Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Hide sit at the watering hole



The Victoria Falls Safari Lodge (we stayed in a cabin on the premises) has a watering hole where a lot of thirsty wild animals come for a drink. Thirsty humans sit on the deck of the hotel and watch them. But if you want to get really close up, you have to do a hide sit with a hunter. Why a hunter? Because you have to get to the hide first, which means invading the animals territory and if you come across a lion, a buffalo or an elephant - you want someone with you who knows what they are doing. Again we had the safety speech and what to do in the worst case (Lions - just stand there and stare at them and they'll go away, don't run. Buffalo - throw yourself on the ground and play dead, never run because you can't outrun them and they'll gore you. Elephants - run and hide behind bushes and trees.) All sounds a bit scary, but fortunatly we didn't meet anything on our way there or back.




View of the watering hole and hotel from the hide




First to come to the watering hole are the guinea fowls

Then the impala


and kudu


The buffalo came after the sunset so we didn't get a picture, but one stared us down for quite a while.

Then right before we were about to give up and go back, four male elephants came for a drink. We watched them for awhile and then headed back to the lodge, throwing rocks in front of us since it was dark and we didn't want to run into any hungry jaws!



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