Khwai

Not having had much sleep and what with the hyenas waking us up at 4am and keeping us awake, everyone was up early and packing up by 6:30am.
After a quick coffee we loaded up and hit the dirt roads driving deeper and deeper into the wilderness. We had already been warned by the lady at Moremi Camp that we would probably be the only ones there and it was a 40km private game drive all the way, first we saw a herd of Zebra, then impala, then elephants and then we saw giraffe elephants and zebra altogether, it was the best drive we had, had so far.
At 10:30am we arrived at the south entrance of the Khansi game reserve and the lady at the last camp was right, we are the only ones here, and this is dangerous territory.
The campsites are unbelievably overgrown because nobody has been here for 2 years so just getting to the site was a problem as the elephants and hippos have decided to make wallowing holes on the tracks leading in. 3 years ago a man was pulled from his tent by a leopard and a few months later a hyena tried to take a child.
As soon as we pulled up the monkeys were on us, Pieter was trying to make lunch while the rest of us pitched our tents and the a monkey stole a packet of 6 rolls and an onion and when Pieter started shouting at the monkey who was now at the top of a tree the monkey through 2 rolls at him, it was hilarious watching a grown man screaming at a monkey and the monkey just sat in the tree tucking in to our lunch.
After lunch we went on a drive, I don’t know how many times we nearly got stuck in deep water, at one point it came up as far as the windows and we all got covered in mud, but it was a serious adventure and I think Pieter was in his element driving through a real jungle looking at elephants, zebra, coodoo, tortoise, and hundreds of different birds.
At 5pm we drove back to camp and thought we’d take a walk over a rickety old bridge and try and spot the hippos but before we got there, right behind our camp was a huge matriarch elephant, we were so close, well with 10 meters hiding behind a bush so we wouldn’t scare her, we stayed there for about 20 minutes until she turned around so we headed back to camp and the elephant came up from the embankment and into the camping areas and wandered off.
Pieter cooked us a fillet steak for dinner and we think it was probably the best we’d ever had but there is something very unsettling about eating your dinner whilst keeping a lookout with torches for any predators, the only thing that came close was hippo’s because they’re in the river right behind us but once out of the water they scare easily and we shone the torch on them and they disappeared back into the river. At 8:30pm, after dinner and another group toilet break in the bushes, it was bedtime. The lions are already roaring in the distance, hippos are groaning behind us, hyena have just started whooping the other side of camp. This could be a long night.......Read more