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I spent much of my morning running around looking for elephants and lions. And didn’t even bother with wild dogs as I know, all I’ll see is their ears sticking above the grass if I’m lucky.
I eventually picked up on some elephant bulls on the Mahande right where the bull had charged me the other day and then went on to chase buffalo around. Well the buffalo were here again today wallowing in a pan but not being harassed by the elephant.
Although after being there some, a young bull decided to have some fun and scattered the buffalo.
My friend Snorkel - When I first saw the bull, he was standing with his trunk resting on his tusk and his head hanging to one side. He didn’t look well. Or at least his posture said so. I noticed when he was feeding he would take a few mouthfuls then rest his trunk again on his tusk. He kept doing this. A little while later he started lifting his head and breathing through his mouth, and even this with difficulty.
But sometimes he would still breathe through his trunk. He would stop in mid stride of feeding, curl the tip of his trunk inwards and breathe with difficulty.
Maybe he has some sort of sinusitis that’s blocking his nasal cavity.
His problem was slowing him down when eating and he tended to only feed on grass and creepers. A couple of times he tried to feed off trees but soon gave up on them. Were they too much hard work for him to deal with at this time?
I’ve known this guy for sometime as he’s always had a breathing problem, but now it’s really bad. Will it get worse?
In the end I too had to limp home. The elephant and buffalo footprints in the now dry clay has left might holes that have eventually taken their toll on my vehicle and broken a spring. So guess what my task first thing in the morning is?
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This giraffe is of such exact proportions with immaculate detail. So refined. How do they do it?
2nd February 2000
We spent the whole night with Tjellers bashing through bush, bush and more bush, taking the term bundu-bashing to the extreme. We traversed areas that are hard to imagine can be so dense and even harder to imagine any vehicle negotiating. It’s incredible the punishment our vehicles take and still come out of there in one piece, although with the bodies exhibiting a few more dents. Not to mention the dents to our bodies having to duck and dive through the undergrowth.
While we were stuck in a donga extricating ourselves, Tjellers killed a heavily pregnant impala. Interestingly after having eaten a portion out of the rump, she bit into the fully laden udder and drank the milk that poured out. Several times she bit it, not tearing it open, to get the milk to flow for her to lap.
After having fed and pulling the heavy carcass into a thicket she moved away when a hyaena approached. In one mouthful the hyaena seemed to have eaten as much as Tjellers. With the arrival of a second hyaena the carcass was soon finished.
Our sandwiches were way off standard with Annette being away. Home-baked bread (good), no butter, a very thin smuttering of white cheese and then, a couple of slices of RAW bacon. We get hungry out there and managed to sink these tapeworm time bombs. (Probably didn’t have tapeworm, but apparently there is always the risk. Watch out for us losing weight.)
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