We were up at 5 this morning and eating a breakfast of toast, cereal, and coffee by 5:30. Billy came over and had a bowl of cereal with us before we took off on our game drive. We picked up Joel, who is studying to be a guide. Billy is from Malawi, near Blantyre, actually, where Rachel grew up. He is married and has three kids, one of whom was born last week. Joel is also married with two kids. Billy is a walking encyclopedia and a comedian. He is extremely knowledgeable about every animal and plant species in the world, and to top it off, he speaks seven languages, including a little Japanese and Italian. Joel is super sweet and friendly. He’s obviously still learning, but he did a good job for us.
The drive lasted over four hours with a coffee/tea break in the middle. Here’s a run-down of what we saw and some interesting things I learned:
1) Giraffes – tons of them! There are several different breeds of giraffe – the one in this area is called Thornycroft after an English government official who studied them for years and discovered it was different than other species. This one has spots that go all the way down its legs and a different color on its ears. People used to believe that giraffes were the result of a camel and a leopard mating. Giraffes have a 15 month gestation period, they live for about 30 years, and they grow to be about 4.5 meters tall. When they drink, they have to bend down awkwardly, so their heart stops pumping blood up to their head. If it continued to pump blood, its head would explode from all the blood. Therefore, they get very dizzy from the lack of blood when they stand up. This is when the lions hunt them as they are the most susceptible.
2) Elephants – you would not believe how many we’ve seen. Elephants are dangerous and somewhat of a nuisance to the nearby villagers. They wander through village eating the fruit off the trees. Four women have already died this year. Women are the ones who go out first thing to gather firewood, and it’s very common for them to be trampled by elephants hiding in the bush.
3) Leopard! Again! I got some great shots of it today. It’s still working on the impala.
4) Hyena – the same three were still hanging out below the leopard.
5) Zebras – it’s difficult to tell which is male and which is female, but usually the male stands between the female and danger (like our car).
6) Warthogs (three of them)
7) Bushbuck
8) Impala (of course, but today we saw them horning, which is when they scratch their horns on trees to mark their territory)
9) Waterbuck – different from the ones we saw in Kafue. This breed is has a white ring on its backside.
10) Hippos – in a group, they are now called a school of hippos, not a pod. This was a recent change.
11) Crocodiles – many of them along the river bank.
12) Monitor lizard.
Birds:
1) African harrier hawk – its face turns red when it gets angry. It eats chicks from other birds.
2) Open-billed stork
3) Hamerkop
4) Lesser gray shrike – it is a migrant bird and eats seeds from the elephant dung, which helps trees grow in new areas.
5) Red billed oxpecker – they have a symbiotic relationship with the giraffes; they eat the ticks off their body. By the way, “symbiotic relationship” is a term I didn’t know until I taught fourth grade science this last year.
6) Egyptian goose – there is a current debate over where it should be called a goose or a duck. It looks like a duck.
7) Martial eagle.
8) Kingfisher
9) Crowned crane
10) Bateleur Eagle
11) Woolly-necked stork
12) Fish eagle (similar, if not exactly the same to a bald eagle. It is Malawi and Zambia’s national bird)
Other facts:
1) The incredibly expensive, ritzy lodge that is located in the park was recently purchased by Paul Allen, Bill Gate’s partner at Microsoft.
2) Members of the tribe that used to leave right in the park before it was set aside for a national park were often captured by Somalian Arabs and sold into slavery.
3) Sausage trees (trees that have huge, heavy sausage-looking fruit growing on them) are used today for many practical uses: it cures chickens from Newcastle disease (which saves Zambian lives, since they are very reliant on chickens for food), when it is dried and pounded it is added to lotion to prevent skin cancer, Billy’s relative drank some of the powder when she couldn’t produce milk after giving birth and within a couple hours was cured, and is used for other medicinal purposes.
When we got back, we sat outside on our porch for a while. Some monkeys came up to the porch, and Rachel immediately scared them away. I scolded her, saying that I never get to see monkeys, let me enjoy them, etc. While this was happening, a monkey snuck in our room through our front door and stole an apple. I got a big, “I told you so,” after that one.
During lunch, the monkeys were circling us, trying to figure out how to steal more food from us. They are quite brave and got pretty close. As soon as the worker came back, they scattered – this is because he routinely shoots at them with a slingshot.
A wounded mongoose also came and begged. He wandered right around our feet and even licked my toe.
After lunch, I napped and laid by the pool. Then it was time for our evening game drive. Unfortunately, we had to share Billy with several other tourists from the Netherlands and Germany. Our goal tonight was to see lions, but we were disappointed. We did, however, see two leopards – one was the same one we’ve seen every other time and another one was hunting in a field. He didn’t catch anything; the impala saw him in time. The spotter saw it from an incredible distance – all he has to do is scan the light over the grass and trees and he can tell by the color of the reflection of the eyes which animal it is. We watched it move down the field, chase an impala for a while, and then run towards our vehicle. It got extremely close to us. Seeing it in action was amazing.
We saw tons more elephants, zebras, giraffes, and hippos. It’s to the point that it’s almost boring to see them now. The only new thing we saw was buffalo, which was also extremely close to us. It was a huge herd that had just finished rolling around in the mud by the river.
We returned for a delicious, huge, late dinner. Even though all I’ve done is sit in a car for eight hours and lay by the pool, I’m exhausted and can’t wait for sleep!
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