The Little Serengeti

This morning, I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas, I'll never know. -Groucho Marx

Our camp over-looked a grassland and watering hole. The animals came up close. There were Zebra within 40 meters of the cabin as we went to bed. Throughout the night, we could hear all sorts of feet, and vocalizations.

The morning game drive was wonderful! Our driver is a fella named Mike, who has a master's degree in biology. He's a very curious man. We saw a common bee eater swoop down to grab an insect, and Mike stopped to see if, by chance, there was an ant hill nearby.

He recently sent in a paper to the National Geographic Society disagreeing with the common beliefs about herbivores foraging on the teak trees. Mike is a scientist in the true sense. He observes and digs for the facts. It's clear he's doing doctoral-level research.

We were in the part of the park the locals call, "The Promised Land". It's also referred to as "The Little Serengeti". This is what most people picture in their mind when they think about Africa.

The list of animals we saw this morning goes on and on like a telephone directory. Rather than bore you with a long list, I'll just mention that the highlights included seeing vultures drying their wings, zebra taking a dust bath, a lioness and her cub, and elephant doing some interesting posturing as we approached.

Electric power for our camera batteries is precious. There's one charging station in camp. A small generator does what it can, but as in nature, sometimes there aren't enough teats go around. And sometimes the milk dries up.

Electricity in our rooms is restricted to a light in the bedroom, and one in the bath. This is solar power stored in a battery. Hot water is also heated by the sun, and I was pleased we had plenty of hot water for showering at 9pm.

During the afternoon game drive we saw the bat-eared fox. This is one of the most-rare animals. It enjoys special protection because the numbers are so few.

Our driver this afternoon was an older gentleman named Godfrey. He not only has knowledge about the animals, he has a lot of anecdotal stories. For instance, he once lead a group of visitors too close to a bat-eared fox den. It wasn't the fox that got to them, but fleas which were all around the den. The visitors needed to spray themselves, and their clothing needed to be ironed to kill off the insects.

We've just about seen everything here in Zimbabwe. All that's missing from our lists are the cheetah, aardvark, and hedgehog. There are just a few more game drives. I've got my fingers crossed.