African Safari Leg 3: Botswana and the Okavango Delta, Qorokwe Camp, Part 2

August 21 – Sept 1

Hi All,

I continue this blog at the Qorokwe Camp (first camp) after lunch on Day 2, 8/22:

Weather: Well….it is hot and then more hot in Botswana…..but, gee John, it’s a dry heat you say…..hmmm, it’s still an oven I reply!! The days are in the high 80’s to mid-90’s but the nights do cool off to high 50’s to mid-60’s. During our time in Botswana we had 8 straight days in the 90’s but low 60’s at night. And we had smoke from various bush fires. All were man made but some got out of control in some high winds. We were never threatened and the smoke seemed to stay away from us so you barely felt it, just saw it on the horizon and when looking at the sun.

Botswana: We did not know much about this small democratic nation but we learned a lot from the staff talking with us at cocktails and from Ona. Wow…what a remarkable recent history. When we got back home we watched the movie, ” A United Kingdom” starring David Oyelowo (Selma) and Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) in this inspiring true story of the forbidden love between the King of Botswana and a white English woman in the 1940s. When they decided to marry just as apartheid was being introduced into South Africa, it caused an international uproar. But their passionate romance triumphed over every obstacle and changed the course of African history.” It truly is a remarkable story and the new King turned out to be a “good” guy as well…not allowing any foreign company to own any mining rights and taking all the profits from diamond mining and placing the monies in Trusts for health, education, infrastructure, agriculture, tourism et al. Wow o wow…..what a breath of fresh air…a politician/monarch that actually cares for his people….oh how the world can learn form this small democratic country!!!

https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/botswana..htm”https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/botswana.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botswana

Day 2: So after a rest we set off for the afternoon game drive. Ona says it’s a bit of a drive but the locals have located a large group of Wild Dogs…let’s go!!! Wild Dogs are also known as “Painted Hunting Dogs” – referring to their beautiful patchwork coats. Over the past 5 years Botswana has become one of the best places to see and photograph wild dogs. It is believed their overall population in Africa is between 3000 and 5000 with over 700 alone found in Botswana, the majority of which are found in the Northern regions.”

Oh what a beautiful sighting….8 adults, 8, 2-3 month old cubs, and 8, ~1 month old cubs…..wow, wow, wow. Evidently 2 females had their litters fairly close together. They do that in order to help each other out raising the cubs….interesting!! All the cubs were very playful while the adults just wanted to sleep to get ready for the night hunt. Other highlights were a 1-week old giraffe and mom, then 2 juvenile giraffes and moms, and at our sundowner location by a watering hole a mom elephant with a 1-year calf and a juvenile all came to have a drink of water…wow!!! Dinner that night was kudo stew (domestic) and pork belly…yummers!!

Day 3: Up at 5:45am and same drill for breakfast. We found the same lion pride of 8 from yesterday and they looked tired and hungry. We watched them blow 2 different kills. I guess hunting lion style is a learned behavior because these guys were terrible. No stealth or patience. You could see the older females getting a bit irritated with the young clueless cubs. They would see a group of impalas and instead of sneaking up to them or being upwind, they would maybe do this for a few minutes but then someone would expose themselves and off goes the prey. It was amazing but you sort of felt sorry for the pride….as Kathy kept saying, everyone has to eat at some point. Then we came across a group of wildebeest and Ona made the comment, “if they don’t get a kill here then they deserve to be in a zoo”…..oweeeeeeee:)))) We watched for a while and they just kept blowing it even though the herd kept changing course needlessly. It is well known wildebeest have no short term memory….in fact the joke is w/in 30 seconds they will forget why they are running. Well true to form…the lions chased the herd towards the truck, the lions stopped, the herd slowed down, then did a circle running fast right back into the lions…ODG….would they all survive….nope, all of a sudden Ona guns the Land Cruiser and w/in 10-15 seconds we are witnessing a pride of 8 lions taking down an adult wildebeest. It was, well….survival and nature….the lions started eating and ripping before the wildebeest was dead…it fought for maybe 3-4 minutes until finally it died. Then the feast was on….the noise the lions made…smacking, growling, biting, licking, grunting….whoa….what a feast. We watched for over an hour until slowly each lion stumbled off, panting rapidly as their metabolism sped up to help the digestion. When it was all done Ona said…hmmm, it’s lunch time…anyone want a rare steak….oh, that was good guide humor:))))

This was moving day: We had lunch until 12:30ish, then packed and were ready by 1:30….a short drive to the airport, then board a small bush plane…it’s 2:30ish and very hot…nothing like riding in a sauna….ugh!!!

The Plan: I’ll stop here at the end of Qorokwe Camp and start up at Kings Pool. So far I have gone through ~2300 of the 7125 pictures taken…whoa!!!

Hope all is well!

John
Mystic Moon

Pictures at: http://mysticmoonvoyages.com/photo-gallery/nggallery/main-album/botswana-okavango-delta-qorokwe-camp-part-2