SA-Botswana – day 8

That day may very well be the best day we have had on this trip. We got up early again and went to tbe brown hyenas. That time there were two cubs with the mom and they were both nursing. From there we went down to the plains again in search for lions if I remember correctly. It was a very interesting different landscape. What we saw there among others were southern ground hornbill. They are a rare sight. Then we went to a (mostly dry) river where we had our coffee break with lots of elephants below us. It is close to Eagle rock. We were in an elevated place so we were safe. The elephants came up a bit away from us and walked over the plains. It was very impressive to see so many of them. There were two big herds of at least 15-20 animals of all sizes. But there were more smaller herds too. When you are able to give them space they are perfectly okay with humans being around. After coffee we drove closer to Eagle rock and had beautiful colorful bee-eater birds there. We went back to the camp without meeting any elephants on the path where we had met them the day before (lucky us 😀 ). After lunch we had zebras at the water hole in the camp.

For the afternoon game drive we went back towards the river where we had seen the elephants in the morning. The plan was to visit the sister resort of the Serolo camp – the Mohave bush camp which was close by. SK had heard from their staff that lions were close to the camp. When we started to drive over in a dry river we came upon elephants again but we were far enough away so that they didn’t feel threatened. But they had a very small calf in the group and immediately went in front of it. All stayed calm and once they were gone we continued. Soon after we stopped for a wonderful sunset. And then…. SK found two lions. Two teenagers who thought they could entertain themselves by going for a giraffe. In reality they wouldn’t have been able to kill the giraffe and since the heads of the lions looked a bit reddish they seemed to have eaten already. So it was a game for them to be on to the giraffe. The giraffe didn’t run away so the lions stayed close by. Since that happened in front of a wonderful yellow sunset sky you can imagine how happy we were taking pics. 😀

When the lions left the giraffe alone we went to a dry river and there we found three more lions. Must have been the three sisters of the two males. They were all smaller lions. And then we went to the Mohave Bush camp. It was already dark but we could use the restrooms and then we went back towards our camp. When it was dark we stopped to look up in the sky and search for the Southern Cross and the Milky Way. When we thought we were close to the camp we saw some elephants again. Only we didn’t go to the Serolo camp. Because Kennedy and Kito had prepared a bush dinner for us. That was such an amazing surprise. We had a very tasty dinner under the stars.What a phantastic last evening in Botswana. After we were finished SK brought us back to the camp. Later I realized that we were just in time because only a few minutes after I was in my cabin I heard elephants right next to it. SK told me the next day that he would have chased them away if they had already been there when I came back home. 🙂