Safari Stories - PDA's

I thought a PDA was a Personal Digital Assistant, admittedly before everyone was carrying smartphones and tablets.

However Bale - our Guide at Lebala - explained that in his terms this meant Potentially Dangerous Animals and in particular Lions, Leopards, bull Elephants and Hippos.

We managed to encounter them all during the trip although the leopards proved the most elusive. We spent an hour or so tracking the resident female Leopard on the Kwando concession around Lebala but only managed to chance upon one of her adult cubs - a young female who looked hungry and had an open wound on her nose.

Watched her trying to pounce on an unsuspecting Guinea Fowl without success and debated her chances of surviving if her hunting did not improve.

Most of our Elephant encounters were benign but we did come across one large male in musth who decided we were in his way.

Of course our guide and tracker were some way ahead of his thought processes so there was never any real threat even if we felt differently. Generally they treated us with the same disdain as the lions.

Hippos were much more unpredictable - especially if they were out of the water grazing. This fellow was keen to take on the truck until the guide showed how much noise the engine could make.

He was big enough and loud enough but decided to get back in his pond and shout at us from there.