One morning we decided it would be fun to do a walking safari. The high for the day was near 100 degrees F, so our guide insisted that we be out walking by 5:30 AM. We left from the lodge and ventured down along the river. As always, an armed park ranger accompanied us, in the event we had an altercation with an aggressive animal. There was some new protocol for walking safaris. We had to walk in a single file line with the armed ranger in the front. If we came upon animals, we were not to talk and learned hand signs for “stop”, “wait”, “down” and “back up”. At this point I was getting nervous.
Turns out I had nothing to be worried about because we didn’t get very close to any wildlife on the walk. I thought we might be able to get near them since we’d be quieter than a car, but the opposite was actually true. Our slow pace on foot gave them plenty of time to get away. Â :(
Alas, all was not lost, as there were lots of cool little things to see that weren’t visible in a 4 x 4.
For example, here’s the remains of some lion’s meal.
And I learned all about dung. Who’s dung is whose. Where they like to leave it, etc. Very fascinating. This, as you might guess, is elephant dung.
Turns out they are very dainty with their eating – they make sure not to get any dirt/sand in with the grass they eat. Hippos, on the other hand, are perfectly fine having a little dirt/sand with their grass.
And then we learned about identifying animal tracks. When it hasn’t rained it weeks, there are lots and lots of tracks to identify. This is an elephant track.
We also saw the footprint of the endangered black-horned rhino. Would have preferred to see the actual animal, but a footprint’s better than nothing.
Here’s a pic of me out trekking.
And here’s Senor Nicholas. Can’t wait to see what all these landscapes look like once the rains begin. All the barren trees definitely helped make the game viewing easier though!
These were the kind of views we had along our walk.
And one last funny story. On our second night we were walking back to the room from dinner. We had to be escorted by a guide because it’s pitch black and the animals roam free on the lodge property. We are almost to our room when we hear a rustling. A large rustling. I’m thinking impala or something like that and Nick jokingly says, “I think it’s an elephant.” To which I said, “No way.”
All of a sudden our guide shuts off his flashlight and holds his hand up for us to be quiet. Then he starts backing up and herding us off the path and down the hill into the brush. By this point I’m terrified and the rustling noises continue to be quite loud and quite near us. We take a circuitous route back to our cabin and made it safely inside. We still had no idea what was out there, only knew that it concerned our guide enough for us to detour.
We continued to hear a lot of noise very close to us, including some trees falling over. About 30 minutes after getting back to our room, a GIANT ELEPHANT comes around the side of our room and meanders down to the water to graze on some bushes. The full moon was out, so there was enough light to make out his shadow. We were like giggly school-children watching it, trying to decide if we could safely go out on the deck to watch or if we should stay behind our zipped screen (like that would really protect us). We eventually decided to chance it and watched the beautiful creature from our deck for 30 minutes or so. It was a very memorable moment from our trip.
In the morning we left our room and found this tree (below)blocking the path from our room to the main path. And that was just one of many. Reminded me of just how strong elephants really are. Wow, was he close! I guess you never know what you’ll encounter in the wild, huh?!
