After three days at Okuti camp we boarded another tiny plane and flew to the second camp in Botswana - Kanana. Another five game drives were ahead of us and my goal..to see a leopard close up and personal! On our second day....voila a beautiful leopard atop a termite mound! She was a beauty, made more so by the rising full moon in the sky behind!
She was scanning for prey and she spotted an antelope in the distance. She made her way down the mound and disappeared in the grass. It was late and the light was fading but it was astounding how quickly she completely disappeared from view.
On the way back and in the dark, the guide found a wee baby leopard up in a tree, so the following day we went looking for it in the daylight. The guide went back to the tree where we had seen the baby the night before. There were two squirrels. On the trunk of the same tree going nuts, chirping and running up and diwn the trunk! Lucas told us that this was a warning alarm caused because there was danger, possibly a leopard, cloae by! Turned out that the leopard was very close indeed! Mom had hidden her cub in a knot in the tree!
We decided that we would opt for a different kind of game drive one afternoon...on the water in a mokoro, a type of canoe used by the local people to travel from village to village. It is propelled by polling. It was a relaxing and enjoyable change of pace. We saw the papyrus reeds, the beautiful day and night water lillies and animals on the shore line!
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