Walking Safari

Our guide Bashi took me for a four mile walk one day.  We were dropped off away from camp and walked down the sides (and inside) of a dry river bed on the way back.  It gave me a chance to get a much closer view of the landscape, and gave me a real appreciation of what it means to be on foot as opposed to safely in a jeep. Warning:  This page contains graphic photos of dead and dying wildlife.

There were two eagles sitting on trees across from each other, trying to establish ownership of this lizard.  As you can tell from the yellow, he was not having a good day.

One of the eagles did this.  The lizard was still alive, but not for long.

Ants build their mounds, and eventually an anteater comes along and shoves his snout in looking for a snack.  The resulting space is used as a burrow by other animals.

The lair of the aptly named Funnel Web Spider.

This is a Marula tree.  The fruits are used to make Amarula, a very smooth liquer that my Mom now has a taste for. You only see these trees hanging out of the side of tall riverbanks.  The reason:  Elephants love them and will eat them down to the stump anywhere they can reach them.

Botswana is extremely mineral rich.  Everywhere you looked, the basalt rock of the riverside was pregnant with ore deposits.

After so much time on the coastal rocks of California, it took me a while to realize that these were granite deposits, not bird droppings.

Hopefully one of my geologically savvy friends can correct me, but I believe these are called "geodes".

We're not sure what did this, but the fur used to belong to a jackal.

We were walking along the riverbank, when suddenly Bashi got very excited and very quiet all at once.  "Up there," he whispered.

Leopards are the only local animals known to store their food in trees.  Being on foot and unarmed, I had mixed feelings about finding this.

The leopard tracks were fresh.  Bashi, who history will note was armed, was very excited about this.

The leopard had made his kill down by a small waterhole in the dried up riverbed.  You can see where he dragged the antelope. (the cinderblocks are from a nearby deserted camp)

In these scuff marks you can read the short chase of a ambushing leopard and a startled antelope. Or at least that's what Bashi told me.  He probably made the marks while I wasn't looking.  He's an extremely able ranger, but not above teasing the tourists on occasion.