Wouter our guide from the Netherlands recently returned from a Botswana Wild Parks tour and has the following to share. We were out on a full day game drive in Moremi game reserve in northern Botswana, looking for any animals or other interesting things we could find. We had a very good time in the morning, during which we found a lot of ‘plains game’ like Zebra, Buffalo, Red Lechwe,  Impala, Blue Wildebeest, and other interesting animals like Elephants, Kudu’s and Hippo’s.

It was getting hotter and hotter and we decided to drive to a spot with a nice view to have lunch,but on the way there we literally bumped into a huge black-maned male Lion that was lying in the shade of a Sausage Tree. We saw a Hooded Vulture sitting in the tree so I pointed it out to the guests and everybody was looking at it, while we completely missed the 225 kg beast that was lying right next to the vehicle. Surprised by our sudden presence, the Lion lifted its head and looked at us, and at that moment we all saw it. Huge excitement went through all of us, and we watched this mighty creature for a good 15 minutes.

After lunch we slowly moved back towards camp, and everybody was quite happy about all the wonderful animals we had seen so far. We got close to camp, driving through thick Mopane Woodland, so nobody really expected any interesting sightings anymore, and then we discovered we had a flat tire. This wasn’t what we had planned at all! But we are in Africa and in the bush, so these things happen. Myself and Kenny, the Botswana guide, stepped out and changed tires, and after about 10 minutes we were done. We drove further towards the lodge, and everybody was already thinking about the nice shower that they were going to take or the cold beer they were going to drink. That’s when Kenny suddenly hit the brakes and shouted: LEOPARD, LEOPARD!Completely unexpected, there was a huge male Leopard on the right hand side of the vehicle, following an animal pathway towards a waterhole and was about to cross the road. The Leopard clearly didn’t expect us, so backed off a little, after which he crossed the road behind us and everybody had a clear view. This was the biggest Leopard I had ever seen. We were so lucky to have had that flat tire, otherwise the Leopard would have been long gone!!Some of the guests wanted to go back to that waterhole because the Leopard was moving into that direction and it might go drinking there. When we got back, we didn’t find a Leopard, but what we did find, was also very interesting indeed. A lone male Hippo went into the waterhole and claimed it ‘his terrain’. Later, a lone Elephant bull came over to have a drink, and started approaching the water. Both the Hippo and the Elephant were not happy about sharing a waterhole, and what happened next was 20 minutes of intra-specific interaction, very interesting to watch. The Elephant shook its head and ran towards the Hippo. The Hippo didn’t move a muscle so the Elephant tried to smash the water with its trunk to spray the Hippo with water. Clearly, against an amphibious mammal this doesn’t work and it’s 1-0 for the Hippo. Then the Hippo started opening its mouth to show the dangerous teeth it has inside of its mouth. It was also making loud snorting and grunting noises to impress the Elephant. The Hippo even rolled over completely and we could see the bottom side of its feet sticking out of the water, a very comical sight. Slowly but surely the Elephant backed off and then disappeared into the bush. After this day I had learnt never to be unhappy  when you get a flat tire on your vehicle because you never know what you could or couldn't see in a 10 min window in the African bush..