Chitabe, second stop.

[Jan]

Tuesday 26 October

 

 

I flew in to Chitabe, a camp that I had long meant to visit, run by Wilderness, but owned by Dave Hamman and

 

his wife. I had met them in the early 90's when they were managing the old, much missed basic Mombo. It's a

 

friendly, easygoing camp. Both staff and the other guests were great fun.

 

My guide was Thuso, who I'd met a couple of years ago at Savuti, but had not been my guide. I had a brilliant

 

evening's game viewing. We followed a young leopard for more than an hour, with many good photo

 

opportunities, followed by comming across 26 wild dogs, 20 adults and 6 well grown pups. it was great viewing,

 

and very funny when they chased a honey badger up to the top of a bush. They didn't get him down, he was

 

panicking like mad, but oh the smell!

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday 27 October

 

 

We were out early and saw many giraffes, and allthe wild dogs who were sleeping and lazing around. Ther was a

 

surprise lunch in a glade for the two camps, Chitabe and its small sister camp, Ledibe. i sat with the people from

 

Ledibe and we all had fun conversations.

 

In the afternoon we saw lots of elephants and both male and female leopards

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday 28 October

 

 

We went out looking for cheetahs, but again, no luck. We found a female leopard up a tree looking down on her

 

stolen kill, with the wild dogs running around, having left very little of the kill. We followed the dogs, and left them

 

frolicking in and out of a large pool. We were still looking for cheetahs when we saw clouds of dust . It was 2000+

 

buffalo moving through. It could have been more, it was very hard to estimate, they just kept coming and

 

coming!

 

I left Chitabe later that morning having had a wonderful time, and put Chitabe firmly on my'must return' list

 

list!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P.S. Look what I found near the camp fire!!!!!

 

[Pangolin]

Another pangolin! You see them on almost every trip!

 

Great photos and sounds like a great time at Chitabe. It is definitely near the top of my "return to" list (last there in January 2004).

 

Seems like it is living up to its reputation as a great place for leopards.

[Atravelynn]

Not only did you see leopards, you get fantastic shots. Decent job on the pangoliin too!

[ZaminOz]

some great photos there Jan!

[Ellie]

Wonderful photos, Jan - looks like you had a great trip! That pangolin almost looks like it got INTO the campfire!

[Jan]

Pangolin, you know that I do my best to find your namesake. The real ones are still eluding me, so I do the next

 

best thing! I was very pleased with my wildcat and serval, but Hari's cheetahs managed to avoid me!

 

I was really pleased that I had made it to Chitabe at last. It always helps at a camp whe your fellow guests are

 

great fun too. We had a riotous last evening's dinner! The viewing of animals was terrific, and guide and fellow

 

safari vehicle companions was all that I needed.

 

Thankyou, Atravelynn ,ZaminOz and Ellie for your kind comments. I'm not the greatest photographer, but the

 

animals do play thier part !

 

 

Jan

[Pangolin]

I can see it now......sometime in the future, Jan and Pangolin find themselves in the same camp at the same time. Do they see a real pangolin? Probably not but they have a great time anyway!

[tracker]

Jan,

 

Again great stuff, hippo... dogs... & leopard... Oh My!

 

Tracker

[basto]

Hi Jan!

 

Glad you had such great gameviewing, and I must also say you have some really stunning photographs in there. Chitabe seems to have really good gameviewing at the moment, everybody seems to have a good time there.

 

Thanks for sharing!

 

/Tom

[Sangeeta]

Jan - apart from the fantastic dog, leopard & lion pics, loved your buffalo shots too. The first one looks as if you came over a rise and almost drove into them. Amazing to see how a big herd like that one can blend in so well with its surroundings. Wonderful stuff. Looking forward to your meerkats now...