week away so he was our driver and gave us information on the animals with supplemental information and help given by Billy. It’s amazing how smart these guys are. They have to know every insect, plant, animal and bird; their species names, how to identify them at night, and all kinds of facts about them. It is just incredible!

So this morning our drive was from 6-10 with a break for coffee and tea. These are the things we saw: lots of giraffe, a ton of elephants, the 3 hyena from yesterday, 5 warthog, zebra, bushbuck, waterbuck, and the usual impala and puku. I also am interested in the birds, being influenced by mom and wanting to write down the names of them because I know she loves them. Birds: African harrier hawk (or gymnogene), open billed stork, hamerkop, lesser grey shrike, red billed oxpeckers, Egyptian geese, martial eagle, pied kingfisher and woodland kingfisher, crowned cranes, white fronted bee eater, woolly-necked stork and a fish eagle. Oh, and at the end of our drive we saw the leopard again. It was back in its tree eating more of the impala. It was wonderful seeing it in the daylight, and once again we got to see it jump out of the tree and settle in a tree a little further back. We enjoyed today’s drive because it was just the two of us in the car with the guides, so we could stop at whatever we wanted. Last night we kind of zipped along because the people we were with had seen everything before and wanted to get to the big stuff. Today we spent tons of time watching the giraffes and elephants and learning all the fun facts about them.

After lunch, which was a delicious roll, salad and pasta carbonara, I headed over to the pool with my book. To get to the pool you have to walk along the river bank to get to the camp site. It’s pretty neat because you can see the hippos and crocs in the river and sometimes there are antelope eating the grass near the path. I read a little bit and then ended up taking a nap near the pool since I was tired from our early morning. After the couple hours of napping/swimming/reading/tanning, we got ready for our night drive. Tonight on our drive we had Billy again as our guide/driver and Isaac was our spotter. We were in a full car tonight, with a German couple and 5 people from Holland I think. The goal for tonight was to find cats. We stopped occasionally for the elephants, giraffes etc. but we established before the drive that all of us were willing to spend a short amount of time on those things so we would have more time for the cats. The only new thing we saw tonight was buffalo. Billy just drive down into a lagoon area because he saw a lot of birds there and as we rounded the corner there was a huge herd of buffalo! After our sundown drink we headed up the road for a bit and then decided to turn around. On the way back we met a car that was hauling some sugar cane to a lodge far away. He said that on their way out of the park earlier, they saw some lions. So we turned back around and continued up the road some more to see if we could find them. It was pretty treacherous roads and really overgrown, so I could see why Billy wanted to turn around at first. Unfortunately, we didn’t see the lions. But just knowing that they were close to the area, and having a lead, was exciting. On the way back we were driving through some flatter areas which were full of the reflections of impala and zebra eyes. All of a sudden Isaac found a pair of eyes slouched down low in the grass. They had an orangey reflection. LEOPARD! It was very far away to see too clearly at first, but after a few seconds of sitting in total darkness in the car, it moved toward us. The impalas had seen it and sounded their alarm cry, so the chances of the leopard getting a kill were slim, although at one point it slouched down in the grass like it was thinking about it. We followed it for a little way up the road, and it was so close to us. After moving toward us, the grass was shorter so we really had a great look at it.

After this leopard sighting we headed back toward the main gain. On the way was our other leopard tree with the impala in it. When we passed it at the beginning of the drive there was no leopard or even hyena around. But this time, the leopard was back! It was a bit higher up in the tree though so you could mainly just see the tail hanging down. And the hyenas were there again as well. So we saw 2 leopards in one night, 3 leopard sightings total today. We’ve seen at least 1 leopard on every drive so far, but no lions! Tomorrow we’ll be on the lion hunt!

Supper was delicious veggie samosas, steak and chips, and a fruit crumble for dessert. It was so delicious but made me even more tired than I am now after our long day. Tonight’s sleep is not going to seem long enough. But I’m excited for tomorrow!