Life with MK: Elephant Sands (8/4/2013)

This morning we woke up and had to pack our things into the new truck. I didn't hurry and when I got to the truck fund out that people had taken different lockers so I got screwed and got the shit locker on the ground behind the trash can. That sucks but there's nothing much I can do at this point and I will live for a few days. We had breakfast at the campsite (I just had a piece of toast with peanut butter) and then headed back out on the road towards Elephant Sands.

The bus ride was fine and our first day in the new truck. It's not that different from the old truck, but for some reason I miss the old truck. The roads in Botswana are definitely bumpier than the South African roads, though that could also be due to truck related differences. That we will never know. On the ride the scenery was fairly monotonous since the country is basically 85% covered in desert. We saw a lot of very short trees on sand and barely any villages at all over a good distance. We stopped once in the second biggest city in the country, Francistown, and got the groceries for dinner and then headed back on our way to Elephant Sands again. On the way we played cards which passed the time nicely.

We stopped literally on the side of the road to make lunch, which was interesting, but where else would we have stopped? We made sandwiches and a rice and tuna salad (no mayo thank goodness) and ate while standing around on the road with barely a car in sight. There were some local children hanging out at the spot we stopped and we gave them our left over food to eat. Also, the four-ish year old was terrified of us and starting crying. Shocker. That must be the age, 3 to 4 years old. They are so often scared. After lunch it was only a little over an uproar to the campsite, and we continued our card games to pass time.

Arriving at Elephant Sands was quite spectacular, as there is a water hole right next to the main portion of the campground where elephants actually come hang out most of the day. When we arrived there were at least five, but a couple left while we were pitching our tents. We came back to the water hole when camp was all set up and watched the elephants drinking. It was so cool to be so crazy close to wild elephants. After watching them for a while it was time to leave on the bush braai that nine of us had decided to do. The braai is an African barbecue and it sounded really fun, plus we were to look for animals on the way there and the way back.

The way out to the spot for our braai we didn't see too much. We saw a lot of tracks of the hyena, giraffe, oryx, elephant, etc, showing us the animals existed in the area, but the animals themselves proved elusive. We saw a bunch of birds and learned about some bushes and the guide was really trying to make up for the lack of animal sightings. We ended up seeing one small antelope and a few elephants together, but elephants have become a not so exciting sighting as they are literally everywhere. We got to the braai spot and set up under an amazing barren tree and the guide and cook starting making our meal.

We hung out while the meal was made and chatted and enjoyed being in the bush. The meal ended up being an amazing one, with T-bone steak, potatoes, vegetables, and salad. It sounds quite basic typed out, but it was quite delicious. We ate in the dark around the campfire and it was amazing. The coals were even just a local root we had scavenged and they made wonderful coals that burned quite nicely. I was really cool. We hung out for a while until everyone was done eating and then set off for the short nighttime game drive back to camp.

The nighttime game drive I was really excited for because it was finally an opportunity to see some nocturnal animals. Unfortunately again all we saw was one small antelope. Kind of a bummer, but game drives are a gamble and we can't tie the animals to trees for easy viewing. That would be no more exciting than a zoo. When we got back we were incredibly disappointed to hear that we had missed some really exciting commotion at the camp and the people who didn't pay to go on the braai ended up with a cooler animal experience than we had had (not hard to top our two antelope). Apparently a pack of seven African wild dogs (also known as African painted dogs) had killed a kudu which had literally ran through the campground bar and reception. There were also around thirty (!) elephants at the water hole at this time. It was a long and drug out battle and they watched the whole thing, even though it was quite sad. At least the guide told us to get back in e truck and we went to see the wild dogs eating the carcass of the kudu in the bush so we got to see the whole pack. It was really cool! I'm also kind of glad I didn't have to see an animal die, but the video our driver took made the battle look like a pretty once in a lifetime experience. The kudu even jumped over the pool! It was nuts. She would run into the water hole and try to escape when the dogs were being chased away by the elephants who were protecting their baby, but she was so tired there was never a chance. African wild dogs are the best hunters around, and they are 97% successful (lions for comparison are something like 48% successful).

After seeing the video I watched the three elephants in the water hole for a bit before getting ready for bed. While putting on my pajamas I knocked a mole or something with my fingernail and my back started bleeding a lot, but I got a bandaid and all is well. That's about all for today!