Santawani Game Drives and Cats Sept 10 Wednesday

Today was the day of the cats! We started out with an early morning game drive where our expert guide and tracker Ona stared seeing signs he recognized. First we saw a small herd of Impala running not too far away from us. Then he heard the sound of the Francolins (a bird that sort of resembles a quail) in distress. So he followed the sound of the birds straight to a young female cheetah resting under a bush and panting heavily. Our first cheetah sighting! Steve noticed she had blood on her chin and on one of her murder mittens, and then we saw the dead impala just a few feet away. She had just made the kill and was resting up and catching her breath before she started feeding on it. We watched as she got up and dragged the kill into the bush and started tearing at it. She nibbled on it for a few minutes then took another break as we watched. We decided to move on and come back later on the way back to the camp. As we pulled away, I couldn’t help but tear up as I was just overcome with emotion. (In my defense, I’m a huge empath and I cry at Hallmark commercials.) We are in one of the most beautiful places on this earth, and this young cheetah had been gracious enough to give us a glimpse into her world. All of this was thanks to our incredibly knowledgeable and talented expert guide who clearly loved his job and was thrilled to share this with us. It was amazing, and that word doesn’t even do it justice. (In the photo, if you look between the two branches to her right that form a wide V or L shape, you will see the brown impala with a white belly.)

Young cheetah with her kill behind her

Enjoying her hard earned meal

Next up, Ona found signs of kill and got out to start investigating. He then found a very long leg bone that belonged to a dead giraffe. He couldn’t be sure how it died, but many animals had been feasting on it. We then found the giraffe’s head and entire set of neck bones with a big flap of skin still attached. I said, “man I wish we could get out of the truck and see it up close” and Ona said go ahead! It is quite unusual for a guide to let the guests out of the truck on a game drive, so we were incredibly lucky. We got to see it up close and touch it. The hair was very soft and you could count all seven neck vertebrae. They have the same number of cervical vertebrae as humans, but they are just a little bit longer than ours. ;)

Trip Leader Wonder and Guide Ona with giraffe head

Next we came across a very pregnant giraffe whom Ona said could deliver any day now. We weren’t lucky enough to see that, but next up we continued our cheetah hunt. He knew there had been a group of three or four males seen in the area and he started following tracks. Several minutes of off-roading later, he spotted them in the distance but didn’t tell us because he wanted us to spot them. Just then I looked up ahead and said “what’s that under that tree?” It was not less than four young male cheetahs resting in the shade, bellies full from a recent kill, and just napping away the morning. OMG it was amazing. We could not believe our luck seeing five cheetahs in one day. It was a record for our guide also. It is highly unusual to see this many cheetahs in one day.

Four young male cheetahs

As if that weren’t enough, on the way back to camp, we encountered the young male leopard we had seen yesterday, resting in a tree, with his paws hanging down, closely watching the impala below him. He’s too young and too small to take one down on his own, but by the look in his eye, he clearly wished he was big enough. He could not have been more adorable. We also checked on the female cheetah with the impala, and she had eaten about half of her meal and had moved to the other side of the bush for more shade while she took a break from feasting. So that’s five cheetahs and one leopard all in the same morning game drive. Incredible, just incredible.

Young male leopard

In the early afternoon, our Trip Leader, Wonder, gave a talk about African termites and we learned everything we never knew we needed to know about them. We have seen thousands of termite mounds in Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. There is an entire city going on underneath those mounds and it’s quite fascinating.

The “Wonder”ful world of termites

We had some free time in the afternoon as usual, and we were supposed to have an educational talk on the Okavango Delta at 4 pm. However, Ona received word that a pack of African painted dogs had been seen in the area, so we skipped the talk and jumped in the jeeps to go dog hunting. Painted dogs are also known as wild dogs or painted wolves. Many of the conservation groups prefer the name painted dog as it has a better connotation than wild dog. We drove for about an hour over rough and bumpy terrain, and finally found some tracks from the pack of dogs. We came upon them in a grove of acacia trees, all lying in the shade, and preparing for their evening hunt. The mama of the pack had given birth to 13 pups a few weeks ago, and they could not have been more adorable. They have huge ears, and it was fun to watch them interact with one another. The pack consists of about 37 wild dogs, with one dominant female and one dominant male who make all the pups. Eventually, the males venture out to start their own pack. We watched them for a few minutes until they all got up at one time and headed out to hunt down their dinner, likely an impala from the nearby herd. At least three of the females were collared for research, and we saw a research team heading in as were heading home from our morning game drive. They are endangered, and we saw posters in the Kasane airport asking people to send in photos if they saw any. Each dog has unique markings and patterns, so they can be easily identified for research. We were so very fortunate to have seen them.

African painted dogs

Painted dog pups

As we started heading back to camp, we pulled over for our evening sundowners. We were so very surprised to find out that two of the hard working people from our camp had loaded up a jeep with snacks and drinks and driven out to meet us in the bush. They had prepared a beautiful table with drinks to order. Usually, our sundowners are packed into a cooler and loaded into our truck before we leave camp, then served by Wonder and the guides. Don’t get me wrong, it’s all great! But having them come out to meet us in the bush was really a beautiful surprise. It was such a beautiful evening.

On the way back to camp, we saw some spring hares, which look like miniature kangaroos, and a very elusive African wild cat. She got away before any of us could snap a photo, but man I wanted to pet her. She was adorable. I know I use the word adorable a lot, but I can’t think of a better word to describe all these adorable creatures.