Our First Animal Sightings

 

We drove through the park looking for animals.  I wasn’t sure what to expect.  We drove for over an hour and didn’t see anything.   You have to be patient and keep looking, or you won’t see anything.  You have to be willing to work for your spotting.  In the next hour we saw some fun antelopes with long curly horns.

 .. and then we saw our first 3 elephants!  They were just standing in the trees, about 50 feet off the road and we were thrilled!  Then the magic started.  We saw a group of 5 elephants, and then 3 more, including a baby. 

 

 

We stopped for lunch at a camp on the river.   We were told it was a spot where animals would come to drink.  We couldn’t see any animals, so I went into a shop to buy a magnet before getting back on the road.   A few minutes later Ed came into the store and calmly told me that I had missed seeing a Hippo.   He was so calm that I thought he was teasing me.  I just continued looking at the magnets, and he calmly added… with her baby Hippo.  I said “Right, Ed”.  You are a big tease!  He finally took a handful of my shirt and dragged me out saying “Come… Now!”  We got out to the river in time to see a big Hippo, with a baby float by.  Their heads kept bobbing up and down, and as they caught the scent of the humans the little baby swam over next to the  big one and put it’s head right on top of the Mama Hippo’s head while they floated past us, and then the baby swam off again.  It was so great!