This morning is even warmer than the previous and so we only put on our light canvas safari jackets for the morning drive. Just outside camp there is a line of trucks in the grass all jockeying for a sight of a leopard laying in the tall grass. Guides will never pass up an opportunity for a leopard sighting, but we try and hurry Lasty along since we’ve already seen leopards a bunch and the best view you can hope for in this situation is a twitching ear.

Today’s adventure is to try and find a cheetah, which hasn’t been spotted in the park particularly recently. This will require doing some serious mileage. After the leopard, Lasty shows us what a great driver he is, going quite fast but then slowing down at the right points so as to only almost throw us out of the truck from the bumps, and handling the deep soft sand expertly. Pro driving technique that we observed as in the loose sand, while going straight he is constantly rapidly turning the wheel a quarter turn back and forth, we presume this increases the surface contact with the sand and keeps us moving forward better versus just spinning and digging in. In total we end up driving 42 miles over a 5 hour period, to put that in perspective, our previous longest distance drive was about 20 miles in an equal period.

Moving so fast, there is limited wildlife that we take in, and the habitat that cheetahs prefer tends to be more wide open and somewhat less dense with wildlife. However, the drive is beautiful and nice to get away from the more busy sections and feel like we are all on our own in the middle of the African bush. Still we see elephants, jackals, lots of warthogs, hyena, numerous bird nests, giraffe, antelope, and lots of birds. For coffee we stop near a beautiful watering hole with a large dead tree in the middle with a crane and fish eagles in a tree near by. Quite beautiful and different vista from others.

On the way back we take our time a bit, stopping to get photos of some smaller birds like bee eaters. We also come across a couple of male lions, one of whom is a juvenile and in a bit of a bad way with rather large bite marks on his back and laying in the sun looking exhausted. Hopefully he will be ok and recover.

Even after our long morning drive, we unanimously decide to go for another drive in the afternoon. This time Lasty is going to stay much closer to camp and take it slow. It is a great drive with tons of elephants, including babies of all sizes, and lots of birds. Bird highlights include 3 huge owls, African hoopoe, yellow billed stork, fish eagle, goliath heron, saddle billed stork, and spoonbill. We have our sundowners in the Paradise Pools area surrounded by birds and elephants roaming on the horizon.

Arriving back at the lodge, we pull off the road on the outside of the camp’s elephant fence to watch a leopard that is heading in towards the camp. It is right outside the camp near room 10 and headed towards our rooms, 11 and 12. After getting some good photos, Lasty drives inside the camp fence and drives down a road we hadn’t previously been aware of to try and deliver us as close to our rooms as possible. He ends up positioning us right on the other side of the fence from the leopard and backing us in towards the foot trail. While this is happening one of the camp staff is escorting some new arrivals to room 10 and as they are walking by the leopard noticeably cranes his neck around the truck to get a better view of them, then bolts into the grass as we step off the truck much too close for his comfort 😬.

We make it into our room without event. At 7:15 our escort arrives to take us to dinner. It is still just light and we can see our footprints going down to our room from earlier with fresh leopard prints on top – he had strolled into camp while we were getting changed for dinner and walked right down the path and past our room 😵. First hand account for why they want you to have an escort at all times after dusk.

Dinner tonight there are a ton of new folks at the camp, from our count everyone is new except for us and a French couple. One of the camp staff comes over and says “I don’t think we’ve met before, you must have just arrived” to which we explain this is our third night. They are apologetic and suggest we should get our seats for dinner, and to follow them. Instead of leading us to the main dining room, they take us to a private table on the far side of the deck. So trying to trick us about meal logistics seems to be a popular tactic. Dinner is delicious locally inspired menu: butternut squash soup, braised ox tail, chicken, hominy and beans, millet, creamed spinach, and green salad.

We discuss our lodge rankings for the trip so far. While both have been fantastic, we unanimously agree that Camp Moremi is our favorite, primarily due to the overall accommodations and great ecosystem and wildlife diversity.