This was the day for an early morning game drive. We were awakened at 6 AM and on the road at 630 so that we could be there before the heat of the day when the animals went to sleep. Our efforts were rewarded as we saw wonderful wildlife, much of it active. We began with some topis and then a gazelle and the vulture(s) on top of the tree

and another gazelle before we saw our first giraffe of the day

and then after some wondering we saw these jackals and then rock hyrax (which have the interesting property of being closely related to elephants despite the obvious size differences). Next we were off to the hippo pools where we took this movie P1040276.MOV and many still shots

as monkeys began to appear in a nearby tree even as recorded how the hippos get in and out of the pond before turning to the trees where the monkeys were hiding

and then capturing many images of them roaming about

including this movie P1040350.MOV and then many more monkey pictures

before we saw some wildebeest among the topis as the wildebeest eventually headed off

leaving the topis

as we ran into our first (of many) groups of zebras along with this bird and then the zebras

before some hardebeasts

and giraffes

with zebras

and finally just zebras

and some snake tracks on our way back to our tent before my wonderful breakfast of papaya, pineapple and banana to which Ben added bacon, tomato and sausage before the ketchup and Tabasco were delayed en route to my omelet by the appearance of a rock horax but then the omelet came.

After breakfast, we were taken down to this cave where this man had lived while on the run from the authorities who wanted to punish him for having aided poachers in killing elephants (for which he was paid 500) for their ivory and rhinoceroses (for which he was paid 5000) for their horns in a story told by this guide as we noted the bird nests in the cave (which was really more of a rock overhang) as he and Suzanne saw the view before we were shown the poison arrows that could kill an elephant in 20 minutes and their place in his quiver as more questions were answered and we were given a demonstration of how a fire is made from sticks

which after a lot of smoke finally produced a flame before it was put out leaving me to take these pictures of our newfound friend.