Passed on the river safari this morning to catch up on the blog (no internet where we are and am falling behind, as well.....sorry!)
The morning safari people got excellent footage of hippos charging the boat!
After lunch and some rest time, we headed out on a self-drive safari and I was thrilled to be able to do the driving! I had Alesa and her dad, Richard, in the car with me. We had a guide vehicle so we wouldn't get lost (it's a huge park with sand and dirt roads heading in all directions) and this time, we had way more success than our morning drive!
We saw elephants, zebras, monkeys, warthogs, eland, sable, kudu and hippo as well as various types of birds.
Driving was awesome! I got footage of a herd of elephants at the water who then headed up an incline towards the trees. Our safari guide went to follow them and then realized they'd stopped at the trees and one large female had turned to face us and was looking distressed. He waited for them to move on but they held their ground and I didn't like the look of it so I turned our vehicle to the side ready to make a quick escape, if necessary.
It was definitely an "African standoff"!
Finally, they backed up a bit so our guide and two of our convoy went ahead up over the rise and perpendicular to the elephants but now between them and the water so, if they charged, the middle vehicles would be trapped. I followed tentatively but I was not going to get caught in that trap so I gave the vehicles plenty of time to pass by the elephants and make sure they weren't charging before I started to pass by them. I told Alesa and Richard they had to snap their photos fast because I wasn't stopping! I just saw the big one flapping its ears and I stepped on the gas! By the time we went by, they had turned and started to go into the trees so the next two vehicles were safe.
After that excitement, things settled down and we were just snapping pics of everything we could. The sand driving was challenging but manageable and then Richard said how he'd heard that when driving in sand, you could take your hands off the wheel and just let the sand ruts steer the car. I gave it a try just for fun and it worked! Alesa took some video of me driving with no hands on her camera and then I asked her to take some on mine! What a hoot! It was actually easier in a way because you weren't struggling with the steering. The car just followed the tracks beautifully as long as I kept a nice steady speed of about 15km/hr on the speedometer.
We returned for our 7 pm dinner feeling elated about our very successful and exciting safari drive!
Tomorrow....another self driving tour to Mamili Park.....JT
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