23 Jan 2025 - Thursday
Yikes, how did I get here already? I only have a handful of game drives left. I think though that my body is starting to rebel. My intestines are rejecting the anti-malarial. I’ve lost at least 7 layers of skin from dryness on my face, my lips are now parchment paper. But I’m sleeping and eating really well and otherwise I feel amazing. I’m even sleeping through the hippos now. I miss running though, and my cats.
I just never know how it’s going to go when we leave here everyday. It is difficult for guides because unless they hear something overnight, they’re unsure where to head first thing until others get out there and the safari guide rumor line starts to light up. Francis suggested we start by checking in on the three big lion boys and see how they’re doing on the buffalo kill. It was still there, they were still there, albeit the buffalo had been dragged out of the bush and flipped over to access more meat, and the boys looked as if they’d need to be flipped. All three now have much rounder bellies. Francis told me that because there is no water nearby which would aid their digestion, they paced themselves to that they didn’t fill too soon. Ordinarily we’d see those big round bellies of satisfaction sooner if they had water to wash the meal down with.
There was a report that a male cheetah was on the move, so we headed that way. After a bit of patience and some expert positioning by Francis, I got some splendid cheetah-on-a-log-in-the-golden-morning-light photos of him. I ran his ID by an expert on Instagram and she says he is Milele, who we think we also saw the other day. I saw him with his brother in 2018 in Mara North but his brother has died and he’s solo now.
We stayed with him for quite some time because he still looked hungry. We ate breakfast near him just to make sure we didn’t lose him. He ended up going further up a big hill and laid down under a bush. He was going no where fast. I had to decide what I’d like to do next and as I was pondering my options, Francis learned there was a leopard sighting just over the border in Mara North. Since Mara Plains guides can do game drives there too, that’s where we went.
Twenty minutes later, I was almost eye to eye with Natito, a leopard well known in Olare Motorogi and Mara North. I’d never seen her before other than on social media. Like all leopards, she’s an elegant, regal cat. She was astride a tree branch, paws and tail dangling as they do. Francis whipped me around the back side of the tree so that I wasn’t just seeing the back side of the cat. I was elevated a bit which cut down on the “looking up” angle of my photo, and I got some really nice shots. I think after lions, leopard are my favorite.
Suddenly Natito came down the tree. As it was just my vehicle and another from Mara Plains, we decided to follow her and see where she’d take us. I know she has a male cub, so maybe she’d head that way. She wound her way through and between various bushes. Francis positioned me so that she’d be walking straight toward our vehicle, and she did, and then went directly under it. So, for the second time in 3 days, I was sitting atop a leopard! How cool is that??
This time though, she didn’t zip right out like Nolari did. She stayed. And I was prepared to let her enjoy the shade of our vehicle. Francis though kept starting the vehicle and turning it off. I don’t know for what purpose but I think he was trying to get her out. I said I’m fine waiting. A conservancy ranger nearby approached and told him to stop. They pulled up and were taking photos of her under the vehicle (she was fine, but I’m not sure what the purpose of the photos was). Francis released the hand brake, and we silently rolled backwards, only to see her just at the front corner of the rangers’ vehicle in front of us and she was stalking a dik dik beyond their vehicle! I said “I want to watch her, let’s stay” but Francis had already turned the ignition which spooked her and sent her running. It’s always frustrating to me when things like this happen, because I make it clear that I’m about giving the cats room and space to do what comes naturally to them, and my desire for a photo is a very remote second place. But it’d happened and she was on the move again.
The other vehicle from our camp left and we moved to where we thought she’d surface and waited, but she never turned up. Francis said he’d heard there was a cheetah 15 minutes further up the road, so off we went. I said I don’t want to stay and track them all day, but it’d be nice to see who it is. When we arrived at the spot, it would have been next to impossible to find her but for the army of zebras all standing about 50 feet away staring at one bush. And that’s where she was.
Looking through binos I could see she wasn’t tired and not acting like she was going to stay put. She was cleaning, yawning, rolling a bit and a couple time she stood and then sat again. Now that zebras and topi knew where she was, there was no point staying there if she wasn’t going to sleep. After maybe 20 minutes she was on the move and so were we. Francis did a nice job lining me up for photos while giving her her space. It turns out she is a lactating mom known as Neema. Another cat I know from social media but have never seen. She was painfully thin so probably needed to eat but with all the game around her already having seen her, plus there was nothing small enough around for her to go for, she headed off to the hill and hopefully some lunch on the other side.
As it was already 1:45 (where does the time go?) we headed back to camp for lunch. We arrived around 2:30 and I sat right down to lunch. Today it was Chinese style fish bao bun, a veggie fritter, asian cole slaw, green salad and mango and avocado. Dessert was a passion fruit sorbet. As usual, all delicious. I finished lunch around 3:15 and was definitely full…I didn’t want to eat so much because dinner wasn’t far off but it was just so good.
After a very quick break when I relaxed a bit and caught up on the blog and some cheetah IDs on Instagram, We headed out around 4:30. We could see that a storm was headed toward us from the east. Francis said the weather in the Mara comes from either due east or northeast. The crazy thing about rain in the Mara is that it hits pretty quickly, from drip to full blast but only lasts a matter of minutes. And it is extremely localized. I’ve seen several afternoon showers that leave me dry here, but not 10 minutes away by car it has rained enough to create large puddles. Today it was our turn here and the rain came lashing down at a biblical rate.
We’d just pulled out of camp and Francis said he’d seen from the staff tent a topi looking warily in the other direction. We went there first and found all but one of the same Enkoyani pride lions that we saw out there yesterday. Only one mother was missing. They were just lying about and even tolerated it when the rain first started, but they wasted no time at all retreating to the bushes once it picked up.
Francis rolled down the plastic sides to keep the rain out but by the time he’d gotten them down and secured, the rain had stopped and it was time to roll them up again. It was good that we got the sides down anyway because it was raining in from all directions pretty heavily. After the storm I kept the flannel-lined poncho on over my fleece as it had really cooled down.
The lions exited the bushes quicker than we got the sides up on the vehicle again. We found one behind and the others in front of the bush where they had sought cover from the rain. They were cleaning the rain off each other and trying to get warm from the heat of the day that they could feel on the ground.
After the rain stopped and we had open windows again, we headed off looking for a cheetah that had been spotted nearby. That came up empty. I suspect that it took cover when the rain hit and would be a while before we see it again. In any event, Francis got a call that one of the three big Topi boys had stolen a baby hartebeest kill from a bunch of hyenas who’d snatched it from its mother. Of the three boys, this one lion really does not like hyena and has apparently made it his business to make their lives miserable. There were only scraps left by the time he got to their bounty, but his point was made.
Francis set me up for some photos of this guy crossing the plain with a very dramatic, stormy sky behind him. He returned to one of his brothers who was still (still!) guarding the buffalo kill in the bush. The two moved a bit away from the kill, leaving it open to scavenging. One jackal was having the time of its life eating with abandon but occasionally checking to make sure the lions weren’t going to see what he was doing and punish him. Hyenas have been all around the kill just waiting for their chance to clean up the rest of the carcass, but so far the lions haven’t let them at it.
I had my G&T sitting by the lions and Francis and I talked about guiding, safari guests and my different safaris and photos. It was a nice relaxing afternoon, even with the rain. I returned to camp at 7:30 and had dinner. Tonight was a cheese souffle starter, pumpkin gnocchi (in a sage butter sauce with blistered grape tomatoes and green beans) and a chocolate tart with a coconut crust for dessert. How am I ever going to go back to the same old stuff I always have at home?
I made it back to my tent just in time to avoid the rain, which is still going now. There’s a thunderstorm nearby too. Better overnight than during the day!
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