Sara and Gav's Worldwide Tour!

Thursday, April 05, 2007

so a few more pics of kruger park! although it is expected to see elephants, giraffes, antelope, zebras etc, it is very rare to see any cats so we were really lucky to see this leopard! tucked up nicely in the tree, minding its own business completely unaware of us frantically taking pictures! Was amazing to see it, the driver even went off the track and under the tree so we could get an even closer look!

The last pic of Kruger is of me with an elephant, this is how close we got, we could almost reach out and touch them! this one looks quite small compared to some we saw but all equally amazing! I'm trying to think of other animals we saw, dikdik are like miniture antelope the size of a small dog, lots of other antelope species - kudu, heartbeast, puku, one with a target on its
bum i can't remember the name of! really amazing day and a great start to our journey through Africa

then when we got back to the campsite guess what was for dinner??!!!! giraffe! partly at my flipant request that morning but much to a lot of peoples shock!! was funny even the vegetarians tried it, and it was so good, a nice white meat, tender and delicious! i could definitely get used to the african cuisine!



So after this fantastic start we got down to reality and spent the next 2 days in the truck driving across Botswana! I wasn't the most fantastic part of the journey but it was pretty cool, the landscapes as I said before were great, and we actually got to see some locals too. this was a bit of an eyeopener as we saw everything from brick houses to very poorly made falling down mud huts still being lived in. the children were always so happy though, waving at us eagerly as we drove past, if ever we stopped all they wanted was for us to take pictures of them so they could see themselves, they were really cute. we saw so many of them from children to adults working in the fields, working with the animals, and its all really old fashioned - no machinery here; working the fields with tools and animal pulled along ploughs, it was like going back to the turn of the 20th century. so although as not as exciting as seeing all the animals, it was still interesting to see and learn from.

whenever we got the campsite in the evening and set up our tents it was nice to relax with everyone, get to know eachother, most of the places had swimming pools which felt so good in the scorching heat (which i've already forgotten what it feels like being back in england!!)

One of the places we stayed along the way was called ElephantSands and it had a few private parks around so we went for a game walk one morning - completely unarmed! that was a bit scary but it turned out ok because we hardly saw any animals! even the waterhole gav is standing next too usually has elephants bathing in, didn't have one in sight! oh well, we did see a few zebras and a few giraffe poking their heads over the trees which made the walk worth while. It was also nice to get out the truck and do a bit of exercise!






Just before we left Botswana we stayed at a place called Chombe and went on a river cruise on the Chombe River. this was excellent as we saw so many animals in the water, first we saw some hippos (pics coming up), then we saw a few antelope species drinking from the river which was cool, then we saw a some kudus (left) pretty cool, look at those horns!





then from out of nowhere this elephant came running down the hill and i mean running, the boat even began to shake! it was quite loud too. it drank loads of water, we all hoped it was bathe too but it was just thirsty, still it was excellent to see it in the river, we saw quite a few elephants in the water after that all very thirsty! again lots more pics to come!

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