never a dull day out in the bush...

I have been mainly in town for the past few weeks, compiling data and trying to plan a trip to Gaborone, but I did manage to escape town for a few days last weekend, and again, have the most incredible time out in the bush. I went out to the lion camp research center in the delta with my friend paul, who has just started working there, flying the bushbaby and doing aerial tracking with the researchers. After a looong drive into camp (i.e. we broke down and it took us 2 hours to do the last 15kms), we arrived at what to me looked like a little piece of heaven--several forest-green canvas tents hidden under the shade of a island of towering trees, in the middle of an open sea of savannnah grasslands stretching for miles and miles, dotted occasionally with acacia trees and bushes off in the distance. apart from these few tents, and the tracks that we had followed in to camp, there had been no sign of humans or human settlement for almost a hundred kilometers. i fell in love with camp immediately--there was an open air mess tent, simple bedroom tents for each of the researchers and then a bigger tent piled high with tracking equipment, computers running off of the big generator, and tons of books and articles all about--what else--lions!! and course, wildlife all around. we saw a hippo out of the water (which was cool, because usually they just stay in the water with their ears out and thats all. :-)), and at supper a hyena came within a few meters of our dinner table, picking up some leftover scraps, and i fell asleep to the sound of her whooping cry that night. i finally got my leopard sighting (right in front of us on the road in the morning, absolutely beautiful), AND i got to help with the tracking of two prides of lions, riding high on the roof of their land rover research vehicle with a giant antenna and headphones, listening for the beep beep beeping of their collars and looking for them resting under the shade of acacia trees. seeing them was absolutely incredible--i don't think i could ever get sick of looking at their faces; they are even more perfect in the flesh than in all those photos you see. After tracking in the morning, we came back to camp for lunch, had siesta time, and i did some reading during office-work time--very relaxing after the hecticness of maun! My last night there we went for sundowners at the hippo pools, where several hippos were lazily floating through the water, and as I sat on the roof of the Landy, sipping malibu fruit punch with newfound friends and watching tbe hornbills fly low against the backdrop of a flamingo-pink sunset in this untouched paradise, I felt pretty damn lucky, i must say.
(so check out my flickr page to see photos, too!)