Day 4: King's Pool (Botswana)

Day 4:  King's Pool (Botswana)

I didn't sleep much because of all the "jungle" sounds during the night.  Hippos in the water, Wart Hogs under the lodge and a bevy of other unknown animals sounds. They came around at 5:30 AM for our wake up call.  I got out of bed, splashed some water on my face and got dressed.  Then at 6:00 AM they came back and picked us up and escorted us to the main outdoor eating area.  Breakfast was buffet style with eggs, cereal, danishes, fruit, oatmeal and drinks.  I sampled a little of everything while we watched the sun come up which was a beautiful setting over looking the river.  Bobby (our driver for the three days we would be there) picked us up and we loaded up the jeep around 7 AM.  They had hot water bottles and lined ponchos in the jeep to help keep warm.  It wasn't too cold but as the sun came up it warmed quickly.  Bobby started tracking a Leopard based on the tracks in the dirt.  After awhile of searching, Zack spotted the Leopard perched on a stump.  When we approached, we realized that it was waiting for a Wart Hog to come out of a hole where the Wart Hog family was sleeping.  It was probably a solid 30 minutes before the Male Wart Hog came out of the hole to make sure that it was safe for his family.  Incredibly the Leopard was within a foot of the Wart Hog and the Wart Hog had no idea.  The Leopard remained silently perched on the tree stump waiting for the smaller Wart Hog to appear.  During this whole time we were in the jeep about 50 feet from both of them.  Finally, the Male Wart Hog gave the "all clear" to his family and they came of of the hole.  Once the small Wart Hog was close enough, the Leopard ponced on it.  Two of the big Wart Hogs joined the fight and used their tusks to get the Leopard off of the small Wart Hog.  It was a crazy 15 seconds of chaos and Hannah caught the whole thing on video.  We were all shaking from the adrenaline rush.  The driver said this was a very uncommon event to see first hand.  We then tried to track down the Leopard but no luck.  For the rest of the morning, we drove around and saw other animals, i.e. Giraffes, Elephants, Crocs, Snakes, Birds, Kudo, Zebras, Rhinos, etc...  Around 9 AM we took a break and had some snacks and drinks by the river.  It was a beautiful day.  We continued to drive around and saw more animals, huge termite mounds and even a large Elephant skull on the side of the road until we headed back to camp at 11AM for lunch.  At lunch we were exhausted from waking up early and having an intense day with the animals.  For lunch, I had butter chicken with basmati rice and berry sorbet for dessert.  After lunch, Allison and I walked back to our room and I took a nap on the lounge chair outside our room near the river.  I woke up around 3:30 PM and changed back into our safari gear for the afternoon adventure.  We headed back over to the main eating area and had "High Tea" and some snacks before getting back on the jeep around 4 PM.  Our goal for the afternoon was to track down a lion that was spotted in the area.  This was a coordinated effort among 4 jeeps.  We had no luck with the lions but did see a heard of Elephants, a couple of Hippos, Kudos, Giraffes and a pack of Wild Dogs (which is supposedly pretty rare).  We even had the opportunity to see a beautiful sunset in the bush before it got very dark and much colder.  It was getting late so we headed back to camp around 7 PM.  Every time we arrived back to the camp, they would greet us with a wet cloth to clean up and a drink.  We sat around a fire and I had a Windbock beer and some snacks before dinner at 7:30 PM.  For dinner, I had cauliflower soup with Chorizo, fish with rice and an apple ginger tart for dessert.  During dinner you constantly heard the Hippos making their strange snorting noises as they hung out in the river.  We finished up around 9 PM and then got escorted back to the room.  We showered up and got into bed around 9:45 PM. We both passed out from a long day.