After the excitement of my face-plant, we went on our first game drive of the trip. It was amazing how many animals we saw in just a few hours! This was from late afternoon on through sunset. So by the time we returned, it was dark.

The terrain here in Mashatu Game Reserve was a mix of open and brushy. It was dry, but there was still plenty of water in the riverbeds. Our guide (and driver) was Tips and our tracker was ST. They were both excellent, with a lot of knowledge. We truly enjoyed our time with them.

Here’s a picture of ST. He was up in the back row of the Land Cruiser, watching for tracks and animals.

One of the first animals we saw was a leopard. It was up over the riverbed, next to a tree. It honestly didn’t care that we drove right up to it. It just looked at us for a moment and then went back to sleeping.

To give you an idea of how close we were to the leopard, here is a picture showing part of our truck and Jeff’s elbow. It’s truly amazing how close we could get to the predators. Prey was a different story. They were much more skittish – which makes sense.

Along the riverbed, we spotted a giraffe drinking water. This is such an awkward position for a giraffe!

Later, we saw a number of other giraffes. They are so tall but still graceful. This giraffe has five oxpecker birds at the base of his neck. The oxpeckers eat the ticks and other parasites off the animals. They didn’t seem to bother the giraffe.

Since it’s hard to see the birds in the above photo, here is a close-up of the five oxpeckers…

We saw our first of very many impalas today. They are beautiful antelopes, however, it’s difficult to get good photos of them because they are so skittish and run away. But this is a great shot of a male impala. His horns are impressive!

The other ubiquitous animal we saw all over Mashatu was the guineafowl bird. They are all over the place! It’s funny, because they will run away from us by running right up the road in front of the truck. It’s like they forget they can fly. They are also a very nervous animal, constantly running and squawking danger alerts. That works out great for all the prey animals who listen for those alarms.

Here, we saw a herd of impala off in the distance.

Along with the leopard, we also saw a male lion today. Just like the leopard, he didn’t care that we drove right up to him. He was snoozing in the shade. He took a look at us, looked around a bit, then went back to drowsing. Must be nice to be a top predator!

I used this photo to show you how close we were to this lion. You can see a bit of the truck in the foreground. What a magnificent lion! He was big and healthy looking.

One really cool bird we saw was the kori bustard, Botswana’s national bird. They are huge – the heaviest flying bird in the world. They are mostly ground dwellers, but they can fly. We didn’t see many of them, just a few over our 2 weeks in Botswana and South Africa.

There are many types of antelopes in Africa. On our first drive here in Mashatu, we saw impala, kudu and steenbok. The impalas were the most common here. Steenbok seemed very rare for us to see anywhere on this trip, while kudu were in between. Kudu are a very large antelope and the males look very different from the females. They both have horns, but the horns are different on each. Here are two female kudus.

As you can see, they are quite large. On the other hand, here is a very small steenbok. It’s hard to know in this photo, but they are about the size of a medium-sized dog, weighing around 15-35 lbs. That’s small!

We also saw one of the smaller predators, a black-backed jackal. They scavenge a lot, but are also hunters. This one was curled up taking a nap. He got up and trotted off when he heard our truck.

We ran across a large group of baboons, too. They were casually crossing the road and didn’t seem to mind us at all. This female and her baby stopped to give us a second look.

By now, the sun was starting to go down. Jeff got this cool photo of the sun as we were crossing the riverbed.

Most game drives in southern Africa normally stop for a “sundowner” as the sun is setting. It’s a pretty time of day to hang out and watch the sun go down. Tips and ST set up our sundowner on a special table that comes up on the front of the Land Cruiser. Here, Tips is making us a gin and tonic. They also put out some snacks. You can see the sunset’s colors in the background. We did the sundowner on the first two evenings, but subsequently skipped them. We preferred to use that time to continue looking for animals.

After the sundowner, we started driving back to the lodge. By then, it was dark, so ST used a spotlight to shine around and look for animals as we drove. Surprisingly, we saw a Leopard again! I don’t know if it was the same one as earlier.

After we returned to the lodge, we did a quick wash up and then headed to dinner. The lodge set up our table in a different area for the evening. This time we were inside.

They use nice crystal and dishes for the dinner service.

We didn’t make a note of what dinner was this evening, but it was a chicken dish.

After dinner, we were exhausted and went back to our room to crash.

Each morning, we’ll meet Tips for a light breakfast at 6am, then head out by sunrise (around 6:30am). Each afternoon, we’ll head out for the afternoon drive around 3:30pm until dark.