Day 5

Night time loud hippo sounds. Morning drive through savanna. Saw lots of elephants, giraffes and impala. Saw roan antelope. Early on, we saw prints of African wild dogs, which are extremely endangered and very rare. There only about 5000 left on the entire continent. We were driving around following their footprints, but not finding the pack. Along the way, we also picked up footprints of a lion. Finally, our guide, Lets, got a call that another guide had found the dogs so we headed to that place. We found a pack of 8 adults and two pups. Most were sleeping with their bellies full as they recently killed an impala and still had blood on their faces. We saw a female feed the pups. The dogs were not afraid at all and came very close to our car. We spent most of the morning watching them and taking their pictures.. After our return to camp a herd of elephants were in the water behind our cabin. There were several babies among them. We got some great up close pictures… One started to walk towards our deck and we ran inside. A few minutes later, a group of 10 elephants came out of the water and virtually surrounded our tent. They were about 4 feet away from us. We were surrounded for about 15 frightening minutes, and then the elephants started to move away. A short time later our guide came running down the path towards our cabin with an elephant right behind him. After rest time we embarked to find a reported leopard sighting. This morning our guide got a call that a leopard made a kill and is likely to be around. It took us about an hour to get to the place of kill, but the leopard was nowhere to be seen. Lets (our guide) started driving around the immediate area knocking down bushes and little trees for about half an hour and when we were ready to quit, our guide found it. It was a male who confiscated the kill from the female. He was full and lethargic. We pulled the safari truck right next to him and took about 1000 pictures. We stayed too long (Al’s opinion) and after an unnecessary stop for refreshments we did not get back to camp until dark. It was an unpleasant drive. However, dinner was magnificent. The camp employees put on a great song and dance performance for us and gave us a great meal of African food. It was a 35th anniversary of their company (Wilderness Safaris) and they celebrated it like an important family birthday. It sounded like the company has been very good to them and they feel very grateful and loyal. We had a birthday cake and wonderful African liqueur called amarula to celebrate. What a day!