Best of Botswana, Victoria Falls & Cape Town, Winelands….
May 12-24 2010 Trip Report - Page 2
Escorted by: Cindi LaRaia
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 Day 2 for our morning game drive began with wake up at 0530hr, escorted walk to the main area for breakfast and coffee at 0600hr , in the game vehicle at 0630hr was how are days began. Now something else that did not leave our minds vision was our magnificent Leopard sighting, this Leopard had a fresh Impala kill from the night before in the tree! This is rare to see the kill in the tree; however it was not very comfortable with us viewing the kill below it. So after some time, our Leopard took its kill and scaled the tree down to the ground and ran off dragging his Impala with him. Leopards have to take their kill up the tree or the hyena and Lion will take it from them. The leopard will not fight them and will have to give it up and walk away and find another meal.
Africa has many magnificent birds of prey, we saw several Bataleur Raptors as they circle the sky looking for various meals to swoop down and nab for lunch. We also saw Wahlberg’s Eagle, hooded vulture, white backed vulture, tawny eagle and African Fish Eagles. Many times we saw the lovely Saddle billed stork with the colors of a clown, a bright red, black and yellow bill we also many pairs of ostrich.
We saw the usual assortment of vervet monkeys, warthog families, troops of baboons, a leap of antelope, journey’s of giraffe, dazzle of Zebra, rafts of hippos and of course many counsels of starlings! We saw spotted Hyena but I cannot say we saw a clan of hyena.
We had some amazing close encounters with Giraffe and breeding journeys of Giraffe, to me this is the quintessential look of Africa, we would always have a large smile when we turn the corner and there are 2 then 3 then, 4, 5, 6, and 7 giraffe all wandering the only way they can with that gait-ful or ungait-ful walk.
 Since the Okavango has been in huge flood with the rains of Angola flooding the delta, we were there while history was in the making. The Selinda Channel finally filled and met up to form the Selinda River, this has not happened in 27 yrs. This is one of the biggest floods of this time and lots of roads became rivers and was always a challenge to get back to camp, we would find the African Pike or as I lovingly referred to them as American Pike, as well as Tilapia on the side of our vehicle.
We saw slender mongoose, dwarf mongoose, Egyptian geese, gorgeous male Kudu with ginormous horns and beautiful female Kudu.
I was awake since 0200hr listening to the beautiful sounds of Africa, calling lions, then roaring lions, snorting hippo next to my tent, cackling hyenas and I think hooting owls, this was a very active night near my tent! Who wants to sleep when all the sounds of my beloved Africa are calling to me!
Our evening game drive offered a stunning female leopard, we had a long visit with her, then we were able to follow her and then she felt very relaxed and lay down near us. Dawson tells me quietly next to his tire there was a very angry spitting cobra, well hell why didn’t you show me!!! Not everyone is interested in cool snakes but I AM!
 Part of the scenery here were camel thorn trees one of my favorites of Africa with the pods all over the tree, many of the dead tree trunks make for amazing photography. They think at one point many years ago the area was flooded. And oddly enough many palm trees, they think that before land was fenced and human encroachment began, the elephants would migrate as they must to find new trees to eat and would walk from the far ocean near Mozambique through to Botswana and the seed would come across from dung and bird, very cool!
Our last day at Chitable was a lovely we loved our dazzle of Zebra, many of them so lovely to see and photograph. Two big male lions, one must have gotten snared as he had a big gaping slash through his mane, the poaching has subsided a great deal but villagers try to illegally snare antelope and this male somehow walked into it, he will be ok we were advised, but he did not look happy. We also saw another big lone Male who must have been kicked out of his pride. Often brothers will join a coalition to help hunt and feed together, it would be nice if they accepted this lone male as the 3 of them could work as a team, however we left and may never know if that will happen.
A lot of wonderful bird life here, stripped coucou, copper tail coucou, African darter, pied barber hammercop and the many small red billed quelea that all seem to move as one ribbon, a lovely dance they make in the air.
Awesome Dawson serenaded us on our last evening at Chitabe Lediba around the fire, with drinks and his lovely voice and guitar. I hate saying goodbye, this was a wonderful place to spend 3 glorious nights in Botswana, and we will miss you.
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