The only pic I took of that first group was this one. Yeehaw!
Bladder emptied at Letaba, I continued north and had only gone a couple of clicks when I came upon yet another group of baboons, this time holding court by the bridge across Letaba River. I spent at least a half hour with this bunch, as they were a good mixture of silly babies rolling around, playfighting and looking very human and more adult ones, grooming each other and taking care of aforementioned babies… also looking very human. I shot a video, a ton of pics and laughed a lot at their antics.
The railings on the side of the bridge was a never-ending source of amusement, as they had various poses on it. This one has a "Kilroy was here"-vibe.
Climbing posed a challenge for the smallest ones.
While others had perfected the cool stance.
Some were lazing about in the middle of the road.
Others stayed close to mom.
I call these four pictures "Being an asshole". Notice the guy in the background.
Pondering life.
Cute.
Videos of the baboons:
There were crocs down in the river.
A hippo was stuffing face by the river banks. For some reason there was a prevailing stench of shit along several of the rivers for a couple of days.
I finally drove off again, but nothing really happened the next couple of hours; I saw the odd wildebeest and impala and of course the zebras were everywhere, but no cats. I decided to try something unconventional and took a side road which I saw from my map would take me to a border crossing point with Mozambique.
There was a picnic place marked off on the map, so again I stopped and used the (wooden) facilities and spoke briefly with a guy who apparently worked there. I bet he had a real nice and quiet job out there in the boondocks, with few people to bother him.
At the border, I slowed down just before the guard booth and a soldier came out. He made a little rotating gesture with his hand and looked questioningly at me and when I gave the thumbs up, he requited. I'm pretty sure I wasn't the first, nor will I be the last to just turn around at that checkpoint.
Almost back on paved road, there was a waterhole to my left, with an open field in front. Here, a horde of zebras were galloping around like mad and at first, I thought a predator was after them. Alas, no; they were just being assholes, as usual. I'm serious; there's few things in the world as petty and quarrelsome as a group of zebras; they will bite, pinch, kick and whine at each other all day long.
It probably helps to know that most zebra units consist of one stallion and up to a couple dozen mares. Also, if they never find my body, the police might start looking at the preceding sentence when determining the cause of death. But I digress.
They were literally kicking up a storm, additionally bullying a small group of impalas who looked to be having a nervous breakdown in the middle of it all. At one point a detachment broke off and ran up to the concrete waterhole and managed to chase off a single elephant, who protested loudly as he ran away.
Kicking up a storm.
Petty animals.
Fighting.
Mindlessly galloping around like... well, like wild animals.
Nervous impala.
Back on paved road, I had gone less than two kilometers when I saw a family of about twenty ellies off to my right. Some were drinking from a waterhole; others had had their fill and were striding across the savannah like something out of my childhood's BBC documentaries from the Serengeti.
Filling up.
Striding across the savannah like something out of a BBC documentary...
The one in front was quite young and his mother was right behind him, so he strutted confidently about the place, trunk held high. A couple of the others were teeny tiny babies, running alongside their bigger parents or siblings.
Cocky kid.
I seldom fail to get a highly unfamiliar (see what I did there?) feeling of familial happiness when I observe ellies like this; it awakens an almost motherly instinct in this otherwise very cynical old man.
Sho cute.
I think this may very well be the smallest baby ellie I've ever seen. My brain is turning to mush just looking at this photo.
Anyways, it was time for lunch, which was again taken at Letaba. I then continued further south, to beyond the entrance to Olifants, and then on a gravel road back to the concrete bridge over to Balule, where I'd been last night.
I saw yet another bird, this time a saddle-billed stork (again, according to my Honeyguide map).
Two giraffes were cooling it off.
I again crossed the bridge and then spent several happy minutes in a large flock of impalas, of which many were babies. They were interspersed with a few zebras, who were biting each other every chance they got, and a small family of warthogs; mom and two wewy, wewy cute little piglets who were running around and trying to climb onto their mother.
These two were quite the handful.
Video here:
Also know that while I was wasting precious time with these doofuses, not FIVE minutes away on the road I was going to take anyway, an English couple was spending 45 MINUTES in the company of seven lions, three of them cubs.
I know this because they told me so when I pulled up apparently five minutes after the lions had disappeared. I hung around for a few minutes, but as it was starting to piss down I soon drove back to camp, where I stuffed face on ribs and chocolate cake.
This was their ridiculously sized chocolate cake, aptly dubbed "Death by chocolate". I'm almost sad to report that it didn't taste all that good. The ribs weren't all that much better.
All in all I couldn't complain about a single day's catch, but I had to admit that after four days without a single predator in sight I was beginning to feel the walls closing in, the birds singing less in tune and the will to live grow slightly feebler. Again, not that I was complaining.
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