Day 16 - our own personal Safari and begin our trip home

Up at the BCD - butt crack of dawn, for our own personal Safari. No one else in the group wanted to go so it was just the two of us. Since we had seen the big 5, Onks, our guide, told us we would see what the Bush had to offer us! We saw several species of birds and Onks described them all. Many have a symbiotic relationship with our animals like the cattle egret (eats bugs uncovered by the buffalo and wldebeest) and the Oxpecker that eats ticks and other parasites off the larger herbivores. Our first big siting was a male lion feeding on the baby elephant carcass I described yesterday - I have video of that. We also saw many elephants and they paraded past our position close enough that we could have touched them. One parade had several young ones, one less than 6 months old. He was so small and looked like he could barely keep up but his mother was there shepherding him along. We saw many types of antelope and were lucky enough to see a very young female with her momma. The various breeds of antelope give birth around the same time and can hold off the birth if resources are scarce. Over the next 3 months there will be many babies that hit the ground running soon after birth....all in all an informative and interesting Safari and we were the only ones that got up early to go!

It was back to the lodge for a quick shower and breakfast then off to Zimbabwe for our flight back to Johannesburg. Our border crossings were all quick and uneventful. . I had my Springbok rugby shirt on so the immigration official at the Botswana border crossing chatted me up about that....other than that, mostly just scanning your passport and grunting....We made it back to Johannesburg and caught our flight to Amsterdam.. we are sitting in the lounge waiting for our flight to Detroit and then Raleigh and home. I will post some factoids about our trip next.