Angry Leopard

Happy Monday, Team, and happy August. Welcome back to ProPil! We took a break from blogging for a while to go to Botswana.


Sue's mom, Linda, planned an outstanding safari trip over the course of the past winter and spring, and the three of us - Linda, Sue and I - adventured out there on the third weekend of July. We left via Atlanta (2 hrs from Boston) and flew to Johannesburg, South Africa (16 hrs). We were on the dark continent for about two weeks.

We spent a day in Johannesburg, after which we flew to Maun (2 hrs), then to three camps on the Okavango Delta (pictured in the north central part of the country) and a final camp in the Kalahari Desert (farther south). This week will be ProPil's one-time-only Safari Week. Here's the plan:

MONDAY: Angry Leopard
TUESDAY: Disappearing Steenbuck
WEDNESDAY: Disappearing Warthog
THURSDAY: Rotting Elephant Carcass
FRIDAY: Top Trip Pics

Throughout the week I'll share PSs covering other aspects of the experience. I guess let's just dive right in.

Though Sue and Linda have been to Africa seven and five times respectively, I've never been, and I've never been on a safari. So I had no idea what to expect.

We spent one day and two nice evenings in Johannesburg, then we flew on Air Botswana to teeny tiny Maun. We were met at Maun airport by a lady named Denise who looked to have just graduated high school. She informed us that she was our pilot. Her co-pilot was a guy named Alex from San Francisco who said job prospects in America stunk, so he figured now would be a good time to come to Africa and live in Botswana to learn to fly planes.

We walked out onto the tarmac to board a five-seat (eek!) puddle-hopper for a one-hour flight to a dirt airstrip servicing the Selinda camp which is situated in the northern part of the Delta.

This line (below) is the wildlife fence that keeps all the animals on their side, protecting the city of Maun. We were flying at about 8,000 feet.


(I learned my lesson quickly after getting queasy on that flight, and I tried my best to fall asleep on every subsequent puddle-hopping flight we took.)

We landed at lunchtime on an airstrip "in the bush", thanked Denise and Alex who quickly flew away, and within fifteen minutes we're driving in an open four-wheeler on dirt roads inhaling air textured with benign dust that smells faintly like old fires. Immediately, we're encountering elephants, giraffes and hippos. We use the truck to cross a waterway about three feet deep.

Then we get to a well-appointed camp, we're served tea and cake, we put our stuff down in our luxurious tents, and we're off on an evening game drive with two teachers from Oakland, CA and our guide, Steve.

After a few hours of looking around at assorted game (zebra, elephant, giraffe, kudu, impala), the sun is beginning to fall, and the radio in the LandCruiser crackles. Another guide is alerting us that he has found an angry leopard.

This is exciting, because everyone (the guides included) is looking for predators; they are ferocious; they kill things and get blood on their faces; plus they are much more rare and many are secretive.

We zoom down the dirt roads, then turn and start bumpily off-roading into the brush. Kevin, one of the teachers from Oakland, leans forward as Steve says something to him - inaudible to us in the back of the truck - then turns around and says something like, "When viewing large cats, remember to keep quiet, don't move too much, and don't stand up." Soon thereafter, we encounter this...




The laughing yips of the hyenas were accompanied by the sight of one hyena running greedily out of sight carrying the long leg of this dead impala.

Apparently a leopard had made the impala kill, but it was quickly stolen by a group of hyenas. The second pic above is of one hyena moving the carcass, seemingly unnerved by the presence of our truck.

Then we drove another thirty or forty yards, and we saw the other truck (of the guide who had called us on the radio). They pointed and we looked up into a nearby tree.


I thought, "This is cool!" Then Steve, our guide, proceeded to drive directly to the tree and park beneath it. We were approximately ten feet from the base of the tree, with the leopard above us. I looked on the floor of the 4x4 for something (anything!) to use to batter this frightening beast in case it jumped into our truck to tear us to shreds. Steve slouched comfortably back in his chair to watch the show.

Then the leopard began to move down from his perch.


I looked back at Sue, and both of us were in a state of awestruck disbelief. I shifted seats, across the truck, earning a small reprimand from Steve. I mean, we have a pretty nice camera with a decent lens on it, but we were super-super-*close*! Linda merrily video-taped the whole thing.


As the leopard was pacing on the ground, seeming disappointed, listening to the yips and activity in the distance, a hyena showed up, sniffing around for any scraps. We could all hear the leopard growling. The sky continued to darken, and it was time to go back to camp to have some dinner.

So that capped my first night in Botswana, my first night of safari-ing, and the first of about ten days of exciting game drives, big cats and bloody kills.

PS
In Johannesburg, we took a tour of Soweto and Johannesburg with a nice guy named Desmond. He was named for Desmond Tutu, and he told us lots of fascinating things.

The biggest news in town is that Johannesburg will host the 2010 World Cup. Signage is everywhere, as is construction. But did you know that 90% of the center city in Johannesburg is unoccupied? It's not because of the global recession. It's because (according to Desmond) many companies moved out of South Africa when Mandela and the ANC took control of the government in 1994. The companies believed his government would be communist and ruin the economy. Apparently it was partly a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Here's some of the skyline...


So much in disrepair, and so many buildings have signs in the windows that say "to let" (as in "for rent"). Many refugees (of war and economic circumstance) from other African countries are now squatting in the decrepit buildings in the center city.