Friday, June 20, 2025

We got up at 5:15 and Jessica knocked on our door at 5:30. We got ready and met everyone at the safari vehicle at 6:00. We drove way out into the bush. We hadn’t seen much of anything when Jessica got a call that African Wild Dogs had been spotted near the lodge. We were about 10km away and we went hightailing it in that direction. As we sped by, we saw a family of warthogs running with their tails in the air. I would have loved to get photos and a video of that, but Jessica was on a mission. When we got to the river near the lodge, they told Jessica that the African Wild Dogs had gone into the plants by the river. She drove out into the plants and we looked but never found them. We went back out into the bush. We did see an ostrich close by, which was nice. Other sightings included multiple hornbills, a Lilac Breasted Roller, lots of impala, and a Kudu herd.

When we got back at 9:00, we ate breakfast (same delicious buffet). I had an omelette with cheese, onions, mushrooms, and a vegetable mix. After breakfast, we quickly changed for our bush walk. We had to wear neutral colored clothes.

We met Shannon, our bush walking guide, at 10:10. She had a rifle (elephant gun) that was loaded in case of an animal attack. She went over the safety rules. When she was explaining about the gun, it was funny because she said, “You should never stand in front or beside me and you definitely shouldn’t stand behind the barrel of the gun.” She meant you definitely should stay behind the barrel of the gun. We had to walk in a single file line and not talk. She asked everyone to silence their phones and alarms. We headed out and followed her through the bush. She showed us lots of plants and talked about their traditional uses. She talked about elephant poop and how it’s full of probiotics. If people had stomach problems, she said that they used to squeeze the juice out of elephant dung and drink it or if they had dried elephant dung, they would brew it in a tea. We saw a tree that if you eat the nut, you will get all kinds of gastrointestinal issues, including hiccups, and Shannon said that you would die of hiccups unless you ate the outside of the nut because that was the antidote.

We also saw lots of birds. The best thing we saw was 8 giraffes. We were decently close to them and enjoyed seeing them from the ground. It was time for us to turn back, but Shannon let us stay a little longer to watch them. We walked back without incident.

We got ready to go to the Umkumbe Bush Camp to visit Tammy’s relatives. It was fun to see their camp. We sat around and talked and then we played a few hands of Hearts. The view from their camp was very different because they looked out at a water hole in the grass. We saw 4 nyala (1 male, 1 female, 4 babies).

We left a little before 2 so we could get back for lunch, which was delicious as usual. It worked out well because the leftover cherry squares were back for dessert along with a chocolate coconut cake.

We saw one good elephant in the center of the river. He hung out there for a long time. I saw others across the river with the binoculars. I showered and then got ready for the game drive.

We had barely gotten started when Jessica got the radio call that there were giraffes near the lodge. We got there quickly and saw 13 giraffes! They were busy eating leaves. We took tons of pictures. They kept walking away from us so we kept moving. It is hard to get a clear view of a whole giraffe because they’re so large! We were able to get videos of them running. It was an incredible sighting! We were watching the giraffes from 4:01-4:17.

We then went down by the river and saw 5 elephants (2 female and 3 young ones) just two minutes later! We took photos, but then Jessica moved much closer! We got to watch them for a long time (4:19-4:35). We could hear them chewing! The youngest baby kept eating grass out of his mom’s mouth. It was amazing to see them so close up! 

We saw one more giraffe right after the elephants. He had scars on his leg. We could see three claw marks where something (probably a lion) had tried to grab him.

The rest of the drive wasn’t as exciting. We saw two Vervet monkeys sitting by a tree kind of far away, Guinea Fowl, two families of birds running down the road (mama and babies), and a Southern White-Crowned Shrike. 

We had our sundowner with Tammy’s relatives. This time they had mango fruit leather. It was good but not quite as good as the guava. I had Passion Power juice again. The sun sets during our snack break and it is absolutely beautiful. 

We didn’t see much in the dark. On our way back, Forget spotted a chameleon in a tree. We could see it with the binoculars, but it didn’t show up in my picture.

When we got back at 7, we dropped our stuff in our room and went to dinner in the boma. We met a guy who was traveling by himself. We invited him to sit with us because they put each party at their own table so he had his own individual table. We talked to him about traveling and somehow never asked him his name! He had been to Iceland so we talked a lot about that. Dinner was delicious again. I finally got smart and took a picture of the menu.

For dessert we had milk tart:

After dinner, we went back to our room and packed before bed. We read and went to sleep.