For many Safari veterans the pangolin is a mystical animal. They are rare, secretive and difficult to spot. Unfortunately their numbers are decreasing even further because in China they are considered a delicacy and their scales are believed to have medicinal qualities. As they are nocturnal, they normally sleep, curled up in a ball, during daytime. Therefor we feel lucky for having seen one...
Some guides will tell you, buffalos are not very intelligent and have a very bad memory. True or not, they seem to know how to put up a defense against predators. Of course they use their horns and a well placed kick can be deadly for a lion. But even before it comes to that, they have all kinds of defense tactics to protect themselves. This segment of a Phanhabs illustrations shows buffalos on...
Hippos will go through a lot of trouble to prevent sunburn. Often you will find them piled into the last remaining ponds of water, where they will keep on spraying their dung. The result is often a bad-tempered, loud and smelly scene. This Phanhabs illustration was inspired by a different kind of hippo pool. It is located in the North Luangwe, a very remote national Park in Zambia. We stayed...
Thinking back ... After a long day of picture-taking and beating the dust on bumpy roads, this was heaven. The guys were practicing their fly-fishing (an art, I understand) and I enjoyed my Gin & Tonic. Unfortunately swimming was not part of the deal, because the crocodiles in the Zambezi are mean. On our way out, a hippo attacked us. Maybe it was taking a nap on the riverbed and we woke it, by...
It was time for our morning coffee-stop. We found ourselves a nice shady tree and made our bush latte. Suddenly an elephant appeared out of nowhere. We froze, the elephant came closer. He checked us out and then decided to have a mud-bath just in front of us. The picture of him throwing the mud, I used for one of the Phanhabs illustrations. I think, we were all impressed by this bush latte...
"Leopards climb trees, lions stay on the ground", is what many safari guides will tell you. Not on the Busanga Plains, in Zambia! Our first encounter with that behavior was in 2009. We were traveling with a group of family and friends. My mother in law was still getting used to the idea of driving around wild animals in an open car. We had just been picked up from the airstrip and on the way to...
InterRailing during my student days gave me the travel bugs. Together with my boyfriend - by now my husband - we traveled around the world for 6 months as soon as I finished my studies. Patagonia, hiking in the Andes, bungee jumping in New Zealand, diving on the Great Barrier Reef, banana pancakes in Indonesia, ... and we have traveled since. About 15 years ago we went to see "the big zoo", as...
