I hope that you are fabulously well and have had another wonderful weekend. Here in the Luangwa, it simply hasn’t stopped but today I am going to start off with what has to have been the sighting of the week if not the month.
Most of the guests at Nkwali had finished breakfast and were enjoying a gentle start to their morning heading across the river in the hopes that they may find the lions which they had heard calling in the early hours.
Meanwhile Kiki had chosen to take an even more leisurely approach to the day and was still sitting at the bar with a guest sipping on a cup of tea listening to the lions as they started calling again, but they were struggling to see them. Then suddenly 2 male lions popped out of the bush opposite camp and started walking along the bank for a bit before heading into the bush again. Whilst fleeting, it was a lovely treat all the same.
Meanwhile Sebastian and his guests were on the other side of the river just getting started when suddenly they were overtaken by a wild dog. It literally came out of the bush and ran straight past them taking absolutely everyone by surprise. Taking absolutely no notice of the car, it had one thing on its mind and one thing only – breakfast!
They tried to follow the hunt but lost sight of the dogs, that was until Kiki with his cup of tea and bat ears heard a growl and a kerfuffle and again grabbing the scope, saw the flick of a dog’s tail and radioed through to Sebastian letting him know where they were.
Sebastian headed over to where the dogs were and found them already busy eating. No sooner had he arrived did a pair of hyenas also pitch up, so further interaction occurred as the dogs started to try to chase the hyenas away. Then another dog went behind the car and started barking, checking out what this was now about, it was then that Sebastian saw a leopard up in a tree.
At this point it was more a case of where to look – leopard in a tree, wild dog barking at the leopard, wild dogs eating or hyenas running away from the wild dogs… after all this the two male lions were really rather boring!!
I mean this is a game drive of dreams, so anyone reading this and coming out to visit us this year, please don’t get your hopes up that this is what you are going to see this really was something really quite special.
I have also made a rod for my own back now as how do I compete with this sighting except to say that we came across an elephant with an identity crisis the other day. Maybe he thought he was a bushbuck or something because he was literally just standing on the very top of a termite mound. He looked incredibly out of place and even more awkward and was certainly a first for us. Bertie had also stopped to look at him wandering what on earth was going on.
So, on that note l shall now bid you a fond farewell for yet another week and hope that you have a fabulous week ahead with plenty of smiles and laughter and don’t forget to look after one another.
