Mar 6 on safari

Today we went on an early morning tour. I awoke at 2:45 am (had trouble sleeping after that). We were not seeing much when suddenly the guide came across a leopard on the road. Now leopard spotting are rare. Cars out were stopping to snap a pic. The leopard took off and our guide deftly gave chase. Regular visitors were not allowed down this dirt road but he was a guide. We chased the leopard for a good 20 minutes. Our guide said she looked hungry and was no doubt looking for food. The leopard wasn’t running but walking fairly quickly. She would often turn and look at us. She at first started marking her territory. She was showing us we were in her area. She was behaving like a cat. At one point I saw a large wildebeast in the distance. He stood frozen as the leopard and our group moved forward. The leopard was sizing her up. In an act of defiance the wildebeast moved towards the leopard. She was clearly standing her ground. The cat passed her by. Eventually she left the dirt road and crossed into tall grass. She had spotted something and we left. We also saw a pretty turtle. We passed a large herd of giraffe and saw a 1 day old giraffe. It’s umbilical cord was still hanging from it. It looked strong. We saw crocodiles for the first time and water buffaloes, and some very beautiful big birds. Some were large with big beaks and brightly coloured.  We got very close to young hyenas. After the morning drive we went on the morning walk. Because we were walking it was far more dangerous. Like our last bush walk the animals are instinctively afraid of people. They identify us as predators and will behave aggressively, and certainly will never let us near. For this reason each guide has his own gun and we were warned about the dangers. On this walk we saw a 3 week old hippo. She was at the river with her mother. She was already huge. We tracked the hippos down by following the gigantic footprints they leave in the mud. We saw more crocs by the rivers edge. We also tried to feed a cricket to a very large poisonous spider. The cricket froze and the spider suspected a trap so nothing happened. We also pulled over and watched as a male baboon terrorized a female who was clinging to her very tiny baby. She screamed blue murder and for moment we could all see he was selecting another target. The problem was it was us. She was one swing away from landing in the open car. The driver quickly pulled away.