Not surprisingly had somewhat of a late start. After arranging for a ranger to take us on an evening game walk we were out in the park on our way to Mandavu Dam - where we were on our way to yesterday when we ran into the African Wild Dogs. Somehow we ended up completely lost and spent most of the three hours we had finding the dam. No problem, and we did see some elephants.
At the dam we saw a large crocodile out of the water and maybe a dozen hippos - all in the water and not at all active in the heat of the afternoon. Since we had an hour until the game walk we decided to take a slight detour to do the Dobashura Loop road. One of the disadvantage of being in the parks at this time of year - before the tourist season - is that most of the roads haven't been maintained in a while. After about thirty minutes the road vanished. We spent another thirty minutes trying to follow a stream bed, several game trails, and just overland before giving up and backtracking. By the time we got back to the cottage and changed clothes we were an hour late. Luckily the ranger still agreed to take us on a (slightly abbreviated) walk.
The walk wasn't to exciting. though it was nice to get out in the bush. It was a bit weird that the ranger carried and AK-47 machine gun, but I guess there is a reason. The most exciting thing we saw was a fresh pile of elephant dung that was being mined by dung Beatles. We also saw quite a few giraffes, including one that was pregnant. Other than that we saw some impala and a big (fat) warthog.
Stopped at the restaurant to pick up some ice and garlic, and ran into Keirin, Haley, Martha, and Rosie so we hung out on the terrace, had a beer, and watched the elephants down below. Back at the house we had our first meat-free diner in who knows how long and the others played Risk while I tried to start catching up on my journal - again.
