Friday 20th January 2017

Today is C’s birthday!

We were woken at 6am and I had to then trek over to Mum’s room to get her up too.  She was already awake and dressed but in rather a state.  She told me that she’d got up to find her clothes scattered around the room and her boob missing.  After a cursory look, we couldn’t find it, so I told her we’d look for it when we came by in 20 minutes time when the light would be better.  Coming back to pick her up, we could hear shouting from her room and discovered that vervet monkeys had broken in and pinched her biscuits and tried to take the sugar bowl upsetting it in the process.  These were clearly the culprits behind the scattering of the clothes and we assumed that they’d already made off with the boob – perhaps assuming it was an exotic new fruit?!!  I tactfully pulled Theresa, the camp manager, aside and explained the problem and she assured me that they would do their best to try and locate the missing boob – this was while she was trying to stifle her laughter!

The morning game drive was dominated by finding the local pride of lions – 2 males and 3 females (although we only saw 2) and the 5 cubs which are about 4 months old.  We sat there watching them for quite a long time and it was delightful watching the cubs play and interact with their mothers who swatted them and washed them and each other.  After that we were lucky enough to come across a leopard tortoise and then there was lots more bird spotting – plovers, the European bee-eater, the white browed caracol and the go away bird.  Then it was on to another hippo pool where the hippos were just below us.

After lunch and a rest it was the afternoon game drive.  This time we went to the rhino reserve which is about 60 hectares and is home to 84 animals.  You’d think you’d be falling over them with that sort of density but far from it!!  We got a few tantalising glimpse of 3 in some tall grass then some in the far distance just before we had to leave the park at 6pm.  However, we were assured by George that we would come back tomorrow morning when there would be a good chance of them being closer to the roads as he’s not allowed to drive off into the bush in this reserve.  On the way back to camp, we were lucky to come across 2 of George’s “big boys” – enormous bull elephants with massive tusks – very impressive animals.  We also saw an unfortunate hyena that had a wire noose cutting into its neck, which was upsetting to see.  George told us that he would report it to the park vet who would track it down and remove it.

We had a super dinner plus birthday cake and C and I took a night cap back to our room and did some star gazing as the night skies are simply stunning here.

PS. Mum’s boob was found in her room in the end so the monkeys hadn’t made off with it after all, but it did provide a lot of amusement to all of us.