A day of nostalgia

24 Jan 2025 - Friday

I’m trying not to focus on today being my last full day on safari.  But I was up before 5 am so I got dressed and started to pack, that way I won’t have to use time during the midday break or after dinner to do it.  Wah….

I slept well and am hearing the hippos less each night.  I wonder if I’ll miss them when I go back to the silence of home?  Of course though, I miss my bed buddies and look forward to getting back to our nightly routine (bed buddies being my cats, for those who don’t know…)

We headed out at 6:15 and the sky was flaming up a bright fire red as we crossed the hanging bridge from camp to the car park.  It quickly mellowed and by the time we were driving out of camp it was “just” the bright orange I’m used to seeing on my early morning runs.

Our first destination was to check on the three big boys with the buffalo kill.  It would be interesting to see this story play out and what today’s chapter in it would be.  Alas, we quickly saw that the story had just about come to an end as we came across a clan of hyenas each enjoying the scraps they managed to scavenge, and no sign at all of the big boys.  They’ve likely trooped their way back to the Reserve and their pride.  I had to laugh as I saw one hyena gnawing away at the skull of the buffalo and I could clearly see the buffalo’s jaw and teeth with no soft tissue around it.  It was as if the buffalo was smiling at me in death.  Macabre I know, but before any coffee in my system, this made me chuckle.

Francis had a plan to try to find another lion pride across the hills so we headed that way.  Suddenly I noticed something running across the plains that looked like a very small hyena lumbering along, but it was so small I thought it had to be something else, but I couldn’t place it.  My mind thought mongoose but that’s too small.  Francis started getting very excited and it turns out it was a striped hyena, which are very rare sightings here.  The last time he’s seen one was over 10 years ago.  So he put pedal to the floor so we could catch up or perhaps intercept it.  It is a solitary mammal and very skittish so I only got a few very quick and blurry shots in the low light before it scurried off.  These document the sighting more than anything.  Photos or it didn’t happen, right?  We stopped to talk to another guide passing the other way.  Francis shared the striped hyena news and while sitting there with the engine off, he and I both heard a lion roar coming from up on the hill to the left of us.  So up we went.

Once up there, Francis scanned the horizon with the binos and saw four tawny specs making their way across the plains.  It was a good ways off (although I am a horrible judge at distance) and I wasn’t sure we’d make it before they hid again.  But when we finally made it to where we spotted them, there was no sign.  So we went on a game drive of hide and seek. We left no stone unturned and after maybe 45 minutes, we found a female lying out in the open and a female and juvenile sleeping in a bush.  All were reply chubby, indicating a recent meal.  Francis thinks this was the Dik Dik Pride.  We weren’t able to locate any other family members.

We started to make our way down off the rocky hill when another Mara Plains guide said they’d found more lions, so we quickly scurried there.  Turns out it was the Enkoyani pride splinter group we keep seeing near camp, minus the collared female but with the bonus of the pride male!  This is Osupaat and he was the guy we saw here the first night roaring his head off.  Osuappat means humble in Maa and he is known to avoid conflict and disappear when there is trouble brewing, which is why he’s been scarce since the big three Topi Boys have been around.

I had a moment though…as I sat watching this big pride male with his children, one of the young females got up and he got up.  The way he was positioned he was standing over her, and he lightly licked the top of her head.  I got chills.  This very same thing happened when I was here in 2022, and it led to my favorite photo of that trip.  When we left this sighting, I pulled up my blog and confirmed, yes, it was the Enkoyani pride.  At the time the cub was 4-5 months old.  I asked Francis how old the young female here was, he said about 2 1/2.  The timing works perfectly.  Then I pulled up that photo.  When we stopped for breakfast, I asked Francis if he remembers the male lion in my photo, and if that is Osupaat.  We looked at that photo against what I took today and also the photo of the other pride male from 2022.  He said no, the male lion in my photo is the other pride male, who was killed.  Today the lion I saw is his brother now taking care of his cubs.  I wanted to cry.  I look for signs everywhere from my Dad, and I still feel like this was one.  Like, even though he’s gone, there’s still someone looking over me.  Sniff.

Anyway….after breakfast in the bush things started to quiet down a bit.  We’d heard that the camp staff at Kempinski camp saw a leopard early this morning but didn’t see which direction it headed, so another Mara Plains guide and Francis drove either side of the river behind Kempinski scouring the trees for it.  He didn’t find a leopard but he did have a spot of another eagle owl like the one I saw the other day.  It was a neat sighting, even without the leopard.

We’re still on the lookout for the other half of the Enkoyani pride.  I’d really like to see the whole pride together (for a total of 12) but there’s no guarantee especially because we don’t know exactly why the pride split up.  While we were thinking about looking for them, Francis heard from a guide in Mara North that there are mating lions with an extra male lion with them there, so he asked if I’d be interested.  I didn’t want to go back to my tent at noon and wait around for the afternoon drive, so I said sure.  Mating lions is better than no lions and the ride would be good since it was so nice out.

Well, good plans gone to waste because we found not one, but two of the bridges to Mara Plains closed for maintenance.  Francis and another guide tried to find back roads and safe crossing points, but it was taking longer and longer and I would likely miss lunch and then run over into the evening drive, which is just a hassle, so we turned back.  It was still a really nice drive and just nice to take in the sights and sounds of the plains.  Flowering acacia trees are just starting to bloom so I’ve loved driving through fields with them, they smell so pretty.

Lunch today was quite good, I could get used to this safari eating thing.  I had whitefish with a Thai basil hot sauce, asian noodles, new potatoes and carrots with okra. Dessert was coconut custard.

I had a very quick break before we headed out at 4.  It looked as though the rain would be coming through again which was a bummer (although it never actually did, it rained across the plains but never where we were!). Francis’ plan was to head right out of camp, rather than left as we always do.  He wanted to go up by Moniko hills looking for the rest of the Enkoyani pride.  Then he got a call that there was a cheetah on a fresh kill nearby so off we went.

It turns out that the cheetah was Kulete, the last living offspring of Amani, who was my favorite cheetah.  Kulete had taken down a thomson’s gazelle and was about 1/4 way into it when we arrived. I could already see that her belly had started to bulge.  Well, this girl can eat!  It took her just about an hour but she managed to eat most of it except the head and some of the bigger bones and hooves.  And she was enormous by the end of it.  I mean, think about it, a thomson’s gazelle isn’t that much bigger than she is!  Her belly was so distended when she left it was crazy.  I’ve never seen this in person so it was an education!  I kept thinking she’d get up and walk away, but she didn’t.  She’d take a break, huffing and puffing from her effort to bring this gazelle down, then tuck back into it again.  It was amazing. I’d been hoping to see her walk off, but she just kept turning back to the gazelle and eating more!  I’m glad I got to see her.  I think Amani did well raising her.  If she’s not successful with cubs though, that’s the end of that bloodline…

We ended the day back with Osupaat and his kids.  They were pretty close to where we left them and didn’t look to be terribly motivated to hunt as they were all lying about.  I had my last sundowner here watching the lions on one side and the sun go down on the other.  It was pretty special, but even more so when Osupaat finally got up and passed by the front of our vehicle and started roaring.  And then a few of his kids started roaring.  It was a pretty special send off to an amazing 10 days. 

I ate dinner tonight with another of the camp manager’s (I forget if I mentioned that Dee, the camp manager, ate with me the other night?). We ate in the wine room, which was really gorgeous (and you guessed it, filled with wine!). Anyway, the starter was a cream of tomato soup.  The main was a Buddha bowl with bulgur rice, avocado, mushrooms, spinach and cheese.  Dessert was a chocolate lava cake with Amarula sauce.  Speaking of, I took an Amarula back to my tent tonight.  Iti’s the last night, why not?

I have one more game drive tomorrow morning and I’m hoping to make the best of it.  Lying in bed here at 10:15, I just heard lions roaring in the distance and now it’s started to rain.  Better now than tomorrow!