Dancing in Africa

The dancing ladies and Nick made it home safe and sound, although not without traveling glitches. We were collected and brought to the Victoria Falls airport by an older woman driver (name lost in jetlag fog). She asked if we saw the big 5, to which Sue responded “everything but a Rhino, so could you please point one out on the way to the airport.” She explained that they are exceedingly rare but they do have one in the game preserve in Zimbabwe so when we come back we should go on a game drive there.  She gave a less than satisfying answer to Sue’s question about what the ladies were carrying in parcels on their heads. She dropped us at the airport (with a parting dig at the Chinese who built the new addition) and a porter took over. He brought us to a long line waiting to check in for a Fastjet  1:20 pm  flight to Johannesburg, but it turned out to be the wrong Fastjet  1:20 pm  flight to Johannesburg. We figured it out pretty quickly and checked in, getting g...

Some of us were able to sleep in on Sunday while others woke  at 4:45 am  as if we had a game drive. We are all taking malaria prevention pills - a side effect is vivid dreams. Sometimes it’s just as well to start the day.  We met for breakfast  at 7:45 . There was a lavish spread of cold foods including delicious pastries and various hot foods to order. Sue and Julie had a scrambled egg quesadilla with spinach and feta cheese. It did not have Hatch green chili so Nick passed and stuck with granola.  At 8 am  we were picked up by our guide Big Boy for a tour of Victoria Falls. There was another couple in the van who would be joining us on tour. We had been spoiled by having a guide all to ourselves for the 9 days of the safari, so having these rather entitled individuals monopolize the guide was a bit jarring. We drove to a parking lot for the Falls and Big Boy went to purchase our tickets. We entered and stood around a map and Big Boy explained our tour. I...

Saturday was our last  5 am wake  -up knock, and it will be nice to sleep in tomorrow. We had coffee and zucchini muffins and climbed into the jeep  around 5:45 . It was chilly! We saw some elephants just waking up and 2 warthogs with big tusks. We ran across the giraffe with no tail and claw or bite scars on his inner thigh. This time the scars were apparent. He happily munched on the top of a tree quite close to us.  We saw more warthogs and several more giraffes, including one with a couple birds on its neck. We found a herd of wildebeest and were snapping some photos when we heard the roar of a lion. Ona got very excited and drove like a maniac to find the lions. He surmised it was the 2 males who are part of the area pride. It took a bit but when they roared again, we were able to find them. There were indeed 2 big males laying in the scrub, but Ona thought they weren’t the ones from the area. We watched and took pictures and even videos hoping they would roar a...

Friday, September 30 is Botswana’s Independence Day. We hope to learn more about it at the evening dinner. At breakfast, we greeted everyone as they greeted us: “Happy Independence Day!”  At lunch, the main building had been decorated with flags and lanterns in the national colors: light blue, black and white.  Our morning game drive was spent tracking a leopard and a lioness. Unfortunately we never found either one. We did see the following new animals: a Honey Badger (smaller than expected); a herd of Common waterbuck - they have a white stripe around their rump; and a Copper tailed coucal - a bird who is found only in this corner of the Okavango, and is much sought after by birders.  Other birds included the blacksmith plover (named because its call sounds like a blacksmith striking an anvil), a yellow billed kite, a beautiful white fronted bee eater and an Egyptian goose. We saw many lilac breasted rollers - Julie’s favorite bird.  We saw a hippo outside the wate...