July 8

July 8
ROGER:
This morning I did get the gang up a bit earlier, and we went for a morning game drive. We didn’t see much exciting – a few of the normal elephant, giraffe, zebra, and antelope, and returned for breakfast. We decided to laze around camp today. Third Bridge used to be completely wild and remote, and most times we used to be the only ones camping there, but today they have a small ablution block, and a standpipe. The roads and wooden log bridges in Moremi are the same as they always were. We didn’t get stuck, but got close to it a few times – so sadly Travis didn’t get to experience the high-lift jack and cutting branches to get out (I think he and several others were secretly hoping to experience that – but I had enough of those experiences in the past). There are supposedly 7 campsites at Third Bridge now, and they were mostly full of Afrikaners. Every place we went people spoke to us in Afrikans and assumed we were also from the RSA. Our Capetown license plates didn’t help either.

In the afternoon we washed a few clothes at the river, and then the kids all took a game drive. After they retuned we all went out except Jolene to look for game just before sunset, but did not see any lions or cats that we hoped to see. While we were gone Jolene was trying to chase some baboons away that were trying to sneak in to grab some food, and when she turned her back to chase two away, another one snuck in from the other side and stole her cauliflower head she was cutting. We still have plenty of food, even though the hyeana stole all our meat, and we threw away most of the veggies that were in the cooler when he dug the meat out.

Later in the evening we heard rustling in the bushes behind where we were sitting and shone the flashlight and sure enough there was the hyena trying to sneak up on us. We chased him away and he went over to the only other people who were camping with us. We yelled at them to warn them, and we got him chased away. A second smaller one was also after him, that we had to chase away. We used to always have trouble with baboons, they can be sneaky and learn quickly about food, but never with hyenas. I guess with all the extra people here and people feeding them or leaving scraps they learn quickly. It is sad, because they will probably have to be shot.

We went to bed real early to the beautiful night sounds again. As I drifted off I heard hippos snorting not far from our tent. What a great place!
Roger