Okavango River Delta - Day 2

We awoke at 5am for a swamp canoe and another walking safari on a big island.

After 45 minutes, we were followed some elephant paths through the grassveld plain. There was a very loud rustling in the grass accompanied by a thunderous decrescendo of feet on groud. "Lion," said MT.

"What?" I said. MT turned around to look at Jo and I and said very calmly, "Big lion." The lioness had been in the tall grass just 10m to our left. A tree had obstructed my view, but Jo saw its haunches and tail as it ran away.

He went into the tall grass straight toward where the lion had been, then continued in the direction the lion had run. I agreed with MT's choice of pace, but my inclinations would have taken me in a different direction. In this moment, all I could think of was the wise Australian hunter from Jurassic Park II screaming "Not into the tall grass" immediately preceding the gruesome scenes where half the cast of the movie are disemboweled by raptors. I was scared stupid. Lions hunt at dawn. My defensive plan was simply to stay close to MT. Lions like small targets. MT was about 5'4". We did not see the lion again.

Not much later, we encountered a large herd of zebra and giraffe. We were positioned downwind and they did not notice us for some time. We approached, and when they did see us they iteratively retreat at 100 meter intervals. After about twenty minutes, they got spooked by something up wind and ran as a large stampede directly toward us. They veered off when they were about 300 meters away but kept running for some time.

There were fresh elephant tracks everywhere. We followed them, walking alongside the herd of giraffe for several hours. In this time, I thought of a joke. It involved an animal magician and the punch-line was "abra-giraff-(z)-ebra" (take the accent off the z). It's impossible to write down and it isn't very funny.

Eventually there was a wonky line in the grass. MT said "Python track" in his thick Tswana accent. We followed the track about 20 meters to the python's lair. It was thicker than my thigh. We stayed about 2 meters away from it because a python that size can jump about 2 meters. Eventually it kinda slithered away and we saw it stretch out to a length of about 4 meters - even with a large section of its tail missing. Pretty cool!

We climbed up onto a large abandoned termite mound. We were higher than the giraffe, with a clear vantage over the grasses. It felt good to get higher up and out of the grass. I remember feeling pretty safe - no visible lions for miles. We hung out until MT eventually mentioned that mamba (both black and green) like to live in the holes of abandoned termite mounds.

Twenty minutes later we spotted a large male elephant in the distance. We followed it for some time until it jogged away at a pace we could not keep.

It was getting hot, so we turned around to go back to camp. We did not see anything living on the walk home - indicative of MT's tracker acumen, and the efficacy of remaining down wind. We canoed back to Fence of Safety in sweltering heat. The reeds blocked the breeze and trapped in the heat. It felt good when we could swim in a pool back at camp once again.

I'm a little embarrassed to report this romp in the bush, as I believe it showcases a my startling naivety to many of the dangers which I exposed myself to. In truth, aspects of this outing really scared me - pretty much just the lion.

In conclusion, I am quite pleased with the lion's choice to run away from us. I will think twice about going on another walking safari.