13 February - 14 February

With the incessant rain, drives have been nothing if not adventurous. Soil has become saturated, making traction difficult with the vehicles slipping and sliding up and down slopes.
Photography was halted and though a trifle maddening, game still came out to play in numbers.

For fear of torrents, we remained in the east where at first elephants abounded as far as the eye could see and at least three herds visible in one spot on game lodge open area. All walking casually across the great expanse and feeding under every Marula tree they passed.
While the adults used their trunks with seasoned dexterity, two tiny individuals that could not have been more than a few weeks old wriggled and whipped their trunks about in vain, with no more use than an unmanned fireman’s hose. Poor little guys eventually swallowed their dignity by going down on their front knees, little buttocks in the air; they picked up the sweet, golden fruit directly off the ground with their mouths looking terribly incompetent in the process.
Not two hundred meters from where we sat we could see another game viewer stopping on the open area where they soon announced that they in fact had found a male leopard (Xivambalana) sleeping on top of a termite mound.
We left the elephants the moment they finished crossing the road in front of us and drove around to where the guide had left the sleepy cat. It didn’t take long to relocate him as he had hardly moved a whisker and was still deep in the throes of some adventure behind closed eyelids. We pulled up next to him and found that the raised mound left him exactly eye level with us, another great photographic opportunity which unfortunately went amiss without our cameras on board.
Moments later a rustling sound in the long grass at the base of the mound roused Xivambalana with startling alacrity as he jolted up, ready for anything!

We searched for the source of the rustling and found a family of dwarf mongoose making their way up the edge of the very mound he slept on. It must have been their personal abode for this is exactly the kind of place they call home; using the ventilation systems called fluves, which the termites employ to regulate the temperature of the mound itself, ensuring a constant average temperature of around 31 degrees is maintained. The latter in order to ensure optimal growth of the fungus they feed upon. 
One would think Xivambalana would make an easy meal of the unwary tenants but alas, he was no more interested in them then he was us and soon lay down again and went back to sleep.
The following morning we headed westward where we spent an inordinate amount of time watching hippos in Big Dam while a pair of fish eagles scanned the surface of the water for any unsuspecting fish.

Something did draw their attention but before they could react, a giant kingfisher swept down and grabbed a catfish out the water. The fish was rather large and difficult to control as it flapped about, skewered on the harpoon-like bill as the kingfisher flew across the surface of the water, landing on a perch nearby.

Unfortunately, as it perched the frantic catfish made one last ditch attempt to escape the ravenous predator with one hefty flap it dislodged itself and dropped to the safety of the water below, leaving the kingfisher less a meal and back to square one.

The pack of wild dogs that have been running though our area also made a brief appearance on Londoz boundary but before more than a single vehicle could respond the wily pack had yet again crossed our traversing borders into a neighboring land, leaving us no other option but to slowly head home through regular cloud bursts we eventually found our way to hot showers and dry clothing, another adventure behind us.