Blessings

 20 Jan 2024

Another good night of sleep with the tent flaps open.  No noises to speak of though Twala says he heard a pride of lions to the northwest.  I woke at 5:15 to get ready and by 5:30 heard gentle rain falling on the deck.  I checked Accuweather radar and it looked to be a small batch of showers that would end by 6:30 and indeed that was the case.  Twala rolled the plastic coverings off the side windows of the Land Rover shortly after.

We headed in the direction of the lions he heard.  Passing other vehicles en route he conferred with other guides to see what they’d seen or heard since they’d been out early too.  In a word: nothing.  At least no cats.  I even felt that plains game was really light too, and it’s hard to say why.  We made a big loop and came back around to cheetah Nashipae and her cubs, who were a bit more active than yesterday since they’d eaten but were about to lapse into their first nap of the day.  We stayed a bit longer until we realized there’d be no more action from them for a while, and then moved on.

As the sky started to clear there was more activity but still no lions.  Twala was scouring the territories of a couple of prides and we finally came across one lone lioness of the Ilksiausiau pride sitting by a bush.  She was annoyed by flies around her, so eventually she got up and moved deeper into a bush, so we left to look for something more.

There was an inter-troop territory dispute between two troops of vervet monkeys that was kind of fun to watch.  A lot of posturing and stepping over some imaginary line that was completely unacceptable to the other side.  Eventually one side pushed the other side back and all went their separate ways.

It was also neat to happen upon a newly born wildebeest.  Since the placenta still hadn’t dropped from the mom, Twala reckoned it was less than 10 minutes old.  It was already on its feet and sticking very close to mom as it continued to find its footing.  It can walk within 3 minutes and run within 7 minutes of birth.  Good thing because it’s move or become someone’s lunch here.

The sun was out and the skies turning blue by the time we had bush breakfast.  I shed my raincoat and was comfortable in short-sleeves the rest of the drive.  My vehicle mate departs today at lunchtime so it’s just me and Twala for the afternoon game drive.

Lunch today was a cold avocado and cucumber soup which was quite good (and I don’t like cucumber!).  The main was veggie lasagna and a tomato, onion and mango salad.  I wish I could cut matchstick veggies like they do, it looks so uniform and tidy!  Dessert was a slab of chocolate brownie with a peppermint ice cream….Dad would have loved that as much as I did!  Mike the manager ate with me today now that my vehicle mate has moved on and he was delightful to talk to.  It’s interesting to hear how he got into doing the interim manager work and all the camps he’s been to in Kenya.  Really nice guy.

I’ve already packed most everything for tomorrow, so I can just relax the rest of today’s siesta and be ready for leaving.  Sniff…

<much, much later on….>

Well then, remember all that karma I built up earlier this week with that cheetah hunt I missed out on….yes, this is where it all comes back to me.  Today’s afternoon game drive could not have ended this trip any better.  But dang it all, why are the last days always the best days?  Kenya keeps dangling a carrot, “come back, Amy!”

Twala and I headed out at 4:00.  He’d been doing some research during the break and had a general idea where the Ilksiausiau pride was now. This is one of the larger prides and one I saw last February when it was much larger (it is now broken into two and has new pride males, the Maja ya Fisi males Bully and Limpy).  

So on we drive, chatting and stopping to watch a big mob of banded mongoose and a lilac breasted roller.  Then we came upon three female giraffes, one of which I thought was being curious about us stopping to watch them.  I said out loud “look how curious she is” and Twala said “maybe she sees something behind us.”  He started up the Land Rover again and moved maybe 30 yards down the road and on the right he saw a lioness lounging up against a bush.  “Lioness,” he said as he stopped.  And then I heard it.  The unmistakable little chirp of lion cubs.  

“LION CUBS,” I said.  And he had the Land Rover in gear before I even got the words out.  He circled behind the bush where the first lioness was and we saw that in the bush next to hers was a second lioness with three tiny 2 month old cubs.  This was the lioness we saw with the failed impala hunt last night.  Twala had thought she’d lost her cubs, but here they were!  And she’d delivered a zebra kill, the remains of which were lying between them in the bush and me.

I could just about make out the cubs as they tried to coax their mother to let them nurse, but she was having none of that. She was panting heavily and clearly was not in the mood.  Struggling to take photos through the bush branches as well as over a gory, exposed zebra carcass was a challenge, but I got one finally when a curious little cub peeked over the carcass.  I’ll crop it well so you’ll hardly know.

The sighting would be a bit of a challenge unless they cubs came out and by now the other camp vehicle was just arriving, so cute as these cubs were, I gave up our spot to go find something else.  That’s always a risk because on safari a bird in the hand is usually always better.  Usually.

Now we were back to heading to where the rangers had told Twala the big pride was.  They’d seen them in their territory just that afternoon and it was still only around 4:30 so plenty of time before the heat of the day subsided and they get active.  We made several passes around where we thought they might be, to no avail.  Twala was busily trying to reach the rangers again while driving, so I was doing the best I could to help scan the bushes around us.  When we reached the end of the territory, there were two huge herds of cattle that a local was herding back home for the day.  If lions are around, they won’t come out with all those cattle there. I saw vehicles off in the distance and we investigated and it was the rangers and another camp vehicle, and they confirmed the pride was in the bushes there and mostly asleep.

So we decided to head to the cheetah with cubs again to see if they were up and more active than this morning. They were more awake certainly but not necessarily more active.  I got a few shots off while Twala was scanning the horizon with binoculars.  Quite a ways off in the distance coming down a hill toward where we were was a big male lion.  I don’t know how on earth Twala saw that, but he asked if I wanted to check out the male, which was likely heading for the big pride in the bushes.  Of course!!  I could hardly believe my luck, imagine having so many options it was difficult to decide what to do!

We managed to get just ahead of this big boy as he crossed the plain, clearly a cat on a mission.  Looping around the bushes and circling back to the pride who were now just starting to awaken, we were the second vehicle at the sighting. The rangers were still monitoring the vehicle volume around them.  They would allow no more than 5 vehicles at a time and not let anyone hog their spot.  This is great for the lions but obviously I wanted to sit and stay.  No worries, we swapped out and had our sundowner as we waited our turn to get back on the sighting, not bad at all.

Initially Twala told me there were 4 lionesses and 4 cubs asleep in the bushes.  That would have been a great score on its own.  But the longer we sat there, the more cats came out of those bushes.  The pride male we saw crossing the plain showed up, but then a second male (these are the Maji ya Fisi males who took over this pride in December, I think) and then at least 7 cubs total that I could count and 8 lionesses!  How on earth did I manage this?  And what an amazing lion sighting after a bit of a drought here in the Mara. I was worried earlier today that I’d “only” seen 7 lions since I’ve been here, but today added another 30 to that tally.  Phew!!

What was interesting sitting there watching them was that there was some turmoil and drama going on in the bushes.  Twala thinks they may have caught something in there or brought a kill in because there was clearly some fighting going on, one cub had some blood on itself and another cub was spotted carrying something around, presumably a piece of a carcass.  We never saw what was in those bushes that kept them so on edge.  It was an interesting dynamic anyway, to see lionesses and cubs moving in and out of those bushes and dealing with whatever skirmish was going on in there.

My other observation that was concerning was one lioness was heaving or spasming every 3 seconds.  I thought at first she had a furball coming up (because I have vast experience with that at home!) but Twala said she’d been doing this for 6 months now.  I felt horrible for her but she did not seem to be terribly hampered by it.  She looked otherwise healthy.  I asked if rangers would do anything about it and he only said that they were aware. Hmmm.

So I got to sit for about an hour as other vehicles peeled away to go back to camp for dinner.  It was well past daylight when I could take photos but it was just nice to be there with all these lions.  In the dying of the light, the lionesses all got up one by one and headed across the plains.  Twala thought for sure they were going to hunt.

Meanwhile the sky was turning black and not just from lack of daylight.  The storms were building again, and I could see lightning bolts in three different directions.  I was hoping to make it back to camp before a deluge started, and we just made it.  When the sky ripped open it came lashing down.  When I caught up with Joyce in the mess area she said “rain brings blessings.  In Kenya we are blessed when it rains.”   How true that is.

The Askari walked me to the mess area and I decided to hang out there until dinner or until the rain stopped.  It lightened up a bit but never really stopped.  That didn’t happen before dinner, so I just stayed and ate with Mike the manager again.  I met a couple from Newfoundland who were also long-time Bruins fans, so we swapped some stories about the good old days.

Dinner tonight was french onion soup, a stuffed pepper with mashed potato for me (the rest of the group had beef), a cheese plate and a mango profiterole.  It was a nice end to the day.

As I sit here at 11:20 pm, I am satisfied, happy, energized and over the moon at how my day and indeed my safari ended.  I have been blessed by the safari gods here in Kenya once again.  I still have one game drive left with Twala, but anything now is just a bonus.  I can’t imagine how we could improve on today.