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Monday, August 11, 2008
Great Wilderness Journey Report, July 2008
Botswana Guide
'Nkwe!' (Setswana for leopard) - that was the first word we heard upon disembarking the plane at Jao airstrip at the beginning of our Great Wilderness Journey adventure. We had just landed near Jacana Camp and were not even seated in the Land Rover yet. The afternoon light was golden; the trees, palms and the grass seemed to glow from within and in the middle of it all there she was: a female leopard together with her cub. They were both feeding on a steenbok she had killed earlier that day. What a start to the safari.
Obviously there was no doubt about the activity the following morning. We headed out to see the leopard and her cub again, and were lucky to find them playing in the first morning light.
Sightings of these two accompanied us through our entire stay at Jacana Camp. The last morning we didn't hold out too much hope of seeing them again though since there were no tracks to be found and all their favoured lying up spots were vacant. Then she reappeared again, this time in full view and standing proudly on a termite mound. So we joined up with her one more time while she was leisurely strolling from termite mound to termite mound before finally deciding on following a small herd of red lechwe.
As she began to stalk the herd, all we could see was the tip of her tail popping out of the long grass here and there. She got closer and closer to the lechwe, and then some antelope began running. All of a sudden she pulled one down: a large lechwe ram double her size. What a hunter! Needless to say we were all clicking away, taking picture after picture, realising much later that it all had happened in very tall grass.
We left Jao Concession with wonderful memories and headed on to Motswiri and then the Linyanti region. Sightings of roan, sable, buffalo and huge elephant breeding herds playing at the river, splashing about and swimming past our boat made the days speed by all too quickly.
I should also probably mention that just before we finished our safari we discovered a beauty of a male leopard under some bushes feeding on a warthog!*photo courtesy of Michael Poliza
