Cheetahs - Hunting and Posing

In Kafue National Park (NP), we spotted two cheetahs walking purposefully down the road.  One disappeared into the bush almost immediately while the other looked intently into the bush.

Suddenly the cheetah shot into the bush.  Our guides went quiet and then began talking to each other.  Finally, one turned back to us and said  "We think they've made their kill - let's go see."

Off into the bush we drove and when we reached the thornbush, we could see and hear a cheetah chomping away on fresh puka.

Below is the 3rd brother who participated in the hunt, pacing nervously in our presence.

In Hwange National Park (Zimbabwe) we stumbled upon a cheetah who was a photographer's dream.  He was conveniently waiting for us by the side of the road.

As we approached, he yawned.

 Ambled over to a tree

Sharpened his claws and sprayed said tree

Then proceeded to hop atop a termite mound where he moved his head from side to side, pausing so that the most inept of photographers could capture a great shot. 

Happily we each complied by taking at least 50 photos of that photogenic fellow. 

Elephants

One up close and personal encounter was with an elephant ambling quite close to our cabins on the Okavango Delta.

 In Zimbabwe, man-made water holes are much appreciated.

 An elephant shakes a tree to make tasty pods fall to the ground.

 

Elephant dung repels insects when burned, a valuable tsetse fly deterrent in Zambia.  Another guide told us his wife drank elephant dung diluted in water to ease delivery pains - she swears by it!

On the Chobe River, elephants swim out to eat grass. When one arrives, it greets the other elephants by intertwining trunks before it moves on to feed.  My big thrill was dozing off in the sunshine on our cruise and then waking up to see an elephant swimming next to me.

Our guides tried to gently broach the subject of "culling" elephants where they are overpopulated and destroying the natural environment.  We did not want to hear any of it. 

 

Hippopatami

Hippos are one of the most dangerous animals in Africa and can easily outrun a human (can you run 19 mph?) despite weighing between 3,000 and 4,000 pounds. At our camp in Zambia, they came up out of the river next to my cabin at night to forage for food. But our most up close and personal encounter was by mokoro, the traditional dugout canoe used on the Okavango Delta.

We approached a large pod and got so close, we could photograph the bristles on this one's back.

The little one was curious but the bull was furious!

On several river cruises, we saw hippos swimming with birds on their back who tried to keep the hippos bug-free. The hippos would scramble up the bank to get out of our way.

 

 But they didn't seem to mind the crocodiles.

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A pod of hippos gathered by the man-made watering hole.

This ailing mother hippo laid down in the middle of the road.  Her calf will stay with her for days until he must return to the river and eat.

African Wild Dogs aka Painted Dogs

Our Okavango Delta guides were absolutely thrilled to see this pack of 17 or 18 (well-camouflaged) African Wild Dogs.  Our guides claimed with great admiration that a pack of hunting dogs never loses the prey it targets and always make the kill.  BBC says these dogs usually hunt at dawn or dusk, or at night if the moon is full.  They hunt by sight rather than smell.  Reaching speeds of 55 mph they chase their prey until it tires and can disembowel their prey as it runs.

You can see why they are also called Painted Dogs. They are endangered and population estimates range from 3,000 to 5,500. In addition to havoc wreaked by humans, entire packs can be wiped out by rabies and distemper. Only the alpha male and alpha female mate, so litters are limited.

Several of the dogs wore collars which enable researchers to track them. Our guides cannot track the dogs but when they saw the research vehicle in the area, they knew these dogs had to be close. 

These dogs play like my Guapo and Darla, and I even saw one dog grab the other dog by its tracking collar and pull (Guapo knows exactly what that feels like.)

HATS Carlsbad Caverns & Guadalupe National Parks

Hugo of Houston Area Trails and More (HATS) organized a camping trip with us and his hiking group from the Bay Area (California).  Hugo and others drove in all of the cooking equipment and much of the food supplies from Houston.  Ardis and I flew into El Paso, spent a night in a comfortable Holiday Inn Express, bought supplies from WalMart and drove about an hour to Guadalupe Mountains National Park to set up camp.

We all drove into New Mexico to visit Carlsbad Caverns.  Lucky for us it was "National Park Day" and admission was free.  It was also late, the main elevators were out of commission and we had to hustle to the natural entrance.  

We headed down, way down ...

....  passing through room after room with amazing stalagmites, stalactites and other eerie sorts of formations (captured beautifully by my fellow campers).

Sadly, this was not bat "season" and we missed seeing a million bats exit the caverns at sunset. Instead, we relaxed back at our campsite.

Comfortable by day ...

 ... but a bit chilly in the evening.

The next day we got ready for our big challenge - hiking up Guadalupe Peak, the tallest mountain in Texas at 8,751 feet.  We "only" had to hike up a net 4,000 feet (8.4 miles round-trip in 4.5 hours).  

 Success (and sunburn) ! 

After a hard night of celebrating, we packed up camp and drove back to El Paso.  We drove along the Sonoma Mission Trail and enjoyed some Tex Mex before flying home.