We’d just spent three days at Nxai Pan—a safari camp in the Kalahari Desert, in Botswana.  Now we were moving to two new safari camps—Splash and Lagoon.  The scenery is entirely different – unlike the dryness of the desert where water holes are rare, here water is everywhere – rivers and rivulets, pools, ponds and puddles.  Many of the animals are the same, or more or less the same—elephants, giraffes, zebras, antelopes, birds.  But there are differences—some species that are only in the desert, others only where water is plentiful.

It’s springtime – the rainy season, a time of births. We see many babies – zebras, impalas, elephants, giraffes. Of course, babies are the most vulnerable—the easiest for predators to catch.

Early one morning at “Splash Camp,” we hear a strange sound – our guide here, his name is Dave, tells us it’s a zebra making this sound. Later, about 6 am, when we set off for our game drive, we learn that lions are in the area – they have killed a baby zebra. What we heard was the mother crying for her baby. We see the bloodied grass where it happened. Then, we see the lions—three young lions, resting in the shade of a bush—right near Cabin 12.

At these two camps, we ride in the same type of Toyota Land Cruiser that we had been in earlier. Nxai Pan is a national park, which means the guides can only drive on the roads—well, these roads are just sand pathways. But our next two camps are private concessions—so they can drive anywhere and everywhere—over the grass, through bushes, through water. Sitting in these vehicles is bronco-style riding, extreme jouncing and jostling, occasionally being wacked by branches.

There’s also one other difference—in these camps, the tracker sits on a chair that’s attached to the front of the land cruiser, above the hood, so they have a view over a large territory and also over the ground. Both the guides and the trackers are really skilled at tracking, and they showed us what they were looking for—the footprints of lions, cheetahs and leopards.

One morning, at Splash camp, they identified cheetah footprints and began the search. Because the grass is high, both Dave and the tracker, KT, got out of the land cruiser and searched on foot. After quite a while, they gave up. But at our late afternoon drive, they tried again—this time they found and followed the cheetah. He finally sat and rested on a termite mound. We came, in our vehicle, only a few meters away, and watched him for quite a long time. He was beautiful!

Suddenly, a female lion came strolling around the corner and the cheetah ran off—he would be no match for a lion. Dave said—this lion is a nursing mother—you can see her heavy tits. He was determined to follow her so she would lead us to her cubs. This required crashing through bushes until we did see her, below us, nursing her four tiny cubs.

We went on boat trips at both Splash and Lagoon camps – twice on motorboats and one time on a long, brown canoe, which were actually constructed from plexiglass. All the boat rides were incredibly beautiful and peaceful—with water lilies, so many birds and hippos. The hippos by the way are quite dangerous – we couldn’t get too close.

All of the wild animals can be dangerous. One time, we were unable to leave our cabin at lunch time because four elephants, including two babies, were right by the path. We didn’t emerge until the elephants had gone.

Even so, we could be close to even lions, cheetahs and leopards as long as we were seated in our vehicle. Somehow, the animals see the cruisers as one large creature, neither threatening nor edible. However, if someone were to stand up—they might “see” the individuals and possibly attack.

On our last full day, at Lagoon camp, our guides spent almost two hours tracking a leopard. At one point, we saw him—high in a tree—but then he jumped down and we lost him. Our guide and tracker were persistent. And finally, there he was—on a low branch of a tree. We came close—only a few meters away. We watched, took photos, and I sketched him—all the while marveling that we could be there with this young leopard.

Our safaris have been at three camps in Botswana run by Kwando, which has a number of camps, both in national parks and private concessions. The ones we visited were delightful—we were well cared for and really well-fed.

What can I say? This has been an adventure of a lifetime—we have been in the company of wild animals. We are so blessed to be here.

Our next stops are Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe and Cape Town in South Africa. I’ll write more soon…