Morning Drive in Hwange

The next morning we decided to go out on a drive with Dume, he is the BEST guide ever! Every time he takes us out he just wants us to see so much, so he would track lion tracks and try to find them for us, and would just love whenever we would experience something great....which you may see at the end of this post.

Crowned Crane. I liked it just for the crowned part on his head.

The ONLY good picture I got of a Sable on this trip. They are very shy.

Marshall eagle. They are the ones who have a 5-6 foot wingspan.

Baby Zebra!! Still all fuzzy.

Giraffe sticking his tongue out at us...yep a giraffe's tongue is blackish-pinkish.

First time we got to see some Roan. Pretty cool antelope.

I thought the way their face is formed is pretty cool.

Okay so we are on the road back to the Lodge, when all of the sudden I'm looking out my side of the jeep and I see all of these elephants hanging out by the trees. I yell for Dume to stop and he stops, but then the elephants start running!!!! This is the picture I got of them doing that.

So do you know what Dume did??? He backed up the whole way so we were right in the way of the elephants!!! See...such a great guide! Anywho, half of the elephants had run across and the rest were waiting for us to get out of the way. So we backed up a little more, and then the rest ran!

Do you see all the little babies in there?? There was one baby that was a newborn, because it was only 3 feet high! So tiny and cute! Most likely they were running because the babies were around them.

One more thing about this elephant herd is that it's the Presidential herd, meaning the President says that this herd has to be protected at all cost.

Here is Ally posing with the elephants. Oh and you see how happy Dume is??

Got back to the Lodge and Tyler played with Ally and Spencer.

Our own Drive

Our second day at Hwange we decided to go and drive through the park for ourselves to find some lions/cheetahs/leopards...oh, and other animals too.

A nursery of impalas with some moms herding them across the street.

This was often the scene from the back seat. Stopping, and Tyler and Todd getting out the binoculars to look and see what they could find.

A monumental mound of termites! Yuck!

Love this picture too, cloudy skies were around that day and we did get some rain. And we saw some elephants.

Elephant taking a mud bath.

A BIG male Kudu with horns.

Peek-a-boo Zebra...we see you.

Comparison picture:

Here is what we looked out from our room in Ivory Lodge in October.

Different room, but still look how green it is!!

At the end of the day, we did not see any lions/cheetahs/leopards. Perhaps in the next post!!

that time the Bull Elephant surprised us...

After seeing Chobe we went back into Zimbabwe and headed to the Ivory Lodge in Hwange National Park. Ivory Lodge is one of my very most favorite places to be, it's just so calm and peaceful and has all the animals right around you.

Of course we saw some zebras, and they are just pretty to look at.

The day before we got there, our guide, Dume (doo-mae), was on a drive with some other people, when all of the sudden they saw a lion hiding in the grass. It was hunting a giraffe that was nearby, so they kinda stayed in between the lion and giraffe to get the best view. The lion went off and stopped trying to get to the griaffe. So the lion went another way and somehow there was a warthog around and it caught the lion off guard and stuck it's two tusks into the lions' side. Well the lion wasn't going to take that, so it pretty much killed the warthog, didn't eat it but taught it and other warthogs a lesson. The lion went off still injured, we never got to see it. But we were able to see the remains, or what was left after the vultures fed, of the warthog.

Pretty bird.

Pretty giraffe.

Ever wondered what a giraffe looked like bending over to get a drink??

Well here you go!

Baby Zebra!!!

Lilac breasted roller, Botswana's national bird.

So we start leaving the Park, on our way back to the Lodge, when all of the sudden this big bull elephant comes through the trees. I think it scared us a little bit, but it was pretty cool.

Ally and Spencer with the elephant in the back.

Hey there elephant.

Then we continue on and a giraffe runs out in front of us!

Running to his friend.

Chobe Drive

While in Botswana, we did a Safari Game Drive through Chobe National Park. Because it was the rainy season, not too many animals were out, but we still saw some great action!

Water Buffalo hanging out.

Mama Hippo and Baby Hippo, so tiny and cute!

A Hippo that had not found his crowd yet. Poor fellow.

Baboons and their babies.

Mongoose! We didn't see these last time.

Giraffe.

A male Impala.

Ground Hornbills, because they like the ground.

So while driving we came across this HUGE herd of Impalas! I mean at least a hundred were around us, and the baboons were there along with some jackals! The reason you usually see impala and baboons together is because they both can sense different things when a lion is around. The impala can smell them, and the baboons can climb the trees to see them. So they work together to not be eaten. And the jackals are scavengers, so they just kinda hang around so they can get whatever the lion leaves after eating. We thought since the jackal was around that we would be able to see a lion, but no such luck.

Here you see all three of them all over the road.

Then all of the sudden we see the impalas all running around and jumping in the air and kicking their back feet up into the air. We asked our guide what they were doing, and he told us that they were practicing some defense moves for when they do have to run away from predators. It was crazy to see, and I wish I could put the video up of them doing it, but I did get a pretty good picture of it.

Baboon up close.

Again, all over the road.

This was a nursery of impalas, they were so cute and small.

Here is a comparison picture. This was up on a ridge in Chobe during the dry season.

Here it is during the rainy. No elephants and VERY green.

We enjoyed our time in Chobe but were very excited to get going to our next stop which was Hwange National Park.

On the River in Chobe

We decided to go to Chobe National Park in Botswana, and spend the night there so we could say we stayed in Botswana for one night. :) But it was lots of fun! First off we went on a river cruise safari. Since it was the rainy season we didn't see much, just lots of hippos out of the water.

Spencer all ready for the ride.

Two elephants we saw up on the hillside.

The first crocodile we saw.

Another one, but look at his green/yellow eye! Scary!

Hippo out of water!!! Hippos can't be out of water for very long because it dries their skin out and gives them a sunburn, but because it wasn't too sunny and a little rainy, we saw them out of the water a lot. Still such a weird animal to me. Tiny legs with such a HUGE body.

Water bucks.

A line of hippos going into the water.

I snapped this picture without Ally knowing. But you'll have to help me decide if it's better regular with the blue sky behind her, or...

...with a sepia tone to it?

Same with this one.

I like the sepia tone to this one better than the blue sky.

About 20-30 minutes into the cruise, Spencer was bored. Good thing we brought his DS. He is so used to seeing all of these animals it doesn't faze him at all, so we always bring the DS for some entertainment for him. Others on the boat looked at us like we were crazy, but they probably didn't know he's been on many of these trips.