They stand in stark contrast to the elephant-flattened surroundings. If having your morning coffee pilfered off the patio by baboons is about as close to nature as you'd care to get, don't go any farther into the wild than Chobe Chilwero. Mornings and evenings in the Okavango are taken up by safaris and escorted walks, the latter an African rarity but permitted in some parts of the Delta's Moremi Game Reserve . Ford gave pointers for identifying animal tracks and a few fascinating analyses of, for instance, the composition of giraffe dung. At nighttime when the lion roars sound as though they're coming from the tent next door, when the baboons start hurling pebbles at the canvas roof and the imagination careens wildly after a glass or two of Pimm's Cup well, it beats Girl Scout camp.
Chiefs is the shining jewel of the trip simply by virtue of the number of animals.
It was here that we spotted our leopard. The last morning featured a pride of about 15 lions stalking a wart hog and another pride munching on the remains of three zebra kills. After sunset cocktails, the drive back to the camp was interrupted by a pair of the big cats crossing our path very, very close by. We knew that where there were two lions, there were at least a dozen others, and so for ten minutes we sat perfectly still, seeing only blackness, simply listening to the silence and the slight rustle of wind through the grass as the pride moved on. Kent Inc. Oak Brook, Illinois.