Dumela
Whoooa. Updating this blog with the trip's pictures is taking some time.... mainly cos each pix is very data heavy.... our pixes came up to 2.3 GB in total... sheesh. But gene, I suspect had a wonderful time with his camera... telling me to shush up while he takes "Chin Yuen-ish" shots
and propping himself up all over the 4x4.
Finally, Little Vumbura - our last safari camp. It is also the "wettest" camp - sitting right in the Okavango Delta itself.
To get to the camp, its a 20 min trip by 4X4 and then, a five min trip by a small boat to the camp - along the way, sometimes you can chance upon hippos! Like we did one night. PS: Hippos and Buffalos are among the big five because they are among the five biggest killers of humans each year.
An unparalled view of the Okavango wetlands on boat... enroute to the camp.
The singing and dancing welcome committee at Little Vumbura.
The tent:
Having a nice cup of rooibos tea at the main dining and chilin' tents after a game drive. Please note the heavy coat. Yep. It can get cold when you have wind chill in the mornings. Rohan, the manager, in the background (yes, LOTR fans, his name IS Rohan) is not too perturbed.
Game sightings at Little Vumbura were the best... as they say, when it rains, it pours(figuratively speaking, after the semi drought at Tubu)
On our first game drive the afternoon we arrived, we saw these Francolins looking very very scared.... they were just sitting on this dead log near a tree;
This was sitting up a tree.
She is about 10 months old. Yup, that is a cub.
Gorgeous huh? But more to come!
(NB... Francolins are usually *quite* noisy. We had a family of them outside the tent in Savuti and we wanted to biff their heads by the first evening.
They are also rather stupid; they run in front of the land rover, trying to outpace it... like duh... the guides have to slow down to stop running over them... but, in retrospect, they are *quite* cute lah.)
Anyways... some more game shots:
Kudu (Yummy. We even have some Kudu jerky - more in a future post) Giraffes looking on with limpid eyes) And a Carmine Bee-eater.
One of the highlights: Hippos... and one who was so aggravated he LEPT out of the air and did a piroutte of sorts.
We drove to this water hole, where 18 hippos were hanging out. They heard the land rover coming, and ALL submerged. We were about to despair and give up when minutes later all these spurts of water emerged from the surface. All you could see were the tips of their heads. They had babies, so were a bit cautious and grumpy. 18 hippos staring at you can be quite unnerving.
Eventually, one broke away, this is him looking at us... and looking rather pissed off. He was grunting and hissing... as if to warn us... didn't help that the guide, Kay, was thumping on the ground; and yelling at him..
next thing u know... he's leaping into the air, leaving the shutterbugs gasping in total shock:
Leaping out of the frame
Falling back into frame
splash down.
Little Vumbura would have a lot of surprises in store for us. In fact, in one game drives, we spotted lion, leopard and cheetah all by 9 am... it would have been the equivalent of seeing a whale shark, great white and manta all on a dive (and of course, having dived for oh, 8 years now, I still haven't even bloody whiffed one of these... )
The lion which appeared behind the 4x4. He didn't make a sound moving through the grass....
Affectionate contact - paw to bum - while kooning. Cute ah?
One of the cubs, who's mane is *just* starting to grow out favouring Gene with the evil eye.
Beautiful huh? Up next: the leopards.
This is the mom n cub up in a tree
This guinea fowl - very pretty bird - (I have a feather to show and tell), was screaming his little head off when he spotted the leopards stalking him and his mate. He was so loud that the leopards went, "right right, you spotted us", and left him alone. Good survival technique I suppose. Loud but effective.
Next up: The most elusive Cheetahs. These were twin boys that we spotted on our very last game drive. Tough to photograph man, we had to keep circling this thicket and they refused to come out... but gene managed to get this shot which is pretty sharp considering. Double click on the photo to see his gorgeous face. Really beautiful... especially with those eye lines.
One last game highlight to show you guys: This was a baby wildebeest born just hours before; could still see its umbilical cord, and it was very sweetly wobbly on its feet...
And the next photo shows baby doing the mini-me thing with its mom/dad. Can't tell. But it really looks a mini version of its parent... esp with that dark face thing going.
Next: lady warthogs: the difference is in the snouts. But check out the dye job on the lady on the right: double click again... issit just me but is her hair red? *laughs*
