TAN: Leapin' Leopards

The early morning view. Little craters with ant lions waiting patiently at the bottom of each and every one. The idea is that an ant saunters along into the cone and slips down the side toward the ant lion, which gobbles the ant up.

Up for a 7 a.m. breakfast and then off to the north on a game drive. We had barely gotten around the corner when we came upon a leopard lounging in a fig tree. We all had about two seconds to look at it before it leapt down and scampered off. The spooky thing is that Graham and I had been walking under this very same fig tree the previous afternoon.

The next big excitement is a little bee eater. We see it flit from bush to bush a couple of times before it alights right behind the truck and stays still until we have all had more than our fill of looking at it and taking it’s picture. Our next model is a big warthog that is almost as obliging as the bee eater. We all enjoy see it root around in the dirt searching for things to eat.

We pass yet another pool filled with hippos. These ones are particularly annoyed with Erik clapping at them. As they move away from us, a slow wave of thick mud is pushed along with them. While we watch, the mud slowly ebbs back toward us. Moving along we see a three to four foot long monitor lizard slowly making its way over the rough black cotton soil. A little further on is a hippo graveyard.

We are draw, somehow, to the big hippo pool. This time there is the added excitement of a large herd of buffalo approaching to get a drink. They veer off at the last moment, spooked by something. We enjoy some more time with the hippos, but feel Erik and Inge getting antsy about moving away from the smell. At this point we head back for some lunch and to rest during the heat of the day.

The buffalo that never quite all made it to water. Some wild jasmine. A delicious lunch and Chantal working hard.

After lunch Graham and I go for a walk east of the camp. The bush is much thicker on this side. There are a large amount of fairly recent buffalo, hippo and elephant droppings. Graham is nervous of about moving through the thicker patches of bush. Meeting face to face with a buffalo might end up being a once in a lifetime experience. Eventually we decide to head back to camp and relax until the next game drive.
Our afternoon drive is a little calmer. We see more giraffe, zebra, elephants, hippos and waterfowl. We spend a bit of time watching a nice blue agama lizard doing push ups. We keep on exploring passed the areas we had been to previously, eventually coming to the main road. The main road doesn’t amount to much more than a dirt track cutting through the wilderness, just enough to get from point A to point B. We stop for some refreshment a ways passed the main road. Graham and Jennifer manage to scare up a group of zebra as they walk around.

The blue agama putting on a show and a group of crested cranes.

Eventually we head back to camp, arriving again after our curfew. The group enjoys another bonfire from a safe distance. Our last candlelight dinner in Katavi is as delicious as the previous ones. We all tuck in early after a long day out in the heat.