BELOVED KALAHARI - Our Home Away From Home

[ExFmem]

I had travelled to the Kalahari by myself in 2021, and we skipped going at all in 2022 due to all the Covid shenanigans. We wondered if we would ever go back again, as we are no spring chickens and it gets more difficult as we age.

With a bit of uncertainty and indecision on the wisdom of taking such a long trek, we decided to give it a go this year and see what happens.

Now, 2 months after the trip, I'm "homesick" already. As soon as we entered the gates to the park, we both looked at each other and broke out into ear-to-ear smiles. YES! It's worth all the 46 hours of airports, planes, hotel, food shopping, and driving to reach our favorite place on earth. It was truly a spontaneous, unexpected rush of exhilaration neither of us had anticipated at all.

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We began our trip at Kieliekrankie.

[ExFmem]

A montage of our sightings:




Kij Kij turned out to be a very busy waterhole this year, more so than our previous visits.
















Throughout his LONG drinking session, many different species came, but decided to wait their turn knowing what a fierce predator/scavenger brown hyenas are... (Lucky me, as it supplied many Mammal Challenge Entries )





Sadly, the next day when we visited, an even more fierce predator had killed the hyena at the
waterhole.

[ExFmem]

Tummy's full, it's time to play !!





You'll never guess what's up next: BUGS

[harrys]

[Mel]

Awesome! Some updates on the KTP

We had a booking in October as well, but needed to postpone to April 24.

[Lisbeth]

Now I have a reason to get up in the morning

The poor brownie did not look too well even before he departed from life

[GavinW]

Great start ExFmem

Looking forward to seeing a whole lot more.

Great pics of super mom and her 3 cubs. The one cub is a great survivor after being injured when very young.

[Richprins]

Ex!

A long-awaited trip!

That hyena looked unwell, I must say?

Great badger and lion shots.

[nan]

for the news of my favorite place ..... after so bad news.....

magnificent pictures, story telling, I specially love Honey Badger
and this poor Brownie

ready for more

[ExFmem]

harrys - next entry coming right up...

Mel - enjoy your upcoming trip!

Sis, yes, the brownies almost always look haggard and worn out to me - rough life

GavinW - what's the story about the cub being injured when young? One of them looked like its eye was somewhat elongated???

RP - long awaited trip, indeed - it really hit both of us how dear to our hearts AND our mental well being the Kalahari is.

nan - welcome aboard, thanks for coming along