Plush with lions

Friday, November 9

Another solid night’s sleep.  Nothing woke me except the need to pee at 2:45 a.m.  I sat and listened to the Mara for a while but it gave me no reason to stay awake.  I woke again at 5:30 ready to start the day.

David and I headed out at 6:30 as Kappen was taking my vehicle mate from the first two days to the airstrip.  We started by looking for the cheetah brothers which we think are now nearby again.  It was slow going for a while, so I started paying attention to the plains game more.  While there are enormous numbers of wildebeest left from the migration which was very wonky this year, there are also large numbers of topi and especially baby topi.  It’s very surprising how many there are.  Coke’s hartebeest are on the decline, however, and that really shows in their numbers.

Finally we came upon two of the new Offbeat males with an Acacia lioness.  David says that the four Offbeat males are starting to spread themselves too thin and leaving the Offbeat Pride alone runs the risk of having that pride taken over by nomad males when they’re not looking.  Nevertheless, these two lions were in early honeymoon phase where the male is still playing hard to get.  The lesser dominant male was just snoozing nearby.

I thought maybe we’d have a David Attenborough moment when all of a sudden a hippo was approaching the trio.  I don’t think the hippo saw the lion until it was quite close, but the lion saw the hippo...and didn’t budge.  The distance between them was no more than three vehicle lengths, which was incredibly close.  None of the lions were at all bothered, the lioness stayed asleep in fact.  So any hopes I had of capturing some sort of interaction were scuppered when the hippo went face forward into a bush and stayed there.

We moved on from there to the area along the river where David said the River Pride used to be found all the time.  Now that it’s without a male (the Offbeat boy’s chased it off) it seems that the pride is scattered and confused.  We drove in and out of nooks and crannies around the riverbed and then I got the spot, two young cubs lying on the side of the river.  We pulled up and David said they are about 6 weeks old and quite thin.  His hunch was that they’d been abandoned by the mother.  Possibly either Cape buffalo or male lions threatened the pride and the adults fled.  The mother of these two likely thinks they didn’t survive.  David said either a buffalo or a Marshall eagle will get to them if the mother doesn’t come back for them.  It is sad but it’s also survival of the fittest.  If the mother doesn’t have the skills or the willpower to instill survival skills into these guys, they likely won’t grow up to be strong independent lions.  David was going to call a ranger but I’m not sure the right thing to do would be to help them, as much as that is my initial impulse.

Our next sighting wasn’t that far off, it was more of the River Pride, 5 lionesses and 6 cubs between 3 and 6 months.  They seemed to be coexisting nicely as they slept among the short bushes.  One lioness was apart from the rest and David thought that is the mother of the two cubs we just saw.  I wanted to poke her and tell her to go get her babies.  Anyway, we watched the lions interact a bit.  One lioness groomed another but for the most part they just slept, so we moved on.

I got another spot of my own without the help of David or Kappen.  There was a “hidden in plain sight” hyena off in the distance.  Even when I pointed and explained, it still took David a bit to see it.  I’m finally getting my game-viewing eyes back, only in time to leave!

Our last sighting was very similar to the first of the day, the other two Offbeat males and an Aacacia female, another early honeymooning pair.   These two were about as snoozy as the first pair, so we left them with a thought to come back later to see if they are mating.

I talked to David about perhaps staying out midday to try to find the cheetah.  He didn’t seem keen on it but I would have if he did.  Instead we’re going to skip tea at 4 and head straight out.  I hope that gives us a good amount of time to see what we can find before sundowners.  I’ll be alone with them on tonight’s drive before other guests join tomorrow.

Lunch today was all vegetarian: homemade linguini with sauce, a bean salad, roasted veggies and watermelon with mint for dessert.  I washed it down with a Stoney Tangawizi and a glass of rose.  I could get used to this!

The afternoon drive was successful in that we saw lions.  We checked on both sets of almost-mating Offbeat males and their Acacia females.  The first one was definitely not interested in mating yet and were sound asleep. The second pair was more awake but that was more due to the wind picking up and the temperature dropping as a very light rain set in (it lasted all of 2 minutes, for all its hellacious looking clouds!). The male sniffed the female’s rear and decided he wasn’t yet interested and she wasn’t showing any flirtation so maybe she wasn’t ready yet either.  Eventually she set off into the field in hunting mode where we left her.  She had her eyes on wildebeest and topi originally but several vehicles following her closely blew her cover.  David thought she would just hunker down in the tall grass until night fell.

It’s interesting to hear how the Maasai (like David and Kappen) predict weather.  They’ve been saying for 2 days now that the weather is going to change.  It’s that the clouds are getting thick, or that the wind is picking up or that the animals are sitting down more.  In any event, rain is coming according to them, although they always says tomorrow, and it hasn’t really happened yet.  I just hope it holds out one more day so I can get some good drives in before I leave.  I know they need the rain but I want to finish this safari strong!

The honeymooners were off having a bush dinner, so I was with the family that came in yesterday.  It ended up being a lively conversation mostly about politics, but it was cathartic in that we at least shared the same political views.  That’s enough to unite anyone.

Dinner tonight was really good. The starter was roasted eggplant on toast with a feta/yogurt/mint side.  The main was eggplant stuffed with spinach and parmesan, couscous, carrots and zucchini.  Dessert was an Amarula panna cotta, which was wonderful.  And me with a dawa pre-dinner drink, rose with dinner and Amarula after dinner drink.  This is truly life.

Up for one more day of drives tomorrow.  I’ll be with the honeymooners as their guide is needed elsewhere in the morning.