Around the Watering Holes

Well, I finally got done sorting through my pictures from our first Safari Weekend so here are some more..  We did see a lion in the wild.  Our friend Gavin knew something was up when the impala and even some wildebeest came sprinting past on the road.  So we immediately went to the nearest watering hole and sure enough, a beautiful male lion was there.  My pictures weren't great because of distance and lack of camera skills but I'll share one:

He must have been hungry since the animals knew it was time to flee the scene.

We kept driving around and went up to a more remote area and saw an animal it's rare to see because they are very shy and cautious, it's a Klipspringer.  Again pictures aren't great because of the distance:

Do you see there are 2 of them?  I looked them up and the internet says they form breeding pairs rather than herds and that they mate for life.  It also says the succulents they eat keep them hydrated so they don't have to drink.

We kept driving and found we had some sort of monster thorn in our tyre, but it didn't seem to be leaking so Matt cut it off and left it in the rest of the trip.  It is now our spare tyre.  (Yes, I totally spell it tyre here, that is the way things roll here. ;) No idea how that thorn got in our tyre, in our sidewall no less.  It's not like we were driving into thorn trees.

We saw elephants, I'm showing you this next picture because it's an action shot:

Flapping it's ears.  It's cool when they do this, and loud too if you are close enough.

At the next watering hole we saw zebra:

I did doctor this one up a bit.  It's one of my favorites now.

Then it was time to go back to the human watering hole.  I'm referring of course to the pool.  It was so hot driving around. (Reminded me of when I had my faithful pioneer car with no A/C.  My BFF Elsa will remember that one I think. And my sister too. That car is still going in strong in Riverton by the way.  I see it around town when we visit. :)  We went back to camp and to the pool.  Our air mattress also had some sort of leak so Matt took it to the pool to try to find it.  Some helpful locals came over to lend a hand. I do have a picture of that, but I thought instead I'd show you this picture at the pool:

This is something I'll never quite get.  They did it in Nigeria too.  Some Africans just love having their wedding pictures taken next to the pool.  It's one thing if you are able to have a pool that's empty (of people)  I guess...Why you would want some half-naked strangers in your wedding pictures I will never understand.  Although to be perfectly honest, I would not get near a pool in a wedding dress. There are way too many cinematic moments depicting brides being tossed into pools to feel safe in that situation.  I mean really.

Back at camp we also had a visitor:

Naughty Pumba.  

That is another reason, besides the baboon troops, to keep your camp neat and secure.

That's all for now, more safari pictures still to come.  I'm really trying to be judicious.  You would not believe how many I have that I'm not sharing and how many others were deleted.  I'm trying to spread them out so you don't get totally bored. :)