Sunset Game Drives

Sundown Game Drives
At each camp they offer morning, sunset and night drives in open trucks guided by rangers. We chose the sunset drives because more animals are active in the early morning or evening and the drive includes some time after dark using hand-held spot lights.

Last night Travis, was our enthusiastic and knowledgeable ranger. We were having an ok drive, seeing some Marabou Storks, a jacklel, vervet monkeys, Bee Eaters (beautiful birds), then the guy sitting in the back of the truck called out: there was a leopard walking down the road behind us. We turned around and followed him as he hid in the grass and moved towards some Impala. After a while we left him but spotted a female crossing the road a short ways away.

Tonight Marta was equally charming and informative, not just about the animals and birds, but also about the trees and stars. We saw more of the "Ugly Five": Warthogs and more Marabou Storks. We saw Steenbok, incredibly small deer, and Genet, that looks like a slim house cat with an incredible striped tail that is a member of the mongoose family. Hippos in the water and out of the water: can you believe that a hippo can run as fast as an olympic sprinter? People get hurt when they underestimate the speed of a hippo or come between them and the water. A group of hippos is a "raft". Unfortunately we saw some of this in the dark so no pictures.

Marta also carries a rifle that she got out when we stopped at dusk by a watering hole. She also explained that a young bull elephant who came after the truck wouldn't harm us, he was just annoyed when our shadow crossed his face. Marta found fresh tracks of a lion, but unfortunately we couldn't find the lioness.