Senyati Lodge, 9/9/11 (Day 5)

Elephant, hyena, lion and jackal all voiced their opinion through the night. One of the hyena that we hear at night has such a funny call - he sounds like a little boy making ghost noises; the cadence rising and falling. Likewise the "resident" jackal has a very off key, hoarse, flat cry.
Quite cold from about 4am onwards, had to put blanket on my bed. Soon warms up when the sun rises, though.
Went off to Chobe this morning. En route it was very strange to see cows, goats and dogs intermingled with elephant!
We weren't in Chobe park for 30 minutes when we went down in the thick sand. Luis had to brave the wild and deflate tyres. A little piggy watched all these proceedings with some amusement:

When he eventually crossed over the road, he sunk up to his belly in the sand!
We soon got going again and had some lovely sightings, including sable and puku:

Spent the afternoon on the deck playing putt putt (iPad) and chatting to Christo. He's the park manager and will be taking Luis tiger fishing on Saturday.
It's a nightly occurrence for the Ellie to come to the waterhole from about 5ish onwards, then throughout the night. Watched them for a long time (until we went to bed) - the hierarchy was incredibly interesting to witness. More noticeable, I suppose, because of the assorted herds involved.
A herd of cattle (at first glance I thought it was buffalo) tried to sneak a drink but were chased away. I felt sorry for them, to be so close to water and then it's snatched away, but .... I suppose us tourists want to see wild stuff and not cows!