Tembe Elephant Park

    

 We set off to Tembe Park (for a more "official" game drive) and drove, and drove, and drove, until we were up by Mozambique! The drive there was very interesting because of how rural the area was. The landscape became more and more how I had pictured Africa: dry. There were also all sorts of livestock in the road, lorries (trucks) piled up to a point of lunacy, markets, etc.  

                            

        My dad had told us that we would be sleeping in tents so we were all expecting a true camping experience....

The sleeping bags

The bushes

...and were very pleasantly surprised.
       We got there just in time for a game drive (we saw some impalas, nyalas, zebra, elephants, giraffe) led by our amazing guide/tracker Tom. He was very knowledgeable about the habits and personalities of all of the animals and patiently bore our incessant questioning and potty stops. Afterwards, we had the most amazing food, fed bush-babies pineapple and then happily retreated the "tent"!
      
Day 1:
We woke up at 5:00, turned off the heated blanket (luxe non?), and went on a freeeezing game drive 'till 9:00. During the drive we spotted a pride of lions sunning themselves in the distance, as well as the usual nyalas and impalas, and because it's an elephant park: some elephants. The entire morning drive I had terrible hiccups and so that provided entertainment between animal sightings. When we came back we had another amazing meal and then had a nap. During our siesta, a troupe of monkeys jumped on the roof of our "tent" like a trampoline, scrambled up a tree next to it and then bouncing to the ground. It was so funny and I wish I had gotten a video of it...but my camera was broken, and by the time I got the family one they were gone.

       At 11:30 our guide took us to a hide (a balcony sort of thing by a watering hole) where we got to observe the animals come to drink. It was very interesting to see such a massive variety of animals interacting and I learned a lot more about male elephants than I ever wanted to. It was so funny to see the warthog families come and run around with their little tails up in complete panic when a bigger animal shooed them away. Tembe actually has a live webcam of the watering hole on their website which is really cool so here's a link if you're interested.  We stayed for about an hour, went back to camp for lunch and then at 3:00 we went on another drive until 6:00.

We found some elephants!

A zebra

 ...and lots of other animals! We then headed back to camp and had some kudu steak for dinner--which was absolutely scrumptious (and I am not usually a huge meat fan)!

Impalas (I always recognize them by the "m" on their bums)

     Although we had been having lots of fun, we decided to cut our stay from 3 days to 2. This wasn't because we didn't like it but because we wanted to travel to a different area with different animals. Tembe's landscape is called a "sand forest" meaning the ground is pretty much completely sand and then there are lots of scrubby bushes and trees that grow very closely together. While this is great for the animals it is a lot harder for humans in a somewhat noisy car to see them. We were also just kinda sick of sitting for sooooo long, which sounds spoilt, but you have to remember that we had already been spoilt by our cousins, gone to a different elephant park in Knysna, and spent most of our trip driving.

Day 2:

      We were up at 5:00 a.m. again and went on another game drive. The sunrise as always was superb and we stumbled upon about 25 elephants breakfasting! Also a lioness came about 20 ft away from the car...just as our memory card was full...I'm not making it up--cross my heart and kiss my elbow! Our guide had been teaching us how to recognize different animal tracks and it was exciting to follow their lives from their spoor. 

Elephant footprints

We finished up the drive, packed (I finally got to shower!!!!) and then said goodbye. We had wanted to do a quick drive through Mozambique but good ol' James II was not built for sand and so we decided instead to find a place where we could see some hippos!