Eventually, though, I've got back into the swing of things, starting with the three dikdiks I noticed yesterday (which turned out to be the most interesting sighting of the day). Today, I'm proud to report that I spotted a pack of hyenas lounging about the waterhole. One of them was actually up to his neck in the water. I had no idea hyenas swam, but we have the photos to prove it. I also filmed them having a bit of a squabble over some meat they were defending from two opportunistic wild dogs.
As we drove to another of the blue dots on our map, I was thinking how nice it is to be African because Kev and I are not driven by the ridiculous compulsion to see the Big 5, unlike all the Italians in their bulky tour busses. Over the span of our lives, we're likely to see them all at some point, possibly a few times, so there's no rush now. We're seeing such amazing variety all the time here. You can't drive a kilometer without seeing something else. Considering that there's only a tiny strip of this park that we're actually allowed to drive, it's really packed with wildlife. Despite that, though, I was thinking that it would be nice to see a cheetah, my favourite of the big cats.
Well, we didn't see one, but two resting in the shade of a thorn tree. Since I had cheetahs on my mind, it seemed possible that the shape in the distance was merely a figment of my imagination. When I told Kevin to pull over, he reckoned it was just an oddly shaped rock... until it moved. Very quickly, he reversed so that we could get a better view that was not interrupted by trees. As we watched, a second head popped up. Mommy was watching over her baby - too cute for words!
When they lay down, it was impossible to see them in the grass, so we'd actually been quite lucky, and I was feeling rather proud of my find. Funnily enough, every time she disappeared, a car would come by, see nothing, figure we were bird watching, and move on. Quite a few cars passed us before one finally rolled down his window to ask what we were looking at. By then, though, the main show was over. While we'd seen her get up, stretch, and move around during the gap between vehicles coming by, she only popped her head up occasionally after the crowd began accumulating. We'd also nabbed the best viewing spot by that time, so I think we're the only ones with photographs worthy of National Geographic. The nice thing about cheetahs is that they have a very distinct silhoette, so I think the pictures will be stunning. Kev's just realized that he needs to get a longer lens so that he can take even closer shots. We saw a guy with a camera that looks like a telescope yesterday. I think that's what my budding wildlife photographer needs! Kev actually admitted to me yesterday that it's not something he ever pictured himself enjoying, but Etosha is changing his mind about capturing nature on film (or digitally, in our case).
Back at Halali, watching the sun go down over the quite waterhole, Kev spotted an adorable little squirrel scurrying about, stopping to pose occasionally for photographs. After dinner, when it was unfortunately too dark to take any pictures, two lions came by and lounged about in the grass here. We couldn't believe our luck! This proves that you really don't need to go far to find something interesting in the bush. Actually, if you wait patiently, it comes to you.
