Photographic Safari: Self Drive Tips for Capturing the Big Five

There are pros and cons for paying to go on safari or do your own self drive. When you go on a paid safari, you have the advantage of a trained spotter usually and you don't have to worry about watching the road as you ride along; they are doing that (you hope!) You are also in a vehicle that sits high off the ground and so sometimes you can see things people in a regular passenger car cannot.



This being said, the freedom of a self drive is immense. When you find something, you can sit and watch to your heart's content. If if it something of everyone's interest like a lion for instance, my advice is to turn your vehicle so no one can block your view! If you in a busy park like Kruger during the school holidays there are pluses and minuses. One advantage of going at this time of year is that there are more eyes out spotting the game, though it can get quite hectic when one of the Big Five is spotted. People can get a little crazy so you have to assert yourself and hold your ground. This is one big advantage of a small car: you can quickly zip into a space or move around some big clunky 4 x 4's as needed.

When out driving, and you see a car stopped, backing up etc., slow down and start segmenting the viewing field and looking for it. We were able to spot a leopard in a tree by slowing down, stop, go forward six feet, look around, go forward six more feet and so on. It allows both the driver and passenger to look for what has been spotted.

We also if possible, see which direction the people are looking so we can both be looking in that direction. Before setting out on a game drive, it is advisable to look at the sightings board, and if you can talk to others at the board to see what and where they have seen anything. We go a cheetah report from a man who had seen two cheetah that very morning. We went out looking but were not successful. We did the game drive at about 10-15 km where the cheetah had been spotted which did allow for both of us to be looking.


Another tip is to not just look on the ground; look in the trees especially ones that look like a likely place to find a leopard. Look ahead, something could be crossing the road--the elephants can just suddenly appear on the side of the road. Lions seem to enjoy lying around and if you are lucky it is on the side of the road!

Vultures circling usually indicate a kill somewhere and you can try to follow their path or if they are in a tree, look around so see if you can find something nearby. Prey animals like the impala are worth watching if you see them "alert." They may be sensing one of their predators is in the area and may show themselves!

For more of our pictures of Lions Mating, see
Vicious Lovers: Lions at Dusk, Mating, Then Stalking Off For Their Nightly Hunt at http://www.traveljournals.net/stories/30097.html

Drinking with Elephants: Chobe River Boat Cruise

Boat Ride on Chobe River

After our early morning game drive, we came back and got ready to go out for a Sunday afternoon boat ride with the fun owners of Africa Gallery, one of our favorite places to sit and drink coffee in all the world.

Vicky, Finn, and Clive have a pontoon boat they keep parked on the river across the
street from their shop, Gallery Africana and Coffee Shop. We had met them on earlier trips and were visiting with
them about life in Zimbabwe at present and what had been happening in Kasane. Vicky was wonderful when we told her we needed fuel for our stov. She took us several places to find some
fuel for our stove and invited us to go with them on the boat.

She said that during the recent flooding they had been worried the boat was going to end up on the lawn but it never actually did.
We were joined by Karen, her two sons and friend Jacques and then we were off. It was nice leaving earlier than
the regular boat cruises because we had the river to ourselves for the first couple of hours.

Not only was this a great cruise, it was a culinary experience as well. First, we had tea with "just made" chocolate
cake with a scrumptious icing. We were being entertained by crocodiles sunning in various sizes, monitor lizard,
pied kingfishers, bee eaters, and a malachite kingfisher and then some elephants came down to the water. We enjoyed watching them swim
across to the island. We could see giraffe off in the distance up the hill. On the island we could see hippo and buffalo.

We continued cruising and then set out some more food for people to munch on as they wanted. What a treat! There
were small pizza's, fresh bread and cold cuts, olives, pickles, salad, cheese pastries, peppadews with feta, avocado/
tomato dip, chips, chocolate covered strawberries and of course more cake if you wanted.

We then started seeing several elephants coming down the hill. There were all shapes and sizes, including several
small ones. We stopped the boat and watched the small ones playing around in the mud under the eye of the mother
elephants. Soon they were joined by another group and then another! It was interesting to watch as they drank, and the
little ones played around. The little ones were not quite sure what to do with their trunks, a little bit of a learning curve
it seems.

We saw a huge herd of buffalo crossing the river. Unfortunately, several of the tour boats came up close to them and
the herd broke into two groups and seemed uncertain as what to do. As the boats would move off, they would regroup
and continue with their journey across the river.

There were a lot of birds to also enjoy as we traveled along. We saw African spoonbill, skimmers, darter, cormorant,
squacco heron, grey heron, and African fish eagle.

As we cruised back, we enjoyed wine, beer and shandies. The sunset was perfect as usual. Finn had been a
professional photographer and seemed to know how to position the boat to get the best shot. The entire trip had been
a great experience.

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!

Adventures with Elephant at Flatdogs Camp

Adventure with Elephant at Flatdogs

One of the unique features of Flatdogs camp is the fact that the wild animals are allowed to come into the park and wander around. There are night watchmen who can accompany you to the toilet at night, and other staff during the day, that help keep the human visitors from coming too close when the wild animal happens to be a hippo, elephant or giraffe!

Wonkie Tusk and Gilbert
There are several elephants that we have been told are known by name in the camp and we have witnessed "Wonkie tusk" and some of her two daughters and younger sister. She is so named because one of her tusks points to the front and the other to the back. She also has a sister that comes through the area with her children also.



Our first morning here we were not able to get into the food storage area because one of the children was grazing right there. We went back a little while later and were able to get our stuff. One morning we watched as Wonkie tusk and children cruised through the area. One of the young juveniles knocked over one of the nice wooden chairs and then kicked it for good measure. He also managed to knock over a sign.




Another morning, as we were preparing to go fix our meal in the kitchen, we saw the herd moving through so skirted around buildings so they wouldn't see us. A Dutch couple that we had been visiting with came over with their cooler. They were getting ready to leave and were packing up when the family came through. The watchmen suggested they put their cooler in the kitchen area because "Wonkie tusk" can recognize a cooler and has been known the stomp one that was outside to get to what was in it and we were told the she has also pushed open a car window to get to one she saw inside the vehicle!



I went back to our tent one morning to get some cooking items I had forgotten and was unable to get into the tent because one of the young ones was right there at our tent! He finally moved away far enough that I was able to get what I needed. Another morning we were going to catch a ride into town with the shopping run and were at our tent getting things out when the family was moving through and were afraid we were going to be stuck in our tent. The proper etiquette is to stay back away from them and try to keep something large like a tree, tent, vehicle to move behind if they get too close. If you are in your tent you are to stay there.




The only story we have been told about them bothering a tent was by Jess, one of the managers, about two young guys that reported that a elephant had cut into their tent with her tusk and took the biscuits that had in their tent out. Of course, they were not supposed to have food in their tent and this explains why.

We also have seen Gilbert, a huge old bull elephant with beautiful tusks and no tail. Evidently some of them lose their tail to parasites or a predator trying to attack them. Gilbert was our excuse one morning to go eat in the restaurant because he was feeding right outside the kitchen. While we were having breakfast, moved onto the lawn overlooking the river by the restaurant. There was a young guy down sitting in a chair enjoying the early morning when Gilbert came up behind him. It was quite a startling experience for him to say the least.

Another encounter we had with the elephants was one afternoon while I was sitting outside our tent painting and Robert was reading a book. A girl came up to the sink by our tent area and turned to me and said, "Excuse me, did you know there was an elephant behind you?" I turned around and there was one about 40 feet from us feeding. I retired to the platform to finish working on my painting and Robert followed the group as they wandered through the camp.

We have also been told by one of the local workers here at the camp that the villagers have used what has been known as a chili fence to keep the elephants out of their fields. What they do is take old cooking oil that they have cooked chilis in and dipped rags in this and strung them around their field. They report that it does keep the elephants out of their field.