Saturday February 18
Fell asleep to rainfall last night, interspersed with lions who kept getting closer and closer all night. They were in camp at least twice that I could tell. I heard a bit of huffing around my tent at 2:30 which I presumed was a cat of some sort (edit: Dido confirmed it was a hippo!). Then around 4 there was very loud lion roaring quite close to the tent. My closest neighbor confirmed it was between his tent and mine. There are worse reasons to lose sleep!
The Swiss couple and I were right on time for our 6 am departure with Benja. It’s still pitch dark at that time, so we have to be escorted from our tent to the vehicle. I would have thought with lions in the immediate vicinity shortly before we headed out that we’d go looking for them first (a bird in the hand, as they say) but instead we took off for the other side of the conservancy, driving about a half hour to an area where cheetahs were found yesterday. We came up empty on cheetah on your own and were lucky a guide from another camp told Benja there were lions right behind him, just ahead of where we were.
So that’s how we came to find the three lionesses of the Iseketa pride snoozing under the edge of a large cluster of croton bush. Benja said that they have four cubs but at this hour we didn’t see them. Two of the lionesses had fresh, still bleeding wounds (one on the neck, the other on the hip) so he was worried that there’d been a fight and the cubs had perished. He asked if we wanted to wait and see if, once the sun warmed things up a bit, the cubs would appear. Ummmm, of course!
We didn’t wait long until one lioness got up and went deeper into the croton bush, calling out to her charges…and out they came, four two-month old lion cubs. I was delighted! We spent about an hour watching them play, rough-house, attack each other and the lionesses, play with sticks, steal each others’ sticks, play with a lioness’ tail. It was all such great fun to see them so active, happy and playful. It’s what I’ve been waiting for, I think, since I left here 4 1/2 years ago!
The lioness with the wound on her neck seemed to need a break from mothering while she recovered from whatever happened last night. Any time a cub would try to play rough with her, she’s put a massive paw on its head and push it down, as if to say, “not now, kid, Mom needs a break.” Once the moms and kids started to settle down, we moved on to find the cheetahs.
It didn’t take long for another guide to point Benja in the direction of Keli and her three almost-adult cubs (two males and a female). We found them in the shade of a small acacia. They appeared recently fed; Benja said they made a kill yesterday. It looked like they were going to spend today sleeping it off, except we bumped into them again as we were nearing camp. The cattle that are allowed to graze here due to the drought had moved into the area we originally spotted them and the family moved away.
Bush breakfast was out on the plains under an acacia tree. I had homemade granola with homemade yogurt and a couple of thin crepes with coffee and OJ. It was a nice break around 9:30 am.
Right after that we tripped over Kiraposhe’s boys again. This time the lame one seemed more lame than yesterday with a more pronounced limp and hesitation in weight bearing on it. Benja says he is still improving and pulled up video from the original injury a month ago and it is indeed a lot better than the obvious pain he was in then. Benja says the uninjured brother is doing a good job looking after the injured one and is using his speed and ability to catch their prey while the injured one comes in to make the kill.
We were back at camp around 11:30, all in all a great morning. I reviewed my photos, mostly of the cubs and am thrilled with so many of them. Unfortunately this Sony RX10 seems to be on its way to biting the dust with a lens issue…I am just crossing fingers that it lasts through Wednesday! As much as I love the photos that I can get out of it, these problems are inexcusable especially given the price of the camera!
Lunch today was veggie burger, rainbow pepper cold salad, eggplant and tomato cold salad, rolls and a cheese board. Dessert was a mixed fruit salad with vanilla ice cream. I am really struggling with energy levels here, I think because I’m not getting enough (read: any) protein and carbs. I think they are interpreting “vegetarian” to mean that I only eat veggies. I am desperate for some black beans or a whole lot of cheese.
We headed out at 4:00 and it was downright sultry. Not as hot as up at Sarara but we were all eager to get moving and have some air blow around. Benja said the plan for tonight was to find an elusive leopard. There is a leopardess who recently had cubs and they’ve only seen the cubs once but…. We all said “YES” and off we went. I told him not to tease me.
Right out of camp we came across an elephant family about to cross through camp. We stopped to watch them for a bit. They tend to frequent this particular plot of land because of the species of acacia tree there, which they are very partial to. Indeed, a couple of the sub-adults actually pulled up huge branches of acacia and carried it off with them! Like it was a take-out restaurant! This herd had one tiny baby who was pretty cute and still getting used to having a trunk. Pulling up the rear was a massive bull elephant who was pretty pissed off about the herders cows who were moving into the area to graze, and apparently he’d tried to charge another vehicle so when Benja saw him coming, we got the heck out of there.
The area where leopards tend to be is usually somewhere that has somewhat dense undergrowth and trees. They like to hide low particularly if they have cubs and store their meals/kills high up in trees. We were very clearly in leopard territory and really scanning high and low. Thankfully another of our camp vehicles found her first, so we just piggybacked off their sighting.
In conservancies, the rule is the first four vehicles on the sighting get to stay, anyone who comes after must wait at a distance and swap out when one of the four leaves. And also in the conservancies, only those who are staying here can be here, so there are no day trippers. All this usually means that there is good behavior and not the madhouse that I’ve seen in the public reserve. Usually.
We were doing fine watching Akira (our leopard). There was no sign of cubs, which was more than fine because she was fine specimen and well worth shooting off about 200 photos as she sat there looking as dismissive of us as a cat normally would. She didn’t seem to love the passing motorbikes that locals use. One more of our camp’s vehicles showed up and all was still good. Then a fourth one with a jackass private guide and a renegade driver eager to impress him showed up and it got tense.
Akira suddenly decided to hunt. It literally came out of no where. She threaded her way between the four of our vehicles and headed toward a cluster of bushes that would provide her some cover from a small herd of impala, one of which was a tiny baby that should have been an easy kill.
Jackass’s vehicle went speeding after her. I think Benja was going to follow but I told him to stop and we’d catch up with her if/when she caught something. The other two vehicles looped around to the other side of her so if she kept going straight she’d go right at them. Benja followed them. Jackass pulled straight forward into the bushes where she was and sat there. Literally, right into it.
We waited it out and long story short the impala moved on. Then the hot pursuit for Akira began again and now other camps in the conservancy had heard so they showed up. We found her, almost back to where we originally found her. Who knows if she even attempted to hunt or turned back when all the vehicles started maneuvering around her. When the 7th vehicle showed up and pulled up near her, I asked to leave. We were way off from her, easily 40 yards, but I still felt like I didn’t want to be party to that. It was all fine and calm and respectful when it was just the first three of us. It soured me in the end but I did really appreciate the quiet time with her before it got ugly.
So, given that we saw lions, cheetah and leopards today, we accomplished a cat-trick! All three in one day.
About a half hour before sunset tonight, the sun was behind a thick bank of clouds and I wondered whether we’d see sunset at all. Suddenly a hole opened in that cloud bank and a gorgeous set of sun rays poured over the plains. It was majestic and heavenly. It made me think that maybe Dad was here with me, it was quite a show.
Sundowner tonight was on the plains watching the sun go down behind an acacia tree. Pretty iconic.
Driving back to camp my long-running streak of seeing no snakes came to an end. Just outside of camp there was something very long (easily 3 feet) and silvery white trying to cross the road. Benja slowed to a stop to let it cross, and I looked forward to see why he stopped and I got a quick look before I could look away. “Is that what I think it is?” And he laughed. UGH. He told me to pretend it was just a lizard without legs. UGH. UGH. UGH.
Dinner tonight was a tomato soup, a three bean quiche (hallelujah!! PROTEIN!), broccoli, carrots, potatoes au gratin and a rhubarb crisp for dessert.
I’m all packed for tomorrow. We’re doing the early game drive and then I’ll come back and transfer to Valley Camp for my last 3 nights.
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