The first night with Chameleon we stayed at Mt.Etjo camp where we slept in tents. There was a lodge with a water hole next to it and it was our very first encounter with the wildlife of Africa. We saw so many different types of antelope, Springbok, Gemsbok/Oryx, Impala – a very famous antelope, probably the only one I knew from before. The Impala has a black stripe on its butt and legs looking like “M” and so the locals call it “African McDonald’s” 😀 We also saw a waterbuck, looks a bit like a donkey, and we also saw a brown antelope, Kudu, which has thin, black, stripes on its back. At some point, we also encountered the smallest antelope that I have only seen in the zoo and I totally loved it – the Dikdik, teeny, tiny, little antelope that moves its snout so funny in all directions to sniff. At the lodge of Mt.Etjo before we went to the camp for the night, we went to their waterhole and it was full of all sorts of animals, from flamingos and ducks, through warthogs (Pumba), to Hippos!!!

The hippos at the camp’s waterhole were also sooo funny and cute just laying outside of the water on the bank sunbathing and sleeping. I almost missed them since i didn’t go all the way to the back and only went back to check them out after someone mentioned there were hippos. Later on we’ve learned that there is a certain species of small birds called oxpeckers that are parasitic and feed off of the hippos wounds – they eat the dead skin from scratches, wounds etc and this way, keep the wounds from getting an infection and for the most part, the hippos let them do it, at least until they go too deep and I guess they feel pain, then they shoo them off with ear flaps or by submerging under the water 😀 But the birds just hop onto another hippo, so no problem at all for them. Also while I was watching them I heard some commotion amongst the nearby birds and I went there and what did my eyes see! A tiny owlet, like the one we have in Bulgaria and Europe in general – little owl (Athene noctua). The birds around it were getting crazy but it’s a predator after all, so.. I totally loved this encounter – she stared at me with those big yellow eyes while i was taking pictures of her frantically and when she got bored of me, or perhaps when I got a bit too close for her comfort, she flew off to the nearby palm tree but guess what.. I followed her there too, but she was very high. Nevertheless, I still snapped a few photos of her also on the palm. Along the way to the camp, I was super impressed by the sheer size of the termite mounds and I managed to snap probably my best photo for comparison of a mound vs giraffe below..

Anyway, we didn’t stay at the reception and hotel area, but rather went to the camp side and they showed us how to put up the tents, I’ve never done so, but it’s quite easy actually, we were warned to never leave the tent open unless we want to find visitors like a scorpion or some bug in there and then we set off for safari, saw giraffes and more antelope and also some lions but they had GPS on them so it wasn’t a genuine find but it’s ok. In the evening we went to see a lion feeding, but it was quite sad actually – the male lion arrived a few minutes after we heard the engine of a car, suggesting that he had been driven here from captivity, he was sooo hungry, jumped right onto the meat that was there. Ate a lot of it, but as he was eating, at some point, out of the blue, he just got up and ran away, presumably called by a whistle. I don’t want to imagine the abuse going on behind the scenes to train them. If my trip wasn’t prepaid, I’d never put my money on this.

Then came two lionesses, the dominant one went to eat, the other one sat and waited, but the food was over and there was nothing left for her. Then.. they rushed us out of the place (so they could do whatever abusive thing there was to get them into the car, I think). So sad for these gorgeous animals 🙁 When we went back to camp, Kennedy wasn’t there, only Erastus, preparing dinner. He told us that the Asian guy who was supposed to come directly there due to his delayed flight had gotten into an accident near the camp – the car flipped over its roof because it couldn’t take a turn and went into an acacia tree and a branch got into his abdomen.

They had to cut the branch and take him to the hospital, but luckily he wasn’t seriously injured and when Kennedy came back and told us the story, he said that the guy was alert and laughing and was taking pictures of his bloody abdomen and arms 😀 I like his positive way of thinking haha. He even wanted to join us at the camp for the night but Kennedy refused and sent him to the hospital and so we picked him up the next day. So that’s how Shin joined us on the second day of the tour 😀 We were all very glad that he decided to continue the tour rather than fly back home directly.