Once again we are woken up early by the morning prayers that are blared from the speakers in the lodge area. In any case, we were up early as after the game drive yesterday, we had arranged another one extra early this morning.
We start off the game drive at 6 AM and as we have booked a private charter, they will take longer and take us further into the park. We hope to see more animals by going earlier and deeper into the park. We did not do too well at first - we did not see anything. And we were getting quite cold standing in the back of the truck with the cold wind blowing past.
But then, we came upon them - a group of elephants feeding off the trees right by the side of the road. There were a bunch of them on each side of the road. We watched the first group, then went up to watch the second group. The second group was closer to the road (about 10-20 meters), and one of them got a bit annoyed. He made a trumpeting sound and made some mock charges. They then headed onto the road behind us and, after coming quite close to the back of the truck, joined the rest of the elephants on the other side of the road.
We backed up to continue observing them. The more aggressive one was closest to the truck, and he made a mock charge on a tree to show us that he was not pleased with our presence. He bent the tree over with his charge. He then settled down and started to eat leaves off the tree. We were told that they need to eat over 400 kgs of food a day and drink about 120 liters of water. We hung around, watching them for a while.
On the rest of the drive, we saw a number of different things, including lots of birds, a crocodile (with his mouth open to catch flies to use as bait), baboons, monkeys, bush bucks and others.
We get back to the truck around 9 AM, and we prepare brunch. Two cook groups, including the one we are in, combine to prepare the one meal. We prepare rice salad, omelets, fruit salad and toast. After cleaning up from brunch, we do some household chores, such as laundry. Once we complete that, it is time to have some fun and relax. We head down to the hot springs.
We spend over an hour in the springs, taking it easy and playing in the water. We also decide to swim down the spring, until it starts to form more of a stream when it narrows. When we got to this point, we had a tough time holding our own against the current - we would have to swim with all our strength just to stay in place and not be swept away.
It was good fun jumping in and and just fooling around.
After working on the computer for a while updating the travel journal, it was our turn to prepare dinner for the group. We prepared two main dishes, in addition to some cucumbers with cheese dip. The first was pasta with a fresh tomato sauce and the second was a deep fried potato dish made with mashed potatoes, carrots, and onions that was formed into a small log, rolled in egg and bread crumbs and then deep fried. It was quite good - a recipe contributed by John, the other member of our cook group.
After dinner, we head down to the bar for a drink (and Lars continues to update the journal on the computer). After a drink, we decide to head back down to the hot springs for another dip before going to bed. It is a great way to end the day and go to bed very refreshed.