Today I awoke to the hippo grunts and I realized it was our last day in the park. L Good thing we weren’t in a rush today, as with the power still being off, it made preparing breakfast and running debit cards to pay for the trip difficult. I had the “healthy breakfast” (only because they were out of bananas for the banana pancakes—eh sis?) and it was DELISH. A masterpiece. Homemade museli/granola layered in a fancy dish with yogurt and apples and honey drizzled on the top. A cup of tea topped it all off. I wish my breakfast was like that daily. Yum.
Anyway, after we left camp, Mr. D&D took us on a self drive through the park. We didn’t get into the park until 10 am, when the morning drives are ending from the lodges as the animals start settling down in the shade at this time, so we had the park to ourselves. We wandered around a lot. Our goals for the day were to see greater kudu and a lion. I wanted to see Simba really badly. We saw the animals we had seen on previous trips, but didn’t stop unless they were really close. We ran into two large herds of elephants—about 20 of them in each one—so we stopped. There was one point where I think if I would have stretched out my arm and the elephant stretched out his trunk, we might have touched. So neat. I was really thankful for all the wonderful elephant encounters we had. Much better than I would have thought in the wet season! We also got trumpeted at by an elephant hiding in the bushes twice! He was hiding from us and all of a sudden he charged at our vehicle from out of the bushes! We started to leave since he was angry, but he started chasing us! It was pretty funny, actually. Don’t worry; no elephants were harmed in the writing of this blog.
We searched high and low for kudu and lions. There were several almost spotting of the lions, especially by a pond we stopped by. There was saw the hippo trails to and from the water up close. They stay in the water all day and leave at night to eat the vegetation. Man, are their feet large! Alas, no lion sighting, but we did see kudu. They look about the size of a moose, but gray, with spiraled horns. Very pretty! I’d say the trip was a success!
We stopped for a quick lunch at Flatdogs, another lodge, before heading back to Chipata. Mrs. D&D intervened for us and got the Mr. to stop at this cool tribal textile place. There was so many beautiful African fabrics there, so naturally, T and I had to buy something. J The rest of the ride back to Chipata was similar to the way to the park: lots of potholes, puddles, and construction. Our three and a half hour drive got done as my motion sickness was reaching its breaking point, but again, I survived.
After meeting up with another local pastor at the house to let him switch vehicles, we headed to the new Spar grocery store in town to buy some supper. We enjoyed some funny conversation time with D&D over supper and afterwards, T finally taught me to play Set. It’s a fun game; I just wish I would have let her teach me years ago! Mental preparation for the car ride tomorrow was in order before hitting the hay.
No comments:
Post a Comment