MAY 19, 2019 - CHONGWE LODGE (Morning)

5/19/19 - Morning

Back to our early morning game drive schedule, and it began with a 530AM wake up call and carafe of hot water so we can make our tea and coffee in our room while getting dressed. Breakfast was at 6AM with eggs or omelettes on demand cooked over an open fire pit along with grilled bread for toast. A buffet of fruit, cereal, yogurt, cold cuts/cheese, crumpets and breakfast meats complemented the spread. Do we really need to eat again? Why yes we do, it’s there! It is so hard to say no. “Fat Albert” came to visit camp this morning just as we were readying to leave, slowly making his way around one of the guest tents munching on grass, all within 20 feet of us, without so much as a care before he slipped back in the water next to the boat launch. Hippos are normally panicky or aggressive when we encounter them and they aren’t in their comfort zone which is in the deep water, but Fat Albert was apparently born on this land surrounding camp so it’s his home. Hippos are unpredictable though so you just don’t get too close regardless.

Anyway, John wanted to fish today and the rest of us wanted a game drive, so Hugo (our guide) left an hour early to get the jeep much deeper into the National Park while Sam (another guide) took us in the boat downriver about 30 minutes to where Hugo was waiting with our Jeep. Our smooth water boat ride downriver was bathed in the golden morning light of sunrise and we were greeted along the way with grunts and snorts by the resident pods of hippos as we glided past their groups. Once there, Marc, Beth and I got out and met up with Hugo while John and Sam went fishing. We did a lot of bird watching this morning and with all the beautiful contrasting colors of the bush and water lillies the birds had the perfect backdrop. We were fortunate to have another excellent elephant encounter where we watched a newborn baby elephant, only 3 weeks old, learn from Mama how to eat foliage. A small herd of varying ages, we were able to sneak in close, turn the engine off, and just observe. I know we’ve said this before, but it just never gets old watching the elephants. They are so interesting, and each encounter is different. When they were done feeding on the bushes near us, they suddenly decided to become interested in our vehicle so they lined up in front of us to assess what we were all about. The teenager (male) decided to strut his stuff and gave us a head shake and eventually gave us a trumpet when we restarted the jeep, giving us the “what for”. We watched another solo elephant as he fed on the acacia tree pods, reaching way up high into the branches. We watched as baboons scaled the palm trees for what they call palm tree fruit, about the size of a lime and full of a hard coconut like substance that the baboons and elephants enjoy. We received a report of a lion sighting so motored that direction to find two sleeping lions, a male and female, basically no action there. Lions sleep most of the day and hunt at night, so they don’t do a lot during the daylight hours. The male was in a deep sleep muscles and paws twitching and jerking as he surely was chasing something in his dreams. We finished up our morning with a coffee break in a marshy meadow with a small herd of shy Waterbuck about 100 yards away, and water birds a plenty. Marc, who has been recording our bird sightings since we arrived, has now documented well over 100 different species. We hooked back up with John and Sam who reported they had a few bites and one big tiger fish that they almost landed but it got away. They fish for Bream (tilapia) which he could have kept, and tiger fish which are catch and release. A short ride back to camp and it is time for lunch and siesta.