Chobe's Animal Traffic

While visiting Chobe National Park in Botswana, we came across these beautiful sables.

Watch their crossing (the safari version of traffic!):

A different perspective, seen from the safari vehicle.

We saw this --- a giraffe corpse, a few days old kill.

Which meant this lion pride was near by.

The sables were just too magnificent not to sneak another photo in!

Then there were these.  Monitor lizards.  They are simultaneously so cool and gross.

They were swimming on the Chobe River, heading toward elephants.

They slither across the top of the water.

Check it out (so creepy and amazing):

More animal traffic!
These giraffes didn't know what to do with our approach so they just froze and stared at us,
until the one on the right decided to high tail it out of there!

Tweet

Cape Point, South Africa

Not far from the Cape of Good Hope is Cape Point, South Africa.

The goal: hike up to this wonderful lighthouse.

(It's been so long since I've been able to feed my lighthouse addiction!!)

Up this beautiful path we went...

...and wow. Wow. Wow.  Just pausing en route took your breath away.

This is the Cape of Good Hope and Dias Beach.

The lighthouse made me miss the waters of Senegal.

The trip to the paths near the lighthouse are more that worth it.

Look at those cliffs!  That water!  Just wow. Wow. Wow!

For some reason, the cliffs made me think of this movie clip.

It's probably because I'm a huge fan and am still waiting to come face-to-face with a ROUS.

Looking down put the drop into perspective...

...and made me feel like a wimp. I mean, seriously!  This lizard was just chilling. No big deal.

New York City was 12,541 kilometers from the Cape Point lighthouse.

It had never felt so far away before.

Tweet

And We're Off to Mana Pools!

Recently traveled to Mana Pools National Park in northern Zimbabwe in the lower Zambezi River region.

This the Parks and Wild Life office--easy to miss and a must stop to register with the park authorities.

Zimbabwe is crawling with these lizards. I have no idea what kind they are but this photo doesn't do their startling blue tails any justice!

The entrance to Mana Pools.  My favorite rule? Please avoid behaviour likely to disturb wild life or people.

Um, yes, please don't give the lions any reasons to attack...

While the dry season is the best for seeing wildlife (it's the dry season now), it makes it difficult for more drought-prone areas in Zimbabwe to survive.  Here, the park entrance makes do with a water tower (and public bathrooms!).

I thought baboons frolicking and leaping were a fitting way to start the new safari adventure!

And a sign of the difficulties of obtaining fuel in more remote parks of the country: the line of jerry cans...

And voila! Immediately entering the park we spot one of the big five: the African buffalo. 

And then this impressive bull elephant that stared us down!  This bodes well for the safari...

and to think! We hadn't even reached our safari lodge yet!

For more information on Mana Pools.

Tweet