Saw a Leopard from our campsite !

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Geo: -12.8546, 31.311

As we mentioned in an earlier story, our morning routine begins with a cup of coffee on the bluff overlooking the river at our campsite. We are checking out the sights and sounds along the river and hoping to see a leopard or other predator across the river.

Well, this morning we did! Robert was looking and then exclaims, "there is a leopard near the brush pile!" Check it out and sure enough it is there sitting there and looking fairly disinterested. Laura goes and tells the people in the overland truck what we have sighted and they all come running over to see the leopard.

We get to watch it for awhile, and then it gets up and moves further down the bank and strikes a pose for Robert by sitting down with paws hanging over the edge of the bluff. From there it continues walking down the side of the bluff and then disappears out of sight into the bush. What a treat for our morning coffee. Out of the four times we have been here, this is the third leopard we have seen across the river.

Then looked down to the sandy area on our side and there was a mother hippo making her way down to the water followed by her little baby who was having a difficult time making it's way because of the deep holes made by the elephants and hippos during the wet times. Would stop and sit down and mother would turn around and seem to encourage it to come on. When they got to the water once again, the mother had to encourage the small one to get in!

THEN, turned around and saw an impala on the grassy area near where the overland trucks park. He was jabbing his horns into the freshly watered grass, gouging holes and getting mud all over his horns. This is evidently a territorial display and to show his dominance.

The baboons were very curious about what was happening and were sitting quite close to see what was going to happen next. All this had happened before 7:00am and then things quieted down for awhile.

Got some new campers on the front row including a motorcyclist from South Africa that is living in Montana. That afternoon we had a real hippo fight out in the water with two with jaws wide open and moving all over the place. Fortunately, did not see any fatal results.

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