Truckin’ Along Part 3 of 3 – July 2019

The final portion of our overland safari covered the Savuti region of western Chobe National Park. Our adventure occurred during dry season, so the animals tended to congregate near the three artificial waterholes. The area is known for its lions and spotted hyenas. We saw lions three different times! But unfortunately we did not find any hyenas.

Baobob Trees – Quite a few baobob trees live in the region and we visited two groves of the impressive, unique trees. Often referred to as upside-down trees, baobobs can live up to 1,000 years and reach up to 50 meters in diameter. Their average height is 8 to 9 meters and about 9 months of the year they are leafless.

Susan looks quite short next to the tree.

A major reason this type of tree is highly fire resistant is because baobobs can store up to 120,000 liters of water.

The fruit, which looks like a velvety gourd, is filled with large black seeds that are surrounded by a somewhat powdery pulp. We didn’t eat the seeds, but we tasted the fleshy interior which had a crunchy, honeycomb-like texture, very slight tart flavor, and drying effect in our mouths. It wasn’t distasteful, but not highly pleasurable either.

Rock Paintings – We stopped at the ancient San rock paintings at Gobabis Hill and the red artwork is estimated to be about 4,000 years old. Leopards often frequent the rocky area, but we didn’t see any felines there.

Mud Baths – The first two parts of our safari included many elephants in or near water. In Savuti we also got to see elephants playing in the mud, which was very entertaining for us. Most of them just used their trunks to fling mud over their bodies as protection from the sun and relief from insect bits. But one resourceful creature spewed mud with his trunk and also swung a hind leg to spray mud on both halves of his body at the same time. Lots of flying mud during that bath!!

The guineafowl decided to move along when this elephant started flinging lots of mud with its trunk and hind leg!
Sunset drink at the waterhole

Moms and Babies – Over the course of two days and in the same area we saw two lionesses who each had three cubs. The first morning we excitedly watched a mother with very small babies climb and roll around on a small hill in the sunshine.

In the afternoon we saw a lioness in the same area with the three small cubs AND three larger cubs! We were not sure if the mother was the one we had seen earlier in the day. Because the six babies were napping and playing in a gully behind brush, it was quite challenging to get any pictures of them. But we thoroughly enjoyed watching them. The mother seemed on alert most of the time, alternating between standing in the brush and walking up the small nearby hill for a better view.

Just after sunrise the next morning we saw both lionesses on the other side of the road, probably returning from a hunting expedition. They got into a short scuffle, but then moved along towards the bush where the cubs were most likely hidden.

A Mongoose or Two – During the first part of our overland safari we saw quite a few banded mongeese. Two additional types of mongeese inhabit the Savuti area.