Mokoros and More!

Mokoros and More!

Caroline and Lane have their bags packed but I am not ready for them to go!  Neither one of them could miss the Monday work day....so their long journey back to the real world will begin late this morning.  We did have a fun morning with them in the mokoros.  It was a beautiful morning!  We saw lots of birds and animals in route to the landing.  We enjoyed a beautiful brunch with them before sending them to the landing strip with Martin.  Davis, Barry and I jumped in the boat and headed for Hunda Island with Alberto.  Lane dubbed Alberto “The Brown Breasted White Capped Alberto”.  (more on that in another post! ha!)  Hunda Island is quite a boat ride away from camp...but it was certainly worth it!  As the boat is skimming over the water making S turn after S turn, you get lots of surprises!  We had a red lechwe(which a is a very large red and white antelope) almost in the boat with us...the one behind it went under out boat.  I am still not understanding how what happened!  It was so quick that I didn’t have a second to get a photo of the event!  Twice we came extremely close to hitting a hippo.  I have a sick feeling of what would have happened to us if we had!  It would have been akin to hitting a brick wall!  Several times, elephants crossed in front of us as we were barreling down the waterways!  If you think about it, there are no brakes in a boat!  Sure, the motor can be reversed or turned off...but that is not instantaneous!  Upon our arrival at Hunda Island, a Land Rover was awaiting us!  But, it would not start!  After a few attempts, we simply borrowed one from one of the sister camps that is located on the island. Hope they didn't miss it! In route to our late lunch location, we saw  lots of fun things!  Male impala chasing each other away from their harems was almost comical!  Female impala sneaking away from one male to another more handsome one!  I didn’t love seeing African Harrier Hawk trying to pull baby chicks of a smaller bird species out of a nest that was in a hole in a tree. This particular hawk has long double jointed legs that it uses to reach into holes in trees to grab eggs and chicks.  I know that everyone has to eat to survive, but I didn’t like that at all!  There were lots of wildebeest and zebras everywhere!  And journeys of giraffe!  We saw a really large giraffe sitting down...which is unusual.  Our lunch spot was on a raised deck overlooking a beautiful wetland.  We loved watching the elephants “play” in the water with each other.  They were really playing in the water for the pure joy of it!  I did have a red flag moment.  I kept hearing a hum while we were eating lunch.  I really wan’t sure that I wanted to know what it was or where it was coming from.  Really!  I got up to take photos of the elephants and I glanced up as I turned around.  There was a VERY large bee hive in the tree.  RIGHT OVER OUR HEADS!  In fact, you had to walk a few feet from it to use the stairs.  I was just glad that we didn’t tick them off!  YIKES!  Loved seeing saddle billed storks, marabou storks, hyena pups, and more.  The boat ride/race back to the camp was lots of fun.   Lots of birds!  Lots of hippos!  Lots of elephants!  A few crocs!  We had cocktails and dinner with all of the other lodge guests.  It was a full house and lots of fun!