Thanks to the warmer weather we spent an excellent night on the second camp site. Even though a lion was roaring throughout the night and a hyena checking out the fence. After breakfast we took off again and immediately saw a group of blue wild beasts (Gnus), lots and lots of impalas and finally a family of Pumbas or wardhogs as they are officially called.
We also realized that giraffes and zebras stick together most of the time and we were wondering what they gain out of it as we don’t think they do that out of pure affection. Suddenly our drive got interrupted as an entire family of elephants including a baby one was crossing the street. As impressive as those giants are, you always keep a distance as you know they could seriously damage your camper.
After that we saw some bird swarms, lilac-breasted roller, buffalos, more impalas, more elephants and zebras, a white-backed vulture, more zebras, kudus and finally our camper got blocked again by another animal. This time it was a giraffe who took a walk and thought that the road was just made for that. Watching this animal walk made me think about the fact that almost all animals show a lot of elegance when they move, a characteristic definitely not shared by all humans.
And then my personal highlight of those two days filled with highlights occurred. We saw a leopard resting on a tree. I’m so glad we bought that 600mm lens as otherwise it would have been impossible to see this amazing creature. Leopards were my favorite animals when I was a kid and I even had a cuddly toy shaped like one. And seeing this cuddly toy come to life was mind blowing. And to top it all up, the leopard finished his rest after a while and climbed down the tree at the perfect spot for us to take that once in a lifetime photo.
We were so exited we had to celebrate. That night we didn’t prepare dinner ourself, it was raining anyway, we went to the restaurant and had two fantastic beef filets for USD 10 a piece and two bottles of our favorite South African wine for USD 9 a bottle.
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