This entry is posted on Sunday, June 4, around 6am Botswana time.

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It’s Friday, June 2, 2023, 12:10pm as I type, and I am again sitting on the deck at Moremi Crossing. Ash is attending a basket weaving session held by the local women. (Although he didn’t last very long – it was more of a show and tell than instruction, and they didn’t speak English so difficult to follow.) I just finished up Wednesday’s blog so time to start on the next entry. I think I’ve given up on the idea of one big entry, but I have discovered iMovie, thanks to Jim here on this trip with us, and may do some things with photos that I haven’t done before for folks that aren’t into all this detail. It’s been fun traveling with a bunch of travelers and talking about travel! I’m the travel youngster of the group: Maire introduced to an app that will track the countries you’ve visited, and I’m at a mere 23 countries. Even Dylan, the 25-year-old, may have been to more countries than me! Maire is at 103.

The procedure here is you get a wake-up yell at 5:30am to which they ask you to respond that you heard it, and then will come back at 6am to escort you to breakfast. Because we were at the end, it was more like 5:50/5:55; they’d start with us, Gail and Dylan and pick up everyone else on the way back to the main lodge.

Another beautiful sunrise.

When was the last time you saw the sun rise up over a urinal?

There was a buffet continental breakfast at 6am; I had porridge every time. Then at 6:30am we load into the Land Cruisers (although we somehow always refer to them as Jeep, probably a generic reference because of their open-ness) and go for the morning safari ride.

For the record, there are LOTS of zebra here, and a fair number of giraffes, so this will be it, just like the elephants.

Can’t have enough sunrise/sunset photos…

Oh yea, I forgot about this: so, one more giraffe photo, this lovely mother and baby next to each other.

I think I’ve mentioned before that all of the field guides talk to each other over radio throughout the drive. They go off in different directions intentionally to cover more ground and let each other know what they’re seeing. In this case, we got called to help another group who had gotten stuck in a ditch. It was impressive that we pulled them out with just a simple piece of obviously very strong nylon.

Shortly after this, our guide got a call: wild dogs have been seen, 15-30 minutes away from where we are, but only if we go FAST. We all agreed. And boy did we. A long, fast, ridiculously bumpy ride. Remember – no paved roads in the Okavango.

I didn’t realize until we got there that they meant Painted Dogs. Remember the story from the conservatory a few posts back? Only 7000 left and here were 8 of them. Not just hanging around, but on a hunt. We were about to follow Africa’s most successful predator on a hunt. Excited much? In this photo we’d just come up behind them as they were still on the go.

Note: there are more video clips here than I’ve ever included in a blog entry. If you’re interested in this story, I highly recommend you watch every one of them. Some are really short, some as long as 23 seconds. But it will give you a very real sense of what we experienced.

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Around the bend from the prior photo, they stopped. Stared, all of them in the same direction. What were they seeing in the distance?

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Impala. They were seeing impala. If you play the video, you’ll see the pan to the right and how far away they were. Which is to say not very far. And we got to watch it all.

They just sat to wait for the right moment.

Rasta, our lead guide and driver, pulled our vehicle around to the other side. The guides were always repositioning the vehicles so we could see better. It’s bizarre to me how the animals didn’t seem to notice much or care. We got a spectacular view of their full faces. Watching.

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Our field guide, Rasta, pointing out who the alpha is: 2^nd one, 2^nd row.

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Still just waiting. I zoomed back so you could see how close we were. Pretty dang close. (That’s Ash’s cheek on the left!)

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Something is starting to happen. All this movement must mean something, right? Ok, maybe not.

Soon after this they literally walked around our vehicle from behind. Rasta said they were using us as cover.

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I picked them up again on the other side, and you see the other vehicle in our party reposition to get closer. And again, we wait. This is life on a safari!

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Still intently watching the impala but poised to run.

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There was bedlam suddenly with the impalas, we think initiated by the warthogs who started running around like crazy. They may have sensed or seen the dogs approach, but the impala were clearly still clueless.

Now what happened next, I sadly didn’t get on video. None of us did somehow, but several said they saw it. It may have happened during this last clip when I panned back to the dogs. But during the bedlam, one of the impalas collided with another who fell, and then a warthog trampled the fallen one. So, it was already down, injured, by the time the dogs started to move in. And may have been why the dogs started to move when they did. A simple, opportunistic kill.

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The dogs really start to move in, and the impala are initially frozen. You can tell they see them, but oddly don’t know what to do. Then, bedlam again and you can hear the running clearly. Notice there isn’t a warthog in sight. They fled long ago. (In reality, just 30-60 seconds or so but everything was happening very quickly yet somehow in slow motion at the same time.) The clicking you hear is Dylan’s camera.

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Impala still running, the dogs run behind that hill (probably a termite mound!) and that’s likely where the fallen Impala is.

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We moved in but weren’t as quick as the dogs. Everything that happened next was super quick. It was difficult to capture in the moving vehicle.

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That poor impala may still be alive at this point but only for seconds more if so. NOTE: the next few videos are pretty graphic.

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And now that impala is definitely dead. You can hear the clicking of Dylan’s camera and me being a bit squeamish. I never do well at the sight of blood. Can’t even watch my own being taken.

A still of the feed for those of you who skipped the video!

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I was already imagining the WARNING I’d need to give when I post this. Do they show this on Animal Planet? I’m glad the Land Cruiser is in the clip so you can see how close we are. Those dogs don’t care about us At All. And seeing something like this is pretty rare. Note that even Rasta, the field guide and driver, has his camera out. Gail said that in something like 50 safaris she’s been on, she’s only seen 6-7 kills, and this is the 2^nd one of painted dogs.

They moved over to our left and kept devouring. Notice there aren’t as many. The number of dogs get lower as each get their fill.

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As each were done, they made their way to some shade to rest and start cleaning each other. They’re so happy! Just two left now who can’t get enough.

Most everyone is resting and mostly clean.

We said goodbye as we watched them move on down the trail.

The time lapse between the first and last photo was 25 minutes.

Wow. My heart is pumping fast just seeing it all again. A fascinating display of nature and we all felt privileged – if not a little sick – to witness it. That we’d had the visit at the conservatory, and it never occurred to any of us that we’d even see a painted dog much less watch them hunt, made it all that more special.

We came across a mud pool of hippos. There’s little water here, which everyone is waiting on, especially the hippos.

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You can see how little any of them are moving. There’s a discussion happening about they could leave and look for water but it’s complicated.

The lodge from the field as we were heading back for brunch.

Ash went and got some coffee. I went to the room to shower and change clothes before brunch. I also picked up our chargers. There are no outlets in the cabins, we can only use a communal charging area at the main lodge.

Dylan and I were leaving at the same time and encountered this elephant on our path before we made it very far. We just did as instructed: stop, don’t make any noise, wait. So, we waited. And eventually he turned into the woods and back into the field we where could later see him as we had brunch.

I couldn’t resist. Urinal view during the day.

After the meal, Ash took a nap and showered, I worked on the blog at the lodge then we sat on the deck of our cabin for a while and just chilled. We went down for teatime at 3:30 and then the group went to visit the village before our traditional safari drive.

On our way to the village, about a 45-minute drive, we came across wildebeest. We’ve seen them in the distance, but this is the closest we’ve gotten. Rasta says they’re not very bright: they’ll be running from a lion and then stop and look back because they forgot why they were running.

This village is where some people from the Bayeye (3 syllables – bye-ee-ee) tribe live, farmers who came down from the north somewhere. It’s a village recognized as such as the Botswana government which means eventually a school and clinic will be built, although all of that is in progress. The lodges have helped build a community hall, which I believe is where we gathered this afternoon so the villagers could sell us stuff. This cutie greeted us as we pulled up to do some local shopping.

Ash bought a little basket and coaster for our Airbnb unit in Sacramento from this woman.

Gail encouraged us to participate in the music and dancing. Ash, of course, didn’t hesitate.

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Ash playing the drums.

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The dancing begins.

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Cute child getting in on the fun.

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These kids are more entertained by Ash. Even Amos the guide is filming him!

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A group effort, now including Amos, Rasta, and Ash.

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Ash loved playing with this baby.

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The woman in the blue dress on the left end is the mother of the baby Ash is playing with. Note she’s pregnant again, as were many of the women.

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Ash, the baby, and Kit dancing. I wish I’d gotten more of this.

Above and below: some shots of the village on the way out. Ash and I discussed after how happy they all seem – again, how happy everyone we’ve encountered seems. There’s no electricity or running water here.  Even among the workers. Rasta has grown up in the delta and has never left it and is an amazing, graceful, knowledgeable human being. This is the only life they know. And there’s no sense of wanting something different, just a sense of contentment. Given a choice, they would stay, at least the ones we came across.

 

Another pretty sunset at sundowners.

As the night before, we had dinner and Ash and I were the first ones to ask to be taken back to our rooms, and everyone followed. We were in bed by 9:15pm.