When you have been living in the bush for a few years one would think that you would grow accustomed to the ways of the bush… writes Michelle Odumetse.
I try not to become complacent with what there is to see each and every day, but the amazing thing about living in the bush is that each there is something different to experience. It might be the same elephant drinking at the water hole but it is always incredibly interesting to watch their behaviour. As always Savute provides many moments to enjoy and I am most grateful for them.
The highlights for June for me would have to be…
The 3 breeding herds that came down to the front of the lodge the other day while we were enjoying tea. There must have been at least 90 elephants or more in front of the lodge. Their behaviour was incredible to watch and I gained great joy out of one baby elephant. It could have only been a month or two old and it just made me giggle to watch it. It had not yet realised what its trunk was for and for over half an hour we got to watch it dunk its whole head into the channel, splash the water wildly with its trunk and just play like it had never had this experience before. I overheard one guests telling another that this was a dream come to true to witness so many elephant together at one time and that this had to be one of the best days of her life. I realised how lucky I was to call Savute home and to get to enjoy these moments with others.
Another highlight would have to be watching the porcupine waddle across the front lawn at the lodge. They are such peculiar creatures and at Savute we are lucky to see them regularly during dinner or later on in the evening while we enjoy the fire. Then a few days later we got to see the baby porcupine sleeping just outside the bar.
Cats are always a highlight and for June we have been lucky to see some remarkable leopard sightings in and around the lodge and our guests have also had a number of excellent sightings out on the game drives. Sometimes it is hard to believe when guests come back from the morning game drive telling us that they have not only seen one but two leopards.
A few evenings ago after all the guests had gone to bed, BK and I were closing down the lodge for the night when we spotted a leopard out in front of the lodge with a guinea fowl kill. I felt so blessed to see this leopard but in a way sad that we were the only ones to witness it. In the morning at breakfast we shared our leopard sighting with the guests and I think they found it hard to believe what we had seen but that evening they were able to believe what we had seen because as they enjoyed a night cap of Amarula round the open fire one guest jokingly asked me if I could change the Savute TV to the leopard channel and after about 5 minutes of asking another guest asked me what is that animal walking in front of the channel? I turned my head around to be blown away by an excellent view of the leopard again. It walked right in front of us, stopped to smell the channel water and gracefully carried on out of our sight. The guests and I were ecstatic.
My last highlight of the month had to have been the full Lunar Eclipse that we were able to enjoy right from the camp. There were fears that the weather would not be great but the night sky was perfect for an eclipse. After dinner we got all the guests to come to the entrance of the lodge and we turned off all the lights in the lodge so we could experience the eclipse without any light pollution, which is hard to find these days when most of us live in busy towns or cities. As the guests sipped Amarula we were able to soak up and enjoy an often once in a life time experience. I will not forget that night for many years to come.
June has been an amazing month and one in which I have realised how truly blessed I am to live in Savute and to be able to call Botswana my home. I may be biased but I would say that this is one of the best places in the world and one experience that should be on the top of everyone’s ‘bucket list’.
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