Barry's Handiwork

An Ortho Lesson

Never seen such enthusiasm over dry bones!

Lane giving a bone lesson

Dem Bones

Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem Dry Bones!

Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem Dry Bones!

Bones! There are bones everywhere in the bush!  Some have only been there for a matter of hours and others...years!  When an animal meets his demise, nothing goes to waste.  For example if a Cape Buffalo is killed by lions.  They will eat until they are uncomfortably stuffed.  There are always vultures in branches and on the ground fighting for a bite.  At some point the hyenas will usually show up and have a go at it. After they leave, you may have a leopard, serval, cheetah, wild cat, jackals, bugs and so forth until there isn't much left.  Usually it's just the large bones and  horns left behind.  The smaller bones are eaten by hyenas.  Hyena poop is white...flush with calcium.  The bones that remain get scattered.  It isn't like looking at a chart of a skeleton like we did in school.  Beginning at Kings Pool and continuing on at Mombo and Jao, my son-in-law just couldn't pass up a pile of bones without asking/demanding that we stop!  If it was safe...meaning no dangerous animals in the near vicinity, he would jump out and begin to examine the bones.  He would explain what the individual bones were.  Then he would (sometimes with Lemme,  Sefo, or Alberto's help) begin to reconstruct the animal!  Yes!  I am positively sure that some of the guides that have passed by these graveyards of bones several times a week for a long time are taking a second glance/maybe getting a whiplash upon viewing these reconstructed skeletal remains!  I can only imagine how they are explaining to clients how this happened!  Barry quickly joined in on the fun by making Cape Buffalo monuments.  Every time we passed a skull and horns of one, he would have to jump out, grab it and find a place to display it!  Reminded me of old western  movies and tv shows where "monuments" like this would be a marker for a graveyard or a "stop, turn around and get out of here!" sign!  Just keep thinking about that song...."dem bones, dem bones gonna' walk around...."  

The Okavango Delta

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So SAD to Leave!!!

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Wonder How He Lost His Horn?

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Threatening Us!

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He is NOT Sharing our Love!

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Marabou Stork! UGLY!

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It’s Never Easy to Go Home...Especially When ONE Leg of the Trip is a 15 Hour Plane Ride!!!

It’s Never Easy to Go Home...Especially When ONE Leg of the Trip is a 15 Hour Plane Ride!!!
UGH!  It’s time to go back to Mississippi for us and to New York for Davis!  We were packed before breakfast this morning so that we could go on one last game drive with our beloved Alberto!  By the way, we LOVED the breakfasts at Jao!  They are the best!!  Before our game drive, Barry had an event!  He was walking from our tent to the lodge on the elevated walkway.  A large male baboon was on the walkway and saw Barry.  Instead of running away, he charged Barry while baring his teeth.  They can be quite scary!  I have seen baboons taunt leopards which are their mortal enemy!  If this event had happened to me instead of Barry, he would have said that I had an exciting adventure!  Hmmm....  We had fun seeing a marabou stork up close and personal!  They are one of the ugliest birds that God created!  We saw lots of elephants of all sizes.  We had a few charge our vehicle which makes Davis understandably nervous.  We also saw a red lechwe that only had 1 antler.  The antlered animals in Africa (at least this is my understanding) don’t shed their antlers yearly like the deer in the USA do;  if you lose one, it is too bad!  Time went by way too quickly and it was time to meet the plane to begin the very long trip back to Mississippi!  Our first leg took us from Jao Camp to Chitabe Camp.  From Chitabe to Maun, Botswana.  After clearing customs, we flew from Maun to Johannesburg, South Africa where we had to go back through customs.  In Johannesburg we had a layover before boarding the extremely LONG Delta flight back to Atlanta.  This is the longest flight that Delta airlines has.  Before boarding we were at the Delta gate in line to board.  A very intoxicated and obnoxious American man was insisting that he talk to a Delta agent.  He wanted an upgrade.  He kept telling the agents that he traveled for a living and blah blah blah.  They didn’t let him talk to  the agent.  He was sent to the back of the line or told he could go to the Delta counter.  Poor Davis, the icky man was seated right next to him in the middle seat.  I don’t think he was pleasant, but I think he passed out after having many drinks of straight up Vodka so that the trip was tolerable for Davis.  We sailed through customs in Atlanta with no problems and for once it wasn’t raining and we left on time!  That is a miracle in Atlanta!  Even though I am now home.  I think I may continue this in a frequent basis...but probably not every day.  I do have some funny and/or interesting things that happened or that we saw that I didn’t cover in the daily posts.  We will see....  Thanks for traveling with me!!!

Boo Hoo!!! Caroline and Lane leaving….

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Road Block! I mean Water/Block!

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Jao Sunset

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Our lunch spot under the humming bee hive!

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A very chill giraffe!

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African Harrier Hawk

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Lilac Breasted Roller

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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!

Crocodile lounging...

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Caroline and Lane in a mokoro

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Pied Kingfisher

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Barry and Davis in a mokoro

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Caroline is grossed out at listening to the bats prepare to flee!

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The inviting pool at Jao

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Welcome to Jao Camp!

Welcome to Jao Camp!

We had a 15 minute flight from Mombo Camp to Jao Camp.  Our new fabulous guide, Alberto, met us at the Jao airstrip.  We liked him instantly!  One would probably think...”Oh, more of the same thing....” WRONG!  Jao is a water/land camp.  The luxurious tents are Balinese in style with many pieces of furniture and accessories from the island of Bali.  The tents of located high up in the trees.  Everything is accessed by a high boardwalk.  Our view is of a marshy area....much like southern Louisiana...with slightly different animals and birds. I love seeing the abundance of red lechwe, elephants and hippos that frequent our front yard.  One of the managers (Neuman Vasco) that greeted us was an old friend that we made at Jao previously.  It was fun to see old faces and new ones.  After settling in and having a beautiful lunch, we departed on a boat ride through the tall papyrus on very narrow  waterways.  The waterways are almost like narrow paths.  Sometimes the water is very shallow and sometimes pretty deep.  One never knows what is going to lie around each of the many corners. We were surprised by exotic birds, crocs, hippos, elephants, and red lechwe.  We arrived back in camp a little early so that we could watch the nightly “Bat Show”.  In one of the large columns that leads into the boma, many bats depart their bat cave and spend the night flying around and eating insects.  The spectacle is a little like river crossings in the Mara and the Serengeti by the wildebeest. The gnu (wildebeest) all stare at the river...sometimes for days...until ONE decides to brave the crocodile infested waters...they all follow!  All it takes is a single bat to fly out for the evening meal and they all follow...and not in an orderly way!  Besides hearing the little mammals crawling up the column, one can feel how warm it is from all the bats roosting inside.  Later that night, we all enjoyed a delicious meal in the boma and wonderful entertainment by the Jao staff.  

Our family with THE Graham and The Jemima!

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My favorite place to be! …in Sefo's Land Rover at Mombo!

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Courting Giraffes!

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fighting giraffes!

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Lions crossing the river at Mombo

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A SAD, SAD, SAD Day for me....

A SAD, SAD, SAD Day for me....

Yes, friends, I am at home in Mississippi!  We had no internet, no phones, no tv, no newspapers while we were in Botswana.  I am posting all of these posts post Africa!  Ha! Ha! Ha!

We enjoyed such a beautiful sunrise at Mombo on our last morning!  It was sad, sad, sad for me!  We had our bags all packed before we left the camp. We were going to the plane from our game drive.  We saw lots of fun things...from crocs to hippos!  We were mesmerized by the giraffes!  First of all, some are really, really light colored and some are really, really dark colored.  We saw some courting giraffes and we saw some fighting ones!  And they fight dirty!!!  Besides, whamming each other with their heads and horns, they try to make each other fall!  I was very glad that I didn’t have to witness a broken leg!  And then we saw mating lions...this time it was male and female!  Ha!  I loved seeing them cross a river....ever on the lookout for crocs!  Loved seeing Pula one last time!  She was still under that tree guarding the little remains of her treasured baboon kill that was still tucked safely away high in the branches.  We also came upon vultures finishing off the remains of an impala.  We wondered who had been lucky with that kill...and soon we found out.  We came upon an extremely full pride of lions.  I have never seen such full ones!  They were so full that they couldn’t get comfortable laying down.  And then in was time....  that time I had been dreading before I even arrived.  Before I knew what was happening, and with a huge lump in my throat and a few tears...okay a LOT of tears...streaming down my cheeks, we were in the air.  I can’t put into words how much this place means to me....