Busy Busy

So our entire fleet of landrovers is out in the park this week.  That is to say, all four of them.  This is what we call extremely busy here at Chada.  We are hosting a total of twelve guests, a full camp for us with our six tents.

We know, that just doesn’t sound busy, but that is what we are all about here.  In addition to our fleet, one car each from the other two camps far up the river are also out today, bringing the vehicle count to a whopping six in the third largest park in Tanzania. 

Who’s with me here?  Tanzania is nearly a million square kilometres of bush, has fifteen national parks, and only the sprawling Ruaha and the Serengeti surpass Katavi in size, yet there are six vehicles moving about today.  I’ve seen more cars around a vervet monkey feeding frenzy at a picnic sight in Nairobi National Park.

So we’re just letting you know, Katavi is ridiculously busy at the moment, in case you were wondering what our busy season is like.

Meanwhile, we did manage to come up with a couple shots of creatures around camp, since the guides and guests have the cars.

 

The yellow-winged bat, one of our favourite flyers because they eat mosquitoes, but mostly because they reinforce our belief in the existence of aliens.

Then we have this naughty little fellow, known locally (just here actually) as the paper shredding mouse.  He was terrorizing us for several weeks, but it turns out he likes sausage more than peanut butter or cheese.  Imagine that.  We actually should have baited him with paper.  Here is a shot of his run to freedom following a brief incarceration.

Common around camp, but rarely sitting still in the sunlight, this was a lucky moment to find a purple crested turaco perched in the open.

And finally, our old tuskless bull elephant, Budha, reaching high.  He's been acting like a giraffe lately after realizing he actually has no tusks.