Lying in bed snuggled
under the weight of several blankets that have managed to keep most of me cozy
for our night under the stars in celebration of our anniversary, I wake up just
in the nick of time to see a bit of magic. Rolling to one side I see the full
moon setting, red in the dust of the dry Botswana earth. Rolling in the other
direction, just past Paul’s head, I see the sun rising. Magic!
We’ve celebrated
our 8th anniversary in a “sky bed” (watch this video to get a better
look of what I’m talking about). When we arrive after dinner the stairways are
illuminated with lanterns to guide us to the top of this two story structure
where we find our beds all made up for the night. Before climbing under the
warm covers, we sit at the viewing counter and watch the elephants drink from
the watering hole just 100 yards away. While we bring our night vision
binoculars we don’t really need them because the full moon makes it pretty easy
to see. For much of the night I hear them quietly coming and going to the
watering hole. While it wasn’t the best night of sleep I’ve ever had, it was
pretty special none the less (it was pretty bright with the full moon and cold,
all night I felt like a dragon with very cold breath was breathing on the exposed
skin of my face).
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| Sky Bed - Hyena Pan |
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| Paul looking up at Sky Bed |
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| Me looking down from Sky Bed |
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| Beds all made up for the night |
A couple weeks
back I put in a bid for two nights at Hyena Pan Tented Camp as a part of an
online breast cancer fund raiser. Little did I know the auction ended at noon,
so my bid at 11:59 was well-timed and outbid the standing offer with no time to
lose. With that we were off to the bush for a short escape. Nestled in the mopane
trees near the Khwai River (always an amazing place for wildlife viewing) we were
the only guests in camp over Botswana’s President’s Day holidays (which
happened to fall this year on our anniversary, July 18).
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| Paul's friend Peg, the one legged bird |
While there was
not much wildlife at the camp itself (and what we did see was quite skittish –
this area used to be hunting area and it seems the animals still remember), we
do have some nice encounters including a one legged bird (I’ve named “Peg”) who
Paul befriends and likes to feed cookie crumbs to at tea (and bread crumbs to
at lunch and breakfast). As the sun sets one night a honey badger trots into
camp looking for goodies. Unphased by us, he makes his way around camp.
Notoriously fierce, we keep our distance.
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| "Peg" with cookie crumbs at tea |
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| Wild dog |
The wildlife not
far from camp does not disappoint. We hear from other guides that there is a
wild dog den with ten pups not too far from where we’re staying so we venture
out to see if we can catch a glimpse. We visit the den a couple times only to
find a few sleeping adults but the pups must be safely tucked down in the den
because we see no sign of them. On our third attempt, the mother is sleeping in
the sand track we’re driving in on. As we slowly navigate around her (it is
shocking how unaffected they are by the presence of vehicles), she decides to
get up and walk over to the edge of the den where she is rushed by the ten pups
who scurry to have a mid-morning snack. The puppies scramble out of the den
vying for a good seat at the table, so to speak. When mom decides that’s
enough, she simply stands up and walks away leaving the kids to play outside a
bit on their unstable legs.
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| Wild dog pups at play |
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| More fooling around |
The Khwai River
area is teeming with animals. We see large pods of hippos and on our way back
to Maun we come around one bend in the river to find literally hundreds of
elephants coming down for a drink. Who knows where they’ve come from or how far
they’ve traveled (it is the dry season and access to water is limited to rivers
or artificially pumped watering holes, all the standing rain water from the
rainy season has pretty much dried up by this point in the year). They arrive
in waves, family groups washing up to the bank of the river like the ocean cycles
to the shore. One breeding herd arrives, drinks, then moves on and another
arrives to take their place. It is breath-taking! We stop the vehicle and watch for
a very long time as they pass in front of us and behind us. Low grumbles. Small
ones kept in the middle surrounded by mom and aunts and older sisters. An
occasional cheeky adolescent male, who feels the need to shake his head and
flap his ears, gives us a little trumpet just to let us know he could “take us”,
if he had too. Typically you don’t need
to worry about those adolescents (they are more bluster than real threat), it’s
the big mamas protecting their babies you’ve got to keep an eye on. But that afternoon they seemed relatively calm.
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| Waves of elephants |
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| Mama and baby drinking |
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| Breeding herds drinking |
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| Giraffe family |
We decide to take
the “old road” back to Maun for part of the return trip (there is now an
incredibly dusty and bumpy road made of calcrete that most travelers take from
Maun to Moremi). Off the beaten track and away from the other tourists we
putter back towards Maun. We find many surprises along the way. Rounding one
corner looking away from the river and up into the mopane forest we see a large
herd of Cape buffalo tucked under the trees (sorry no picture of that one). We
encounter curious giraffe families and see plenty of impala. Out of the corner
of my eye as we're heading down the road I even catch a glimps of a group of four male lions napping under a bush (I
have a theory that you only see lions when you’re not looking for them and this was definitely one of those cases).
They must have just eaten because very close by is a herd of impala that they
are not at all interested in. One is on his back splayed out like a satisfied
house cat, legs in the air. Another has leaves stuck in his mane which is a bit
skewiff with lion “bedhead”. He yawns
with disinterest in our direction. So glad I turned my head in that direction,
just in the nick of time…
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| Napping lions |
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| Lion Bedhead |
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| Licking his chops |
