Ok, day 2, way behind schedule. Day 2 was all about the water – a morning drive on the river, followed by an evening dugout canoe trip on a smaller tributary. Walked out the door to meet Des for our 0630 game drive, and were a little late because we ran into these guys – a family of monkeys on the boardwalk, so of course we had to say hi:

We made it past the cuteness and met Des for coffee, then rolled out of camp like . . . an inch before encountering this beauty, feeding on sausage fruit:

Rolling out we saw a million amazing birds, and then came across this sleepy lady – the Savannah equivalent of a coyote – a jackal.

Did I mention amazing birds? This is a lilac breasted roller.

Yes, there are a LOT of elephants. And elephants are cool.One cool thing they do is shake the fruit from palm trees. Being a tree is hard in elephant country!

We came across Zebras, the “Blue Steel” Zoolanders of the Savannah.

A ton of Red Lechwe boys were fighting for dominance. This one cracks me up – looks like they are being referreed!

Awesome birds. Forgot what this one is called, but it tastes like chicken:

Mind you, this was just on the way to the river boat. Once on the boat, things got differently Interesting. Here’s a beautiful day lilly with a visitor:

Within a few minutes on the water we came across this teeny crocodile. Small, but still plenty evil.

Then, even cooler – or at least, less expected for me – a monitor lizard:

Caught this fish eagle just before it made a catch:

And an infinite array of cool birds feeding on the river

Birds ranged from teeny to huge. Some were incredibly illusive to shoot.

Then we come around a corner and see this amazing vista – this bull elephant feeding by the river, except there’s a GIGANTIC DINOSAUR CROCODILE right in front of him that slips into the water in front of us 😐

Then had a picnic while watching the fish eagle finishng his meal.

We were graced by many pelicans:

And bumped into more tiny crocs – this one walking to the water.

The one thing that makes guides nervous, as it turns out, is hippos in the water. This scene caused a lot of face-offs and consternation.

After a ton of amazing water adventures, we started driving back but of course that couldn’t be simple, oh, no, we had to see Ostrich watering in the delta.

As if this weren’t enough, we went to the lodge for a mind-blowingly awesome tapas lunch, then a quick rest, then back out to go on a dugout canoe through some tributaries on the delta. Super quiet, super intimate, and got to use my macro lens:

Des was on point in case there were hippos. Des is amazing.

More day lillies,and this vista:

Once we put canoes away, a family of elephants came to the river and we got to watch the awesome social interactions as the matriarch led the herd down to the river. Teenage boys get unruly, and this dude wanted to show us he was tough, and show the matriarch she wasn’t the boss of him.

After this, Des and Eliah surprised us with a sundowner – gin and tonics on the savannah. This rules.

That was a pretty epic day. Tomorrow: Lions!

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