Day 7: June 30, Chobe afternoon... a Nat Geo day!

Wow, this afternoon was like living in a National Geographic magazine! The afternoon drive started out quietly, and we weren't seeing much in terms of game. By the end, I was literally crying I was so overwhelmed. But I'll start from the beginning...

A parade of baboons led off the afternoon, and they were playing in the road as we drove by. The little ones were playing in the sand (see below) and reminded me of my nephews digging holes in the beach. Too cute.
When they decided to move off, the little ones jumped on mom's back, and rode off with the group... it's like a baboon Harley Davidson! They use the mom's tail as a backrest, and just sit back and enjoy the ride. There were at least 30 baboons, and probably 5 of them had babies riding on their backs. It was amazing to watch them interact.A little further down, we found the remnants of a buffalo. There were bones all over the place (along with elephant poop) but this one stood out like a Georgia O'Keeffe painting.We also saw some of the usual suspects, like the zebra by the water hole... (I like this photo... it's kind of serene.)... and we finally came across the Red-Billed Hornbill (a.k.a. the "flying chili pepper")...We'd seen many fish eagles flying around, but never had a chance to get a good photo of one. The light was not perfect for this one, but once he turned his head, it wasn't a bad shot:Here is one of the smaller termite mounds in the area. (I'm not kidding - this is a small one. The larger ones grow upwards of 8 feet tall.) Here, our guide is giving us a lesson on termite lifestyle... wild stuff.We also spotted our first "official" hippopotamus today! He was alone on the riverbank, enjoying some grass. This was kind of odd, since hippos usually eat during the night... but I guess he was hungry:Here's a front-end shot of the waterbuck. Unfortunately, he didn't turn around to show us the ring on his butt. (It's funny... whenever you want them to show their butts, they won't!) I even asked politely, but he just stood there staring at me. Oh well... he's still a beautiful animal, even if he wouldn't moon me.As the sun began to go down, things began to get very interesting. It started slowly... with one giraffe...... and then two zebras crossed the road to join him. But as soon as we pulled forward a little bit, it's like Noah's Ark just let off all the passengers.... and suddenly, there was a....... GIRAFFE STAMPEDE!!!!Pretty soon, the whole field was full of giraffes, zebras, and impalas. There were at least 100 animals milling about, all hanging out and slowly meandering off into the deep brush....... some even got so close, I felt like I could just reach out and touch them....We were all chattering wildly about the amazing group of animals, and the sun started setting, giving everything a really beautiful glow.We headed down to the water hole, to watch the sunset... and there was a breeding herd of elephants enjoying a drink...What happened next was so beautiful that I can't even describe it in words. I took so many photos, I am embarrassed... but I can't choose just one, so I'll load up a bunch and you can see the progression of events for yourself:Every photo was better than the last... It was as if I had asked them: "Could you please pose for a postcard for me?" and they complied. This is about the time I started crying, because it was so beautiful and I couldn't believe that I was actually seeing this in person. About 5 minutes later, though, I was laughing hysterically... because as the elephants moved on in front of our vehicle, they all looked like they were wearing little grey ankle socks from where they waded through the water:
Perhaps part of my crazy brain was due to the fact that it was a full moon. I tried to get some shots of the moon from the truck, and got one that was sort of creepy in a Halloween kind of way:
But I wanted to see if I could get one with the full brightness... so I adjusted my camera... and the results were ridiculous... but funny:The whole group was hysterically giddy at this point, and we just started taking stupid photos with weird settings to see what happened. These are a few of the sunset photos I got while bouncing around in the back of the safari vehicle. I think these turned out to be kinda cool:

This is what this trip is all about! Happy!