Back in Mara North

Thursday, November 8

As much as I absolutely adored my game drives the last three days, being out all day with no break is a killer.  We’d leave at 6:15 a.m. and come in close to 7:00 p.m.  I loved every minute of it but last night I was nodding off during dinner.  I excused myself at the first opportunity I got and went to bed at 9:30.  I woke a little before 4 a.m. feeling fine but then drifted off again until 5:30 when I woke just before the alarm clock went off.  There was next to no noise here to keep me awake so I probably slept more soundly than I did at Ping’s camp.  I heard lions but quite a ways off in the distance a few times but not close enough to wake me or keep me awake.

I’m suffering a bit of Ping withdrawal today.  Every day with him had an air of excitement and anticipation to it.  I loved riding shotgun with him up front, with three sides around me open to the elements (sun included, my dermatologist may disown me).  I need to start to interpret the stay here at Offbeat as a separate and distinct event rather than see it as an extension of or comparison to my time at Enaidura.  But it’s tough.  Ping is the safari equivalent of mainlining heroine.  I miss that.

Anyway...we met at the vehicle and I filled my metal water bottle for the day.  I think in addition to exhaustion yesterday I’m also dehydrated.  I’m going to try to knock that out today if I can so that I stay healthy and sane.

We headed out and first checked on the dense bush where the guides had seen newborn lion cubs last week.  They didn’t see them there yesterday and now not today (we checked twice) so we’re convinced now that the lioness moved them.  We’re also more convinced that the lioness that passed my tent yesterday is that one and the cubs are between my tent and the staff quarters.  I’m more than happy to babysit should the need arise....

Next up was looking for the leopards that we didn’t find last night.  It wasn’t long before the other vehicle out of camp spotted them and let us know.  This is resident female leopard Nalangu and an unknown male.  (Nalangu is the mother of Rana, the leopard treed by lions the last time I was here). It was right around where we thought they were last night, so we were not far off.  They weren’t actively mating but were walking across the valley towards some thick undergrowth and an attractive-to-leopards acacia tree.  The light was the perfect golden hour and at one point both leopards were walking right at me.  The grass is a bit of a challenge but I’m happy enough with what I got.

Kappen then spotted a lone lioness walking through some tall grass.  She seemed to be vocalizing and at first they thought that this was either Leah or Lucinda and that she was calling to her cubs.  She seemed fat and happily fed.  Nearby we spotted the cubs running toward her, but she growled and ran from them, settling near us and hiding from them.  She definitely did not want any part of these cubs.  It turns out that she was a sub-adult of the Offbeat Pride, so she would have been one of the cubs I saw here in February 2017.  The cubs continued on running, looking for their mom.  Through the binos I could see that they had round bellies and blood on their faces, so they too had eaten recently.  They went off to hide in some bushes.  Other guests here told me that they were reunited with their mothers later.  Phew!

We saw a couple of lionesses off in the hills hunting on their own, but not close enough to pursue.  The big, cohesive prides just don’t exist here any more.  Since Frank and Jesse were kicked out, other males have spread themselves too thin across the remaining prides, and I guess one of those pride males recently died so that leaves more work for the one remaining.  What was the River Pride when I was last here left the area.  The Acacia Pride then split and formed a new River Pride in the same territory.  All of the prides are in such small numbers, single-digits even.  It seems like a very unstable situation with no sign of it ending.

Driving along, David spotted a hyena chasing a mother topi and her baby.  They were going at top speed and the mother was doing well keeping between the hyena and the baby.  They were really moving!  Finally the mother led the baby over near some shepherds and a flock of sheep.  They figured they’d be safe there, and for the moment, they were.  The hyena retreated back down the hill toward us.  Then the shepherds’ dogs started to chase the topi and baby.  So another chase ensued.  This time the dogs drove the topi pair right into the path of the hyena.  With that, there is one less baby topi in the world.

Further on, we were looking in River Pride territory hoping to see some of those lions.  David got a tip from Kicheche guide and followed it, getting us to a dense area of tall grass with short acacias.  Five lionesses and one cub were split up and sleeping under a few of the acacias.  Even sleeping, they’re not cohesive at all.  Apparently yesterday there were two cubs but one was killed somehow during the night.

After the lion sighting we were traveling along and found an elderly female elephant and a calf of maybe 5 years old I’d say, browsing in the shade.  We pulled up next to them to watch and both mother and calf came right over to the vehicle.  I recorded a minutes’ worth of video of the calf browsing right next to me. It was both slightly anxiety-producing and soothing at the same time.  To be so close to an amazing creature is a gift but also potentially harrowing.  The female seemed distressed and very thin.  David thinks she’s had a run in with humans of some sort and is very anxious now. The calf seemed better in temperament.  That’s the second time on this trip I’ve seen elephants that are upset by an encounter with humans.

Right after we looked for the newborn lion cubs again, we crossed a dry river bed where there was a herd of elephants.  I stood up and watched through the roof, snapping some shots.  My camera is starting to misbehave which I think is due to all the dust here.  I’m going to have to send it to be cleaned, I just hope it makes it through this trip first!

Breakfast this morning was out on the savannah, with coffee, eggy bread (French toast) and a great vegetable fritter that they made for me.  I also had yogurt and some granola and a hard boiled egg.  This at 9:45 and we had lunch at 1:00!  That was good too, vegetable kabobs, tomato and avocado salad and beet and mandarin orange salad.  Banana cream pie for dessert.  They’re spoiling me here.

I settled down for a siesta around 2, hoping to continue to catch up on some sleep!

The afternoon game drive got underway after I took a 40 minute nap.  I can see I’m settling into the siesta routine nicely.  We weren’t more than 90 seconds outside of camp when a young bull elephant caught our eye so we stopped to watch him.  Behind him, however, was a herd of topi all with laser sharp focus in one direction, which begs investigating.  So off we went.  Kappen went up through the roof, so I knew he meant business.  There were no tell-tale signs of large cats, so David thought perhaps it was a serval, which had me salivating since I’ve never seen one.  We looked for a while, hoping to see something to confirm or deny through the tall grass, and came up empty.  

We carried on for a while, turning out attentions back to finding the cheetah brothers who have been spotted here and are believed to be Malaika’s last cubs.  They had been here for a while but moved out of the conservancy but David heard from a ranger that they are back.  He stopped at one point to question a little boy shepherding a bunch of goats and the boy said he’d just seen two cheetah, so David decided that what the topi saw just outside of camp was the cheetah pair, since it was close by and in that direction.  All this taking place in front of my tent!

The rest of the drive was productive only in that we found another Offbeat sub-adult lioness who was calling out to the others.  David heard from another guide that the males who’d been ruling Offbeat were back in the area, so we tried hard to find them and came up short.  After a gin and tonic sundowner we headed back to camp, spotting two bull elephants sparring just as we got within view of camp.

I had a dawa at the bar with the young honeymoon couple from England.  We were talking with one of the managers, Steven.  Dinner tonight was butternut squash soup, some sort of spicy vegetable dish with spinach, mushrooms and zucchini, warm beet salad and mashed potatoes (the meat eaters had pork).  Dessert, though, was the best part: sticky toffee pudding!  It was so good.  I had amarula for an after-dinner drink.  I’m comfortably full now and feeling fine.  My Facebook photography friend leaves early tomorrow, so I’ll be alone with David for the morning game drive.  Up early so off to sleep now.