Elephants, Ivory Tusks, and Tent Camping on the Luangwa River

A few mornings ago we decided to sleep late, which is hard to do with the regular jungle noises combined with early morning game drive preparations...

Most mornings we hear vervet monkeys in the tree above us, sometimes peeing and pooping on our tent around 4 am! Yet we still love living among the vervet monkeys because they are so fun to watch. They love to play chase in the huge trees, and you can hear them jump from limb to limb. Funny.

The sound we heard next was much louder, but also involved trees. We slowly leaned up from our sleeping pads and yup, sure enough, there were elephants behind our tent!

They moved on out of sight, and we got up to make our coffee and breakfast. Seems they had circled the camp and came out over by the camper's kitchen! Beautiful sight, enjoyed watching them, especially with the small elephant beside the big one with the nice big ivory tusks!

Baby Hippo Heaven: Luangwa River, Zambia

Hippo Heaven: Luangwa River, Zambia

On one of the mornings when we went down to the bluff to enjoy our coffee, breakfast, and wildlife viewing we were lucky enough to see a baby hippo and it's mother across the river. The baby was about the size of the mothers head and was quite entertaining to watch as it walked about. We are not sure how old it was but it was so very small in comparison to its mother. He walked around a bit sticking his head into various holes made by the hippos as they had walked about the shore.

He did this for time and then wandered over near the water. He seemed to hesitate and then-----splash into the water. The mother also got into the water and stayed nearby. He did not venture far from the shore and then you could see where the mother and the baby were resting near the shore. We have not seen the baby since that first morning and so are not quite sure where the mother and baby went.