Elephants and Hippos; Bushwalk

Another day here at Karongwe private reserve.

Today we found our fifth of the Big Five, the African buffalo aka Cape Buffalo. The four others are lions, leopard (saw just one), rhinos and elephants. That’s in addition to the many other species we’ve seen here on the reserve.

Between the early morning drive and the late afternoon drive, we did a bush walk. Our guides showed us tracks and talked about the uses of plants and even dung. Elephant dung has several uses. It contains a lot of twigs and grass in it because ellies (South African nickname) have such poor digestion. African people will burn it and inhale the smoke to cure a headache. For a stomachache, they will soak it in water and drink the ‘tea.’

Another thing about elephants is that they are smart enough to know that when they want to eat the leaves of certain trees, they need to break the trunk before the tree can send tannins into its leaves as a defense mechanism. We also watched an elephant break off small tree branches and strip the bark off to get at the inner cambium layer which contains water and nutrients.

One of today’s highlights was not even connected to our ‘formal’ program of game drives. We walked out on our own to a large pond on the reserve where hippos, birds and other species were known to hang out. For nearly an hour we watched a group of hippos sunbathing on the sandy shore and not moving a muscle—not great entertainment. But we got to see a crocodile, many turtles, some birds and an African Fish eagle. And there was one elephant nearby, playing around in the water and mud. Suddenly, the hippos all got up and hustled into the water — the rest of the elephant herd had come to occupy the beach. It was great entertainment and we’re glad we didn’t give up!Read more