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Here we are at our first camp, Chitabe Lediba. Walkways at most of the camps were elevated, for to not get bitten by snakes/monkeys/etc.

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The baboons rather liked the "swimming pool" at our camp. Mmmmm, chlorinated water.

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As our Land Rover drives through the water (this whole trip was like one big ad for Land Rover), Merrie has her camera at the ready for whatever lies on the other side...

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And within a few minutes, we had found our first big cat, this young male lion, who was hanging out with his brothers, taking a nap, as lions are wont to do.

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Yawn. When I yawn, it's just as scary. For calibration: approximate distance to lion here was maybe twenty feet.

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Some elephants enjoy what's left of the summer rain water. Mmmm, dirty water.

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If you could see a video of this elephant, it would be even more obvious what he's saying: "get the hell off of my road". Key points to note: feet look like they're stamping, trunk looks to be swinging. No doubt a large head-shaking would follow, followed by a grunt, and - eventually - the elephant losing interest and walking away.

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Merrie with her beanbag, to stabilize the big lens that lets us get all these fun animal pictures.

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...like this one, of a leopard at maybe fifteen feet. He's just waking up from a nap, and - as the sun went down on our first day in Bostwana - he would walk right up to our car, take a look, decide against any further interaction with us, and head out for the night's hunt.

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Merrie poses in our Land Rover. Typically we were with two other guests on a drive, never more than that, sometimes just the two of us.

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A giraffe slowly makes his way away from us and into the tasty trees.

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Mmmm, juice. The dining room was usually pretty quiet at Chitabe Lediba, but yummy juice was always available. Mmmm, juice. At this camp we also discovered "marula jam", made from the marula fruit, presumably not extensively available in the U.S., but quite yummy. Most of the food was pretty Western, as one might expect for a camp catering to Western guests.

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This was a typical afternoon, between the morning and evening drives, while the hundred-degree sun kept the animals asleep. Read a book, drink some juice, take a nap, etc. Mmmm, vacation. Mmmm, no e-mail.

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A nice close-up of an elephant. Bostwana has lots of elephants.

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Dan leans out to get a nice shot of this impala. This was, of course, before we had already seen 10,000 impala and realized we didn't need to get "the shot" of every single one.

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Merrie breaks out the binoculars, which we used mostly for looking at birds, who were generally not prone to walking right up to our truck like the mammals were.

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As the sun sets, we get a nice view of yet another leopard.

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Dan's face is saying "that noise couldn't possibly have been an elephant right outside our cabin, right?" In fact it was, and in fact this is apparently normal. Don't mess with them, and it's fine to have elephants right outside your window. Not knowing this, the first night was a little worrisome.

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A female kudu enjoying a snack. We saw lots of kudu, but it wasn't until the end of our trip that we found some of the more glamorous-looking adult males with their giant spiral horns.

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A yellow-billed stork hunts for goodies in the swamp. Compared to our previous trip to Africa, we made a pretty significant effort to learn all of the birds by sight and - wherever it was realistic - by sound. There were lots of birds to learn.

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A recently-awoken lion strides toward us.

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We also learned to recognize tracks in the sand, which - given the low density of vehicles to talk to on the radio about who's seeing what and where - was how our guides found a lot of the larger animals. Looks like a lion had passed by here recently...

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...and while that lion was in the area, it looks like he finished off an impala.

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The vultures are still in the area, having recently made their contribution to cleaning up the leftover impala.

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Dan poses with a nearby elephant. Once again, it was a little scary at first to be so close, but they're not all that interested in people.

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This older male elephant has been through quite a lot...

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...a broken tusk tip from fighting or just from demolishing trees...

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...and a visible wound to the ear.

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We typically stopped once per drive to get out, stretch, have some coffee, and enjoy the quiet of the plains.

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Merrie climbs back into the Land Rover to head back out for more animal-viewing...

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This giraffe is taking a close look at us... he's a little unsure what our deal is.

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A giraffe bone, probably from a recent kill. The whole skeleton was scattered around the area, but the rest of the giraffe had been picked clean.

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A baby giraffe enjoys a bite from a conveniently-short tree.

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A southern ground hornbill... it was interesting to see these giant birds by night, nesting high up in trees.

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A troop of baboons - including a Mom with baby - crosses the path.

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Dan with camera, on another Safari-break.

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A red-billed hornbill enjoys the sunset. We saw lots of these little birds, and lots of their close cousins, the yellow-billed hornbill and the grey hornbill.

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Dan poses near a sleeping lion. You can be sure that he had already taken about 1000 pictures of this lion.

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Night drives were an exciting part of this trip that we hadn't been able to do in East Africa... here we see a lion slowly waking up to go out for the night. We saw most of the night animals by spotlight, though it was more like a quick glance most of the time, since we couldn't shine the light right at them.

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For example, we got a quick glimpse of a porcupine (which was really exciting, since this was on our not-expected-to-see list). It was 100% night-time now, so pictures were what they were at this point.

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We set out for another drive the next morning, dressed for somewhat colder weather. It was typically over 100 in the afternoon and below 50 in the early morning.

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A black-backed jackal enjoys the cool morning weather.

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Dan carefully plans the next shot, while Andy - our guide for the Chitabe portion of the trip - looks carefully and narrates. All of our guides were great, and Andy in particular was really into photography, so he knew just how to get us close-ups of everything we wanted to see, and had lots of great photo tips.

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This was pretty much the standard daytime view of the hippos... in large groups, and mostly underwater. Though we don't have any pictures, one of the most incredible sights of our trip was the hippos at night. The areas near water were totally dominated by hippos... like, hippos everywhere. Very surreal.

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This particular hippo was a little unhappy with us getting too close to his pool. This was in fact the only time on our trip when even the guide got a little concerned, and threw the truck hard into reverse to get away.

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The hippo means business, and let out a nice loud groan to show us who's in charge of this pool.

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Dan and Merrie pose by the water on a coffee break...

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Over coffee, Andy tells Dan about the Okavango Delta, and about the herd of red lechwe in the distance.

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Merrie takes a closer look at the lechwe, which we hadn't seen before. We'd have plenty of close-ups of lechwe later on in the camps with more water.

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Okay, so this isn't much of a picture, but I had to include it, since it was one of the rarest animals we saw on our trip: a serval. In broad daylight, no less. He zipped off before we could get any close-ups.

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A grey heron poses nicely atop a tree. In general I've gone light on the bird photos in this album, since there were just SOOOO many birds, but this seemed particularly picturesque.

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A hyena and a whole lot of vultures take their turns at a recently-killed buffalo.

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...and the hyena comes away with a delicious buffalo leg.

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An African fish eagle, clearly a close cousin of the bald eagles we see at home in Seattle.

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Surprisingly, there weren't a whole lot of zebra in Bostwana. Based on our experiences in East Africa, we expected to see giant herds of wildebeest and zebra, but not so much. This was probably the most striking difference between the wildlife of Bostwana and East Africa: there were just as many animals overall in Botswana, in fact we probably saw more species, but the only animals we saw in HUGE herds were elephants.

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One of the highlights of our trip was a series of encounters with the wild dogs, one of the most endangered species in Africa. This time they were just napping and staying out of the heat.

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A young male kudu shows off his growing horns, and enjoys some delicious leaves.

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Dan is standing back to photograph the elephant that is literally pressed up against the window at the other end of our tent.

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Yep, that's the one. Hello, elephant.

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Merrie takes some quiet time to read between drives. In general this trip was an incredible wildlife experience, but also a pleasantly serene getaway from (a) work and (b) technology.

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A reedbuck appears just outside of our camp. These were rare, but could occasionally be spotted hanging out - as you might expect - among the reeds. They were pretty skittish too; this one stood completely still for about 20 minutes while she pondered whether our whispering voices were a threat. I say "she" because baby was nearby, but less visible for photos.

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A mom and baby elephant stride by our camp.

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The pied kingfishers were also quite photogenic, posing not only on their perches, but up high, hovering, ready to dive for a fish.

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The lilac-breasted roller, with its spectacular variety of colors, is one of the most-photographed birds in Africa. Indeed, he'll make a few appearances in this album.

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The tsessebe was less common than other antelopes, but this one - hanging out with some impala - let us get pretty close for pictures.

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A wattled crane wades among the lily pads. Easily identified by his wattle. Duh.

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This elephant is enjoying the cool water, and has clearly given himself a little shower. Here it looks like he's had enough of us and is zipping off to quieter parts.

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This elephant is much more tolerant of our presence, and slowly takes a drink from the pond.

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Another visit with the wild dogs, Merrie's favorite. The same pack as last time.

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Merrie takes a picture, or maybe 1000, of the wild dogs.

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Just like domestic dogs, these guys are quite curious, and walked right up to our truck.

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...close enough for another 1000 close-up pictures, in fact.

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This one is wearing a radio collar... the few remaining wild dogs are extensively tracked and studied by researchers.

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The wild dogs started a brief chase with this baboon, who headed quickly in the other direction.

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Dan looks up for a picture of a bird hanging out in a tree.

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Dan appears to be looking at a yellow-billed kite who has found himself a snack.

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Our second encounter with the wild dogs had them much more awake, as they headed off to hunt for the night.

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Here two of the pups wrestle. This was super-cute, and made us miss Zoe.

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Another elephant... seriously, if you had any idea how many pictures of elephants we took, you'd appreciate how few I put in this album.

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This leopard had a nice spot up in the trees, and he would be happy hanging out there until the sun set.

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Merrie has her sunglasses on to help her spot animals.

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Goodnight, lion. Hard to believe this adorable sleeping cat would kill you in about five seconds if you walked up to say hello.

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Another nice shot of a red-billed hornbill.

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Mmmmm, instant coffee and cookies. Mmmm.

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We saw quite a few ibis, and quite a few egret. Here a sacred ibis and a great egret enjoy some diverse company.

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By this time we had pretty much gotten used to the elephants, and Merrie looks much less stressed-out than she was during our first close encounters. There's a cute baby elephant just a few feet away... what could possibly go wrong?

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Ready to head off to Xigera - our second camp - we head to the airport (cleared-out sand pit) and climb into this luxury jet (crazy small prop plane).