Late breakfast on the veranda. Checking out of Letaba and moving south back to Olifants for a few days. Then back to Letaba for a couple of days. I don’t remember why I booked it this way – don’t remember if it was an availability issue or if I just wanted to keep moving around. Whatever. Down side of moving is that you’re homeless between check-out (10 AM) and check-in (2 PM). Too hot to find animals and you got no bed for napping so it’s basically find a place to sit and cook.
So the heat really arrived yesterday. It was about 100F by noon and topped out at about 105F, if my mental conversions are on target. I don’t remember much about yesterday except that by about 0900, it was all but over. Every animal in the park was either standing under some distant tree or standing in some distant body of water. Nothing was moving. I saw some buffalo, each of which reclined under some pitiful bush, half unconscious, not even willing to open their eyes when I stopped the car 5 meters away. Saw juvenile baboons chasing secretary birds away from a water tank. Just for sport.
Slept with the air conditioning on last night. I’m not proud of it, but….
Up earlier this morning and out for a drive. It was not as cool as it’s been, portending another friggin’ hot day today. We’d evidently had a few spits of rain as the dust on the car was dappled and there were a few small spots on the roadway where small amounts of water had collected. I headed north, away from people. Maybe 10K down the main highway, I saw a warthog running and then stop and look back. I saw a second warthog also looking agitated. So I stopped the car and saw a leopard in the tall grass on the side of the road. I went ahead about 50 meters and did a three-point turn and came back so that the cat would be on my side. By the time I got to the spot, the leopard had disappeared. It’s impossible to overstate the ability of a leopard to just melt into its surroundings. I knew I was no more than 20 meters away but couldn’t see it. I drove about 30 meters down the road, turned around again and waited. The leopard emerged, unconcerned about my presence and then sauntered across the road and off to my right. After a short distance, it lay down in the grass. If I hadn’t seen where it stopped, I’d have never have been able to see it. Just the occasional flick of the tail above the level of the grass. I watched and shot the ‘spot the leopard’ photos (that’s most of what you get with leopards) and then it got up, walked further way and then lay down again. And then again. And then it was gone, melted into the background. It was my time with the leopard and no one else was around even though all of this occurred on the main highway.
I’ve seen 4 leopards here, so far. The first was found by a ranger while driving us to the starting point for an evening walk. The second presented herself to me while I sat on a bluff overlooking the river. But the last two (in three days), I’ve found by paying attention to other animals. I think that’s the key with finding many animals, and especially leopards. You let the other animals tell you where they are. You just have to pay attention. I’m convinced that there was a third one at the hide yesterday but I never saw it. It was there though because the impala snorted alarm and fled, and a bird alarmed and then a giraffe walked by, carefully watching a place in the grass. Unfortunately, that place was out of sight from the hide. But something was there.
Later drove down the Tzende River road. It was a beautiful morning and I didn’t see another vehicle on the road. Not a lot of wildlife - the usual suspects - but it was quiet and beautiful and a very nice drive. About 14K into it, I came around a bend and there was a big bull elephant walking up the road. I shut the car off to see what it would do but having seen me it walked purposefully directly at me. I backed up about 100 meters and waited and it kept walking right at me. It wasn’t doing anything overtly aggressive but the intent was clearly to intimidate me. Every now and then, it would pause, pull some branch and pretend to eat but then drop it and resume walking toward me. I kept backing off, shutting off the engine and waiting to see if he eventually would turn off and begin feeding but he kept coming. So I backed further off and around a bend and waited to see if he would continue to follow me around the bend. I saw him emerge from the bush and he’d taken a shortcut, essentially continuing on a straight line in my direction. That left him maybe 50 meters off the road, so I started up, dropped it into first and scooted by as quickly as possible, while he turned and watched me go, head held high. In my experience, this is a pretty common occurrence. I’ve been through it 3 or 4 times now and I really do think it is about establishing who’s the boss. And of course, we all know who’s the boss in that circumstance…. These bulls, and I think especially the younger ones, are the original ‘swinging dicks’ – figuratively and sometimes literally. I’ve seen them push hippos around for the hell of it and even seen them chase warthogs way, just to make the point.
And now I’m here, dripping in sweat, overlooking the Letaba River. There’s a big bull with huge tusks down in the river and I’ve seen about 10 giraffe splashing around in the water.
A young German couple has arrived. The guy orders a beer at 1000, then asks if it’s too early to order lunch. Germans crack me up.
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