We have had the privilege of seeing many animals on our safari. Keep checking for a post with our best pictures, but there was only one experience that qualifies as a close encounter. We had been warned that evening scavengers might visit our campsites at night. Indeed, one did.
One evening, we were relaxing by the fire, only one hour after the sun went down. We had made the mistake of leaving our trash bag out on the picnic table in camp. We heard a clatter and saw a shadow steal the trash bag. We thought it was either a baboon or a hyena! We were nervous and retreated to our truck where we waited awhile. After seeing nothing, we came back out and saw that the trash bag had only been knocked to the ground. We put it in the proper receptacle and returned to the fire.
A few minutes later we heard another noise, turned our heads and saw a full grown hyena loping through camp!! He was probably only 6 feet away from us and the fire! Needless to say, we were a little scared! Granted, he looked quite startled as well as we pointed our flashlights at him. We did decide to retreat to the car again though… The whole thing was too fast for a photo, unfortunately!
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Very exciting indeed. How big was he?
Quite big I thought!! Much bigger than a dog. Maybe as tall as my waist!!
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