Leopard!

​Last evening’s game drive was pretty lame. We saw a few of the same animals we had seen before, and in pretty much the same locations.

(Photos will be added when we have sufficient internet bandwidth.)

One comical thing is the herd of impalas, that greeted us on arrival and has been hanging out in the field adjacent to the air strip, had moved over to graze virtually under the wings of the parked aircraft. It looked like a highly congested security line at the airport!

The group enjoyed a “sundowner” drink served from the tailgate, But the sun had pretty much set already by the time we stopped in a clearing in the bush, and the view of the horizon was obscured by trees.

So on the way back we were chatting away, not paying much attention to what was going on outside the truck, when our tour leader “shushed” us and whispered, “there’s a leopard in the road!”

Sure enough, a young male leopard was trotting along the road, moving in the same direction as our vehicles. He appeared to be on a mission — like he had somewhere to go.

Totally unphased by the truck headlights and the driver’s searchlight, the leopard kept trotting along. Occasionally he would glance over his shoulder at us, but he continued on for perhaps as much as 500 meters.

Eventually he turned and walked into the bush, but not like he was running away from us. Just like, “OK, this is my turn.”

Only about 15 to 20% of tourists actually get to see a leopard on one of these trips, so we felt very fortunate.

In the evening, one of these African staff of this camp offered a “dark sky” experience and most of the group went out to get a lesson on the southern sky and some of the constellations we can’t see in the northern hemisphere. He’s just a hobbyist, but he was quite knowledgeable.

This morning’s game drive took a different route than the last two. We saw buffalo, as well as our first elephant in this location (but he looked just like the elephants in Zimbabwe, surprisingly enough). There were some rare birds, and there was some zebra scat, but no zebra was seen.

Without a doubt, the leopard sighting was the most exciting thing of the last 24 hours.