Pictures' Links

Aha!  The moment you have all been waiting for...links to see all of the pictures from our trip to Little Kwara!
Enjoy:

Group One

Group 2

Day 3 at Little Kwara (Part 3)

Ok, plan is to finish up Little Kwara with this post!  I left off after we went back for our siesta time at the camp.  Rog and I spent some time at the pool again, just enjoying the sun, reading some books, and taking a dip in the pool.

We had two more men join our group that afternoon; they were from Germany!  What I loved about this place was that we had 2 Americans (me and Rog), 2 Germans, an Englishman and a Frenchman.  So diverse!

That afternoon instead of going on a game drive we took a boat ride on the Okavango Delta (world's largest inland delta).

Hippos!

It was a beautiful night.  So after we were done on the Delta, it was time to head back for dinner.  That night it stormed like crazy.  It raged all night long (beautiful lightening storm!) and unfortunately continued throughout the morning.  We were supposed to go on a mokoro ride (the dug-out canoes), but the rain kept us inside.  Then at 11:00 it was time to hit the road, and off we went to the air strip.  It was tough to leave...we had such a wonderful time!  Rog and I realized that it beat out our honeymoon for the best trip we've ever taken together.  Not easy to do!  

Day 3 at Little Kwara (Part 2)

After we were rescued from the snares of the hippo watering hole (slight exaggeration, but that's how I felt at the time), we drove off with no particular agenda.  As we were driving, we came back to the huge elephant femur...and I wanted to pick it up.  It was heavy!

See, I look strong, but in reality Roger had to pick it up and hand it to me, and then after about 10 seconds I had to give it back to him.

After that, we had our tea time and then headed back to the camp.  Right before we made it back there, we came across a warthog.

Ew.

Hee Hee Hee 

This is a short post, because I now have to run home and prepare for a meeting with Jerry and the girls.  I'll keep plugging away at this until I finally finish my stories from when Rog was here!

Jonathon Mark Bonnema

Today marks the 4 year anniversary of the accident that took my little brother's life.  Jon was a phenomenal kid, annoying younger brother, and one of my best friends.  I miss him dearly, and it's especially difficult today.  It's hard to be away from home this time of the year, but it will get better soon.  The hardest part this time around is that nobody here knew Jon.  The interns are so preciously praying for me and trying to offer encouraging words, but it's not the same as when I'm with people who knew him.

I am thankful that I get to go to Victoria Falls next week; I was telling my dad the other day that I feel like Vic Falls is the closest thing that we have on earth that resembles Heaven.  I get to experience a tiny piece of what Jon gets every single day :)

Seriously, can you believe this?

Day 3 at Little Kwara (Part 1)

The next morning we woke up early again and hit the road around 6:30am.  It was lion searching time!  We drove around for about an hour and a half or so without seeing a single animal.  Not one.  I didn't mind though...the scenery was beautiful, and I was listening to my "lion huntin' music"- The Lion King's "Be Prepared."  I just sat there with a silly grin on my face the entire time.  After a while, I was starting to get a little discouraged...if I wasn't going to see lions, I at least wanted to see something cool.  All of a sudden we turned a corner and it appeared we entered paradise.  There was a clearing, and we came upon hippos, an elephant, giraffes and zebras.  All together, just enjoying the day.  It was beautiful.  We parked our truck next to the watering hole with the two hippos in it.

The giraffe was eating, obviously :)

All of a sudden we turn around, and I feel like I am in the Jungle Book...a herd of elephants start marching our way from a distance:

They were marching in a line!  It was so cute.

And then they were upon us.  

Day 2 at Little Kwara

The next morning, Roger and I woke up at 5am (or so), had a lovely breakfast around a campfire, and then off we went to find cheetahs!  Our guide had heard that there 3 of them (they call them the Three Brothers) about an hour away from camp.  As we drove over there, we came across a few cool things:

An elephant femur!

A hyena!

Tons of zebras, and we were able to walk up to them!

The Three Brothers!

Picking Back Up...

I am almost 100% back to normal now...I went to the doctor, who thought I had pneumonia or bronchitis, and found out I had an upper respiratory infection.  That was comforting news!   I was put on antibiotics and some pain meds, and within a week I was feeling much better.

So, back to the story! I left off talking about the elephants and the hippos our first evening there.  Well, after that we went driving again and came across the giraffes as the sun was setting

After that, we had tea time, then drove back to the camp for dinner and crashed into bed.  That is the end of day one for Roger and Ashley's Safari

Interruption

I want so desperately to update this blog with more stories from my trip with Roger, but at the moment I am fighting some form of the flu and can't put together a single coherent thought.
Until I am better and able to write more, enjoy these two pictures!

Elephants rule.  That's all.

Little Kwara (Part 2)

Welcome back!  This is the continuation of yesterday's post, Little Kwara (Part 1).  So, I still have stories from the first day there.  When we went out for our afternoon game drive, we wanted to follow the lions, because the guides knew they would be hunting that day.  The big question was, which group do we follow?  The one with 2 females and 3 males, or the one with 3 females?  They knew we would see more hunting if we followed the lionesses, but we could see a fight amongst the males if their lionesses caught something.  You could tell that the males hadn't been eating too well; it was actually a little sad to see the ribs of one of them.  My problem is that I don't ever want to see an animal run for its life, only to get snatched down an eaten.  Conundrum!  Well, we went back to where the lions were, but they had already left.  So, we went to where the lionesses were, but they were gone too.  So, KB went to work, and we started tracking.  Unfortunately, we were out for four hours and couldn't find them back.  Fortunately, we got to see lots of other amazing things!

My first elephant!!  Now, you have to understand that I was told by Steve that we might not see any elephants while we were there, because they aren't too common. in that area  So imagine my elation when I saw this one the first day; I was giddy!

There were hundreds of red lechwe gathered by the lagoon; they were jumping back and forth over the river a lot.  I think they were just messing with the crocodile that was waiting in the water. This is my favorite picture of one jumping.

My first hippo!  This guy was hilarious.  He was in the water, saw us coming, and ran out.  Then he would mock charge us, but as soon as Steve started the engine on the car, he would retreat.  

  This happened 3 times before he got scared and decided to run off and hide in a bush.

Seriously, he ran up to a bush, stuck his head in there and waited.  He would pop out, see that we were still there, run to the other side, and hide his head again.  Poor guy.  I loved it.

Also, look at its cute little bird friends!  They follow the hippos and elephants everywhere.

We had such a great time driving around and seeing the animals.  We went to another watering hole and found that there was a baby hippo and 3 adults in the water.  In the reeds near the water, there was another male hippo, desperately wanting to get in.  The problem was, there was already a male hippo there, protecting the females and the baby (fun fact- most of the time, female hippos have to protect the babies from the males, who try to kill them).  We actually got to see a fight take place between the 2 males!  That was really cool.  The poor loner lost the battle and had to run off and find another place to cool off.  My heart is too big for these animals...I wanted to cry at the thought that nobody wanted him around.  I need to toughen up, I think.  Also at that watering hole?  Elephants!!  We stayed there for at least an hour, watching all the animals (also, more crocodiles and tons of birds).  Here are a couple of pictures from that time:

And finally (because it's now lunch time and I have to go...):

Believe me, there are many, many more pictures for you to enjoy!  Still working on uploading them, but as soon as I can, I will post the link.  Hope you enjoyed this installment of Roger and Ashley's Adventures in Botswana!