Monday February 20
Today I got my groove back. Yesterday I was disappointed for a few reasons I won’t elaborate on here, but I think the tone of yesterday’s post might have revealed some frustrations.
Minnie the camp manager here at my last camp is wonderful. Such a gentle, sweet, endearing woman. She runs a tight ship but no detail is overlooked and nothing is too much to ask. I mentioned I had two bug bites that had not been responding to hydrocortisone and were driving me crazy. She quickly turned up with something stronger that, thankfully, seems to have eradicated them miraculously.
I slept amazingly well with that front tent flap wide open. It was the perfect sleeping temperature and even cool enough to pull the duvet up and snuggle in. I didn’t hear too much noise except for either a buffalo or hippo munching grass around the tent. Just a soft chewing and gentle footstep.
Out we went at 6 am. We headed back up to the plain where we had the sundowner last night and stumbled across the honeymooning lions and his brother. (Brothers will stick together, even when a female mates with he dominant one. The brother was wandering around nearby both time we’ve seen them). The couple were asleep but the non-mating brother was walking. Twala positioned me exactly for the big maned male to be heading directly at me. Then he looped around and set me up again. And again. And again. Man, if I don’t get some good shots out of that attempt, I’m hopeless. Twala also told me I could open the door to the jeep and lie flat to be almost ground level with him, but I just couldn’t do it. For once, fear got the best of me.
We then went back up to the honeymooners and watched them do their thing a few times in the golden light just after sunrise. They’re still going at it every 5-7 minutes or so.
Next we came upon a small herd of elephants that had a matriarch and a few of her daughters, and the tiniest wild elephant I think I’ve seen. It’s ears were still folded flat across the top of its head, so that puts it at less than a few weeks old (Twala is actually teaching me a lot, I did not know that!). At one point the little one fake charged the vehicle and it was so cute…like, all the fierceness it could muster with wide ears and trunk up. Too funny. And I love watching how even at this young age, when it’s a long ways from eating greens instead of mother’s milk, it is mimicking what the others do, scuffing up clumps of grass to then pick up with a trunk. It was scuffing already and also reaching into bushes with its trunk but not pulling anything off. Nature is pretty amazing.
Our next lion sighting was three lionesses and three 5 month old cubs from the Enesikiria pride. They were walking through grass mid morning, and I didn’t realize why they were so shifty until I saw a large herd of buffalo passing by. The lionesses hustled the cubs under bushes. One stayed with them, another was on guard near them and a third lioness took the front line on a small hill in front of them, watching as the buffalo paraded past. Some would stop and stare the lioness down, and her ears would flatten and she’d crouch a little lower, just like my Maisie does when she’s staring down a squirrel at our back door.
One of the little cubs has a lame front paw. When it runs it is not weight bearing at all, which is of course incredibly sad to me. I offered to take it home to do rehab. Hopefully it is just a soft tissue injury that will heal over time, and the moms can keep them safe until it does. Twala said that two of the lioness had cubs at about the same time for a total of five cubs and they’ve lost two to buffalos, so that would explain why they were very twitchy around them.
Breakfast this morning was out in the bush today. I was surprised when Twala stopped where he did, because we were right in the middle of a whole lot of game: topi, hartebeest, zebra, giraffe, impala, jackal, warthog. None would threaten us, but I’ve just not been that close to so many at once on foot. Most of them gradually edge away from us and stood to stare from a safe (for them) distance. However, the giraffes were more curious. Each of us used the bush bathroom (just going behind a large bush near the vehicle that Twala first inspects for hidden predators/snakes and gives us the all clear). Each of us went in turn, and it was fascinating and hilarious to watch the giraffes watch us do our business. I looked over at one point and she was staring at me, not chewing, not moving, as if to say “so THAT’S how you humans do that!” After the initial performance anxiety from having an audience, all was well. But hey how many people can say that a giraffe has watched them pee?
Bush breakfast this morning was quite good, vegetarian scotch egg (yay PROTEIN!) and pancakes with coffee and juice. It was very good. The Swiss couple told me the food is better here and I have to agree with them so far.
We spent some time at the hippo pool again watching them submerge and pop up again, showing varying degrees of ears/eyes/nostrils each time. The weaver birds weren’t going nuts over the pool like they were yesterday, so it was fun to just watch the hippo bloat float.
Returned to camp to a nice tall iced coffee. I haven’t had this since home and boy do I miss it! I am reaching the point when I’m starting to miss some creature comforts. I could do with my hydrating face masks right about now for how painfully dry my face is from all the sunblock. And I really miss my cats, who I think of every time I’m watching lions.
Not sure what’s in store for this afternoon. The couple I’m sharing a vehicle with have not seen a leopard so I’m sure Twala will find one. I’m perfectly fine with all the lions, since those are my thing.
Lunch today was carrot and chick pea soup, vegetarian cannelloni and Amarula (like Bailey’s Irish Cream) mousse. Heavenly!! I sat with and hung out for a while with Nina and Marie, the cousins from NYC who are leaving today. It was fun to chat with other like minded wildlife and photography folks.
A couple of follow-up notes….
The snake I saw the other night (ending my streak of no snakes on safari) was a spitting cobra. I would, allegedly, have been alright as long as I didn’t show the snake my eyes….
The pregnant cheetah we saw with her impala lunch yesterday was Kulete. Interestingly she is the sister of Kweli, the cheetah with 3 sub-adult cubs we saw a few days ago, and the daughter of Amani, my favorite of all cheetahs in the Mara. So I’ve now seen all of Amani’s litters: Karembo in 2014, Imani in 2016, Kisaru and Busara in 2017 and Kweli and Kuleti now. Pretty cool.
Well the afternoon drive was one of those things I would never have thought I’d ever see. There are just encounters that you never think will happen while you’re watching. I’ve actually seen this play out on nature tv shows, but it was far more hair raising in person. Twala quickly found what we thought were just a couple lionesses lounging aside a riverbed. Turns out it is the Sampu Enkare pride, which is 30 or so lions strong. They were pretty spread out among the bushes though, which would quickly become obvious to us.
As we watched these two lionesses, my vehicle mate Kevin said he heard rustling in the bushes across from us. Twala didn’t think so. But the lionesses both rose and went directly into the bush, so Twala followed them. What they, and we, encountered was a very old elderly grouchy Cape buffalo coming at them (and us) through the bushes. It didn’t register whether the buffalo saw them at that point, but the lionesses knew he was there and hid deeper into the bush. The buffalo passed the bush with the lions in it, but paused. Then one lioness came out and followed him, quickly realizing he was closer than she thought, and she ducked for cover, just before he realized he was being followed. So he stood there, staring just at the branches she was behind, with another lioness deeper into the bush making way towards him.
The buffalo finally turned and continued eating along the riverbank. The two lionesses boldly came out of the bushes and sat like two sphinxes about 40 feet behind him. He turned and stared them down while they stared back. And then the calvary arrived. Four other lions appeared out of no where and spaced out in a 50 foot circle around this buffalo who was now basically trapped between them and the river…and our vehicle was in the center of the circle! If any hunt at all had occurred, we’d have been front and center, literally!
The lions continued to stare and the buffalo continued to ignore them while he ate and walked away. It was all very intense! I think we all wanted something to go on, but were also nervous about our position if it did.
The lions retreated back into the bushes and we moved on.
Next up we came across a big tusker (50+ year old male elephant with massive tusks) as he lumbered across the plains on his own. We followed him for a bit and then caught up with him again as he met up with 10-member elephant herd. He was really just checking the females to see if any were ready to mate, and once he ascertained that there weren’t any, he turned and left. We hung with the herd for a bit, watching their two little babies and just listening to how quiet they are when they eat.
We then came upon another dozen or so lions from Sampu Enkare pride. They were sort of flaked out across an area we were driving through, so we stopped to watch them. They all moved closer together to create a big pile of lions, which was great and all, but what was really very cool to see and hear was their pride male started roaring for them across the valley. They all stopped what they were doing and looked in the direction of the roars, got up and made their way to him. We followed them through the bush the best we could until they got deep into it. Twala of course was positioning me for some great photography. As much as I don’t want to go home I’m really anxious to see how all these came out.
We had our sundowner on the plain again. It had been sprinkling on and off during the drive and was pretty overcast when the sun did go down, but we still managed to squeak it out.
Dinner tonight for me was a baked eggplant appetizer, red snapper in paprika sauce with potatoes and carrots and a fruit cheesecake for dessert. Then, because it was my vehicle-mates’ 41st wedding anniversary, there was cake, champagne and a performance by the camp staff who sang Hakuna Matata and a Kenyan song about blessings to them. It was really sweet.
I’ve added another member of the indoor chameleon club today. There was a tiny one on the screen when I came in from dinner. As long as they deal with the bugs, they can stay.
Tomorrow is my last full day here and I’m pretty bummed about it, but also really want to see my kids and family, and have a facial of some sort for how ridiculously dry my face is!
I’ve just turned out the light and am listening to what I’m pretty sure is either a hippo or buffalo right outside the tent. I will miss this….
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