Reunited with old friends

17 Jan 2025 - Thursday

I sleep pretty well here (no medicinal help required) although I wake up for about 45 minutes long before I need to and find myself just listening.  If the lions haven’t been what wakes me, I wait long enough and end up hearing them. There are worse fates in life than smiling to yourself in the darkness of the Kenyan bush.

This morning we headed out at 6:15, a bit later today, because our destination was Oloti, the male cheetah we left at sunset last night.  We’d been worried that he’d hunt after we left.  No need for worry.  We drove around where we’d left him and there was no sign.  The wildlife like impala or gazelles we came across were calm, so they hadn’t sensed they were in danger lately, so that told Ping Oloti had moved on.  Every few minutes Ping would stop the car and scan the area with his binocs.  After several times, he looked up at a distant hill with the sky turning a bright orange of sunrise behind it and saw a tiny silhouette.  “There he is and we can get there for the good light,” he said.  I took the binocs and could not confirm that’s what I saw.  Something, yes, cheetah, I didn’t know.  But I trust Ping and off we went.

It took maybe 5 minutes to get to him and by now the sun had risen but everything was a gorgeous orangey-gold hue, including this handsome boy sitting on a termite mound, surveying the land for where his next meal might be.  And, better still, we had him all to ourself.   So we just sat and waited for his next move.  This cat could not have posed better for me if I’d asked him to.  I was ecstatic.

Then Oloti jumped down and started to make his way down the hill toward some impala we’d spotted too.  It interested me to see him hunting in grass rather than open plain.  He got lost in it and if you didn’t know where he was, you wouldn’t have seen him.  Maybe that’s how it works for him here, if we couldn’t see him the impala didn’t either.

By now the other vehicle from last night joined us, which was fine with me because we split up and watched from different angles, the guides sharing details by phone.  At one point we were on one end, with the impalas standing in the road looking up the road to where the other vehicle was, and a very big cheetah was trying to make himself look very small behind a very small bush in the road.  Unsuccessfully unfortunately.  The impala copped on to the cheetah and ran.  His mistake was coming out as far as the road.  It was one step too far.  The impala bolted but didn’t completely retreat and somehow the cheetah knew this, so he pursued a bit.  Ping moved us down behind the impala, so if the cheetah came at them, he’d also be coming at us.  But after a bit of a wait the other guide said he’d taken a seat on another termite mound and was going to reevaluate his options.  That guest was going to stick with him all day, so we said we’d check back in later and we moved on.

Today was the day that Ping thought he’d find Nashipae for me.  I knew it was a big ask, and I felt bad asking at all, but last time I was with Ping I told him too late in the trip that I’d wanted to see the 5 male cheetah coalition, and he told me I should let him know sooner.  So I did.  And of course Ping made it his mission to find them, only they were all the way over on the eastern-most edge of the park, over an hour away.  It also meant driving through a more trafficked area filled with day trippers.  But I was game if he was.  So we set off.

Crossing the plains we came across a Rekero pride male mating with a female. I’d seen mating behavior before but this pair really seemed into it.  Ping told me that lighter maned lions are better at mating and have more genetically strong cubs.  Interesting…. Anyway, these two went for a couple of rounds before scooting a bit away from where we encountered them (there were about 7 other vehicles there at the time, all somewhat spilling off the road, which isn’t allowed in the Reserve).  About the same time a ranger pulled up, so there was a reshuffling of vehicles as we all tried to get back on road but still in a good position to see the couple in their new spot.  Ping unpacked our breakfast for us and we ate in between mating sessions, which were happening about every 10 minutes at that point.

The male seemed determined to keep the female from veering in our direction.  Ping thinks it’s because the other pride males were behind us and he wanted her to himself.  For whatever reason, he started leaning against her as they walked and pushed her in our direction.  I was leaning on the window taking shots until I realized she was so close I couldn’t see anything through the camera.  I tipped the camera forward and she was about two feet from my face and looking right at me!  All I saw were yellow eyes.  I flopped away from the window and on to the floor of the vehicle behind the front seat.  “Ping, Ping, Ping…she’s coming in,” I said.  He leaned over and by then they’d gone either under or behind us and were on the other side.  He thought perhaps they were just trying to find shade near us but that was far too close for comfort.  I always say if I die here, I’ll die happy, but I really didn’t want today to be the day.

That was enough adrenaline for me, especially right after coffee, so off we went.  It was a long and pretty uneventful drive.  Ping is like the mayor here and seems to know everyone, so most everyone we passed he stopped to talk to the guides.  Since it’s Swahili, I don’t understand much more the names of animals (like Simba, pumba, duma, etc.) but also their given names.  So I’d listen and hear blah blah blah Nashipae blah blah blah and I’d know he was talking about where we were going.  Reports were mixed.  Some said she was in a closed section, others said she was right by the side of the road.  He also apparently found out where Olyonok and Winda were.  These are the two remaining boys of the five cheetah coalition from 2018.  He didn’t tell me he found them until we were actually on them.  That was pretty cool.  The boys were hot and sleeping under a bush, so not a lot to say about them other than that I saw them.

Finally we got to the area where Nashipae was supposed to be and had a tough time finding her.  Ping was reading the animals around and found most to be really relaxed.  There was one area totally devoid of animals at all and he said his gut told him she was there.  He kept driving though and he reached out to a photographer he knew had seen them this morning and got more specific details.  And then we found them.  They were heading back toward an acacia to sleep under, so I saw a quick parade of them but by the time we reached them, they were lying down.  I didn’t think I’d be as happy as I was, even though they were flaked out under a tree.   So we spent about a half hour with them, hoping that maybe they’d try to hunt since they hadn’t for a couple days, but it was really hot especially in the sun (hotter here than on the other side of the park!) and they were pretty sleepy.  I bid them adieu and wished them a safe life.  Nashipae’s done well to raise all four.

I felt good seeing where she is, that there’s so little traffic because it’s hard to reach and that the area is absolutely teeming with impala and gazelle.  No wonder she likes it.  And that the rangers seem to be there a lot is also a plus.  I know the cubs will split from her soon, they’re nearly overdue for that but maybe they’re staying with her while she’s limping.  Who knows.  I was just so incredibly happy.  I’d spent so much time with them last year, it felt like seeing an old friend again now.

Time to eat a late lunch so we found an acacia and spread out across the hood of the vehicle.  It was spaghetti with mixed bell pepper and sauce, margherita pizza and a cucumber and onion salad.  It was all really good and tasted even better since it’d been a while since breakfast and we’d had an active morning.

Heading back toward our side of the park, we saw some vehicles looking into a big bush, so we decided to look for ourselves and found mother and daughter lion from the Fig Tree pride.  These two were cooling off under a bush but ultimately came out to sit on a low termite mound.  The mother had a very distinctive ear cut, almost as if the tip had been sliced cleanly off.  We watched them bond for a bit and then continued on.

Now that it was after 5 p.m. Ping wanted to try to find Oloti again.  The other guide who’d been with us last night and early this morning said Oloti had moved over to the Chinese Hill area, which was a good 15 minute drive for us, so longer for him, from where he was this morning.  We assumed that guide stayed with him as he said he would but it turns out he lost the cheetah somewhere, so when we arrived there was no Oloti to be seen.  There were a couple of vehicles looking at something so we checked it out because, hey we were here anyway.  Turns out it was another mating pair, this one from the Paradise pride.  They did not have the same gusto as the pair this morning and when I mentioned that Ping said “dark mane, not as effective” so I guess we now had empirical proof of this theory from this morning.

Interestingly, Ping said that both lions mating today would give birth in April, which is the midst of the long rains here and a difficult time to raise cubs successfully, which is really unfortunate.

Somewhere along the way, we came across a mother giraffe and the tiniest baby I’ve ever seen.  Ping thinks he was about 5 or 6 days old, since he still had a bit of umbilical cord on him.  He was so tiny and very curious but also skittish. He was following his mom from a distance and crept closer to us until another vehicle came up behind us and spooked him back toward his mother.  I think I got a good capture of her nuzzling his head when he finally caught up to her and also him nursing.  It was so sweet.

I wanted an earlier dinner tonight so I could pack and take a shower after dinner.  Dinner tonight was pan-fried fish, french fries, steamed mixed veg and a tasty cold vegetable salad.  Dessert was an orange cake with cherry sauce.

I showered and got most of my packing done.  Tomorrow I move on with Ping to Eagle View Camp in Naboisho, the conservancy I’ve grown to love over the last couple years.  Ping has guiding privileges there and I’m looking forward to seeing what we get up to.

Calling it an early night…

Playing the long game

 16 Jan 2025 - Wednesday

The lions were pretty relentless all night.  Not that I’m complaining of course, but every time I woke up, or was woken up, I heard lions, mixed in with the occasional hyena or hippo belching in the river beneath my tent. I was awake in fits and spurts and never looked at the clock, but knew that as long as I didn’t hear any birds, it wasn’t close to time to get up.  I finally fell back asleep what felt like right before the alarm went off at 5:25.

Coffee and a banana were delivered at 5:45 and I met Ping to head out at 6:00.  He said the lions I heard overnight were the Paradise Plains pride on one side and Rekero pride on the other.  And we were headed out to lions, the Topi pride about a half hour away.  I guess for whatever reason, Ping thought that two birds (lions?) in the hand weren’t worth one in the bush, but I’ve come to never question him now.  So I went with it.

The sky turned pinkish gray and gently more light as we got closer and I finally saw a couple of vehicles parked precariously close to a hippo pool, then realized there was a big male lion and a couple lionesses there too.  One lioness was chomping on the remains of a hippo who didn’t make it back to the water a couple days ago.  This pride took it down and had feasted on it since then.  He was literally about 50 feet from the water.  Poor guy, bad luck.

 

As we pulled up, one full grown lioness attacked two younger ones and there was a skirmish of roars. The younger lions retreated and not shortly after that, I heard the chirps of lion cubs, my favorite sound in the world.  Ping said the lioness was warning the younger lionesses about being around her babies.  They are about 10 weeks old and had just been introduced to the pride.  The chirps grew louder and finally four little faces appeared and attempted to nurse off one and then another of the older lionesses.  My first lion sighting of the safari and I’ve been blessed with my favorite thing ever!  Heavenly.

The sun still hadn’t come up, and I was so enthralled that I never noticed when it did.  But soon the light was golden yellow and the male got up to move on.  He could not bear weight on his front paw which saddened me until we noticed that the more he tried the more it loosened up.  So maybe it’s just arthritis and he needs some Dasuquin.  He headed toward some tall bushes to rest and passed two other big males and a female who might have been in the midst of some mating activity, hard to tell for sure.  But then more vehicles started popping up and we’d had our fill and the lions were headed to sleep the day away so we moved on.  We passed three subadult females on the way out, two of which were chased off from the cubs earlier.  So about 15 lions to start the day.  Not bad at all.

Next on our list for today was to check on the cheetah from yesterday to see if she’d hunted.  On our way we passed the leopard’s tree and saw the kill was still there but the leopard was not.  Ping saw a herd of cows being shepherded past the tree at a bit of a distance and thought maybe they’d flushed her out in *that* (pointing) direction.  He figured she’d return later.  Like around noontime.

We stopped for breakfast (pancakes, hard boiled eggs, coffee, fruit salad and juice) and then moved on toward where Nora was yesterday.  We went back to the same area and found a cheetah but this one was Nagol (niece of Nashipae) and I’d seen on Instagram that she recently lost her cubs.  She seemed hungry and also a bit rambunctious.  Ping thought she may try to hunt but ultimately we just followed her from bush to bush at a respectful distance to wait it out (and also be in a better positions to move if she hunted).  As I returned from my bush bio break, Ping said he’d just seen in his binoculars that the leopard (yes the leopard!) was moving toward the tree!  He told me to hold on and make sure I had hold of my phone and cameras, and we did our very best Dukes of Hazard to get back to the leopard (if I had to guess about a mile, but who knows really).  It turns out he was right, she had headed from *that* direction he’d pointed to this morning and was returning at, get this, 12:15.  How had he known?

I swore my bio break meant we missed everything but turns out we missed nothing.  She was headed back toward the tree but got cut off first by hyena, then by buffalo and finally by the renegade driver-guides who were doing whatever they could to get their client a photo.  It was annoying and unfair to her.  Ping positioned us close to the tree but a direct line from where she was to where we were hoping she’d go and I hunkered down to wait.  I told him “I will grow old in this spot waiting for her.”  I’m a veteran at the waiting game. At some point I become superstitious (or maybe just a little stitious) about leaving. You invest so much time that you fear she’ll move as soon as you leave.  I just want to see Fig’s girl.

At one point there were about 19 vehicles here.  Some stayed near us, assuming patience would pay off and they had their prime spot if she headed toward us and the tree.  But the impatient guides would circle the bush she was in, park next to it, lean out and hover over her.  Four times a buffalo approached her bush and I swore it would smoke her out.  But it didn’t happen.  The buffalo came and went and in between the idiot guides would drive around her bush, confirming she was still there.  She was.  I told Ping I don’t want to be part of that.  If she wanted to get away from it all, she could, by going up the tree.  Her kill was still there.  It was stressful for me and quite obviously agitating the heck out of her.  Why was she not retreating?

Finally she went on the move again, except away from us.  The number of vehicles had dropped to about 6 because many left for lunch.  Ping said she’s moving and we can drive parallel to her on the road, still a good distance from her.  So at least I saw her, and managed to get one shot of her, but in it she was unfortunately surrounded by vehicles.  There was a family of warthogs with some small piglets that Ping said she’d want even though she already had that kill in the tree.  Cats are opportunistic hunters, if it’s there, they’ll take it.  But she couldn’t see what we saw, because she was boxed in by idiots.  She went back into yet another bush and flopped down.  And we went back to our perfect line of sight back by the tree to wait.   Ping unpacked sandwiches for us and I managed another bio break (damn coffee from this morning!) Three hours became four.  And four became almost five.  I wrote this blog up to this point, downloaded some photos from the cameras and hopped on social media.  Ping did some work for the camp and his bush school.  We were old pros at this, he knew I’d grow old here.  But I think as the day wore on, we were getting tired.  “The light will be better now,” he said.  And he was correct about that, but I was feeling discouraged. I wrote to a friend “it’s been five hours waiting for Faulu…”.

And just like that Ping said “SHE’S MOVING” and the 8 or 9 other vehicles there with us all started to move.  “What do we do?” I asked Ping, and thankfully he’d already thought ahead and we banged a three-point turn and headed back towards the tree, positioning ourselves with the sun lowering behind us (it was now 5:15 and sunset an hour away) and Faulu approaching from our left.  A vehicle cut off my sightline but I could tell watching those in less opportune spots but closer to her that she was heading our way, a phalanx of iPhones and 2 foot lenses moving with her as she approached.   I hopped over the seat to sit in the front with Ping, giving me more of a sightline to her and putting me slightly lower.  And then I saw her.  “Here she comes, Ping!”

What a gorgeous cat.

Time seemed to both stand still and speed up.  To say chaos was breaking out around me was an understatement.  Guides were yelling at each other to move, hell, a woman yelled at Ping to move, but we were there first (so NAAAAAH!) and I’d waited five very long hours for this.  I let Ping fight that battle and focused, Faulu was slowly half-slinking her way toward the tree that was directly in front of me.  Voices sounded like they were underwater but I kept hearing Ping laugh and make his adrenaline-charged “wah” which meant this was something special.  

I started with my long lens and rapid-fired like I was working the red carpet at an awards show.   Now I won’t lie and tell you she looks just like her mother, because I find it crazy that non-professionals like myself think they can actually tell one spotted cat from another, but she had her mother’s attitude and her swagger for the camera.  She put on a show, and I was transported back in time to February 2014 when her mother Fig did much the same thing.  Step step, pause, look over the shoulder, tail flick, step step.  This was the ultimate cat walk, and it could have been me watching my first leopard 11 years ago all over again.  The girl has her mother’s gift.  You never forget your first leopard, or, apparently, her daughter.

After a few dramatic pauses (paws-es?) she headed to the tree and went up right where Ping said she would.  She stopped to rest a bit and then went higher up to eat what she’d left hanging for a snack later.  And that was the first time I looked up and somehow our 8 or 9 vehicles had blossomed to over 40.  We were packed in and had to wait for a break in them to move on.  One of them got the idea to flash mob the poor cheetah nearby, so off many of them went.  Sorry Nagol.

The whole thing could not have lasted more than 2 minutes if I’m guessing (and the timestamp on the photos will confirm that), but it was a perfect example of how a day on safari can change on a dime.  We could have waited all day and not seen her.  I thought a lot about how disappointing many around me were.  The harassing, the arguing, the shouting, the danger to her in their reckless driving.  But I cannot control that.  What I can say is we kept our distance. We never circled her.  We never harassed her.  We didn’t argue or swear or yell at her or each other.  I treated the cat the way I’d want any cat treated.  Do I wish the others had played fairly and decently? Yes.  But that’s not for me (or Ping) to make happen.  I feel like the safari gods rewarded me for playing the long game well and respectfully.

Ping thought it best that we move back towards camp.  I told him I don’t think I could take much more excitement.  We stopped and watched some bull elephants approach a small herd of females, listening to them purr and scratch the grass out of the earth.  Ping scanned the horizon with binoculars, and way off towards the horizon, he said he spotted a cheetah on a termite mound.  It was nearing 6 pm now and light was running out.  I asked how far it was (I am an awful judge of distance) and he handed me the binos and told me to look.  It looked far and to my not-so-great eyes, I couldn’t even really confirm it was a cheetah.  But of course we went and it only took about 10 minutes.  There was only one other vehicle there, with one guide and a lone photographer.  We nodded to each other and settled in.

This is Oloti, a male leopard known to Ping. He was on the termite mound surveying the land.  Ping quickly picked out a handful of impala unwittingly making their way towards us and the cheetah.  So did the cheetah.  He switched positions and stood and over the course of a half hour we kept guessing whether he’d go for it or not.   I think we were both trying to talk ourselves into and out of it.   Into it because how else could we possibly end this day, and out of it because we were beat and ready for food and bed.  Ultimately we left this boy because of the latter and the quickly fading light.  Even if he chased and killed, how much of it would we see?  Camp was only 7 minutes away, so we made a plan to find him first thing.

Brian the camp manager met us coming in and hurried to muster our dinner sooner rather than later.  We had a nice curry fish over rice with steamed beans, carrots and peapods and a crème caramel.  I washed mine down with a G&T of course.

Tired, we headed to our tents and showered before hitting the hay.  I can sleep a bit later tomorrow, but am not sure how I’ll wind down after the day I just had.  One for the ages.

Back in the saddle

15 Jan 2025 - Wednesday

I was fearful that my iPhone alarm wasn’t really set so I had requested a wake up call too.  The alarm and the wake up call came within mere seconds of each other and I was up and out of bed like a shot despite sleeping like the dead.  The day was here, I was going back out on safari!

I took my last plumbed shower for almost two weeks and then went downstairs for breakfast.  I had an omelette, cinnamon date bread, a cream puff and a yogurt with OJ and coffee.  That ought to hold me over.

The driver from Great Plains took me from Four Points to Wilson and I learned a lot about the development around Nairobi, the new history museum that they are about to open and the self-sustaining Hindu community we passed.  It was an interesting drive.

He said something that really struck me though, about safari, he said it is cleanses mind and soul, and lets you find your true self here.  And I think that’s what I’ve felt happen to me the last couple times I’ve been here.  There’s just something magical in the air.

There were 4 other full flights to the Mara that went out before they called mine, and it too was full. The flight to the Musiara airstrip took about 40 minutes and was nice and smooth.  I smiled as I saw an elephant and some hippos as we made our approach.  And when we touched down, I really felt home again.  It was probably lows 70s and breezy when I got out.  Without that wind it will feel hotter, but I’m quite happy with it as it is now.  Anything is better than 25 at home.

Ping was right there when I got off the plane and after a big hug and grabbing my luggage off we went.  I wondered what the first animal would be that would welcome be back to Kenya and once again it was an elephant.  We actually had a lovely sighting of two herds of elephants on the way to camp.  One smaller herd had a female in estrus with two males in musth vying for her attentions, patiently keeping their distance from her but obviously more than just a little interested.

Nearby alongside a river Ping had spotted a larger herd of about 15 elephants who’d just bathed and were now doing a dust bath.  He positioned us along the top of the bank and said “we’ll just sit here and wait because when they decide to leave they’ll come this way and the line of elephants coming towards us will be nice.”  When they do. Ok, sure.  But we waited a little while, and then that is exactly what they did.  Of course they did.  This is why I love Ping.

As they approached us, they fanned out a bit and were browsing.  Ping got out of the vehicle and came around my side to let me out.  “You think I’m getting out with them right there?” I asked. He said it was safe, we were high and steep enough that they couldn’t make it to us.  So I stood over this herd of majestic creatures and just took it in.  Matriarch and aunties, juveniles and cute little ones with no control over their trunks yet.  And then the matriarch spotted us and another older female and they sort of ski-daddled away from us.  I felt bad for that because until then it had been pretty idyllic, for us and for them.

But they quickly forgot us as they continued on and met up with the smaller herd we had first encountered.  They seemed pretty sedate in their greetings and just connected to continue grazing together.  The littler ones sparred a bit but otherwise it was uneventful, even from the cranky bulls in musth.  All in all a pretty chill hour or so spent with a herd of about 25 elephants.  Yeah, I can’t get this at work…. it was just so relaxed and calming and we were the only vehicle there.  Blissful

I asked Ping what he thought of the rains and the very obvious climate change here now.  He said a lot of the Reserve is becoming swampy which is making it harder to drive in areas they used to.  The change in rain and climate has created a hybrid grass (combining two types into a new type) and that new grass is somewhat strong and affects the plains game’s gums if they eat too much of it.  It also grows higher so if not eaten, it becomes a place plains game won’t go since they can’t see predators.  On the plus side, the Mara area is seeing an uptick in elephants, which is great for elephants, but with the adverse effect on lions, who’ll stay clear of them.  So the balance of everything here seems to be teeter-tottering and trying to find a new happy medium.  If one can be found.

Enaidura is much as I left it.  There is an improvement on the vehicle of a set of fold out steps so I don’t have to climb up and in, which I realized last time is catching up with this 50-something body.  But my tent is right along the Talek River where Ping says a leopard regularly patrols now (and indeed he ate the resident bushbuck I saw here last time!) and I can lie here and listen to the river run and the hippos snort.

Lunch here today was wonderful. We started with a salad of green beans, tomatoes, hard boiled eggs and an enormous slab of the freshest avocado. That was tremendous.  The main was a vegetable curry over rice with some crazy good flatbread triangles.  Dessert was a fruit salad with mango, papaya, passion fruit and pineapple.  Everything was so fresh and really tasty.  I will not go hungry for sure!

As before, we have no program.  We will be doing full day game drives, even when we go to to Naboisho. We will work hard putting in the hours but be rewarded with a lot of sightings (I hope!).  Ping knows where Nashipae is and has seen Nadala recently and has fallen in love with Naboisho again for all its lions, so I think I’m in good stead here.  It’s good to be back.

We headed out again after a short break (when I wrote the top half of this) and at first Ping said we’d be heading to a leopard in a tree with a kill she made yesterday.  It is one of Fig’s three daughters (Fig was my first ever leopard back in 2014 and she was a rock star…she was tragically killed by leopards just before she gave birth for a 5th time a couple of years ago. She was a true legend.  One of her other daughters just gave birth and this one has territory near camp.  To say I’m emotionally attached to Fig is an understatement, so to see her daughters would be really nostalgic).  But then Ping took a call and said that a cheetah was thinking about hunting nearby (pointing vaguely off to the right).  I told him I’d leave it up to him.  And at the next opportunity, he took the right turn.  I knew he would.

We came upon a female cheetah, Nora, who was just flaked out under a bush.  She didn’t seem terribly interested in doing much yet, but she was pretty thin.  Ping thinks it’s been a few days since she ate and in his binoculars he saw a lot of impala and gazelle that were ripe for the taking nearby.  The two other vehicles that had been watching her left.  They’d invested too much time and went on to find something else with the daylight they had left.

We sat for about 45 minutes as she’d raise her head, look around and flop down again.  Then three jackals approached from the side.  They could smell her but neither could see the other with us in the way. So Ping backed up a good bit so we could watch this interaction. Ping thought for sure the jackals would cause her to move.  She is heavily pregnant and more sleepy than usual but the jackals did harass her to the point where she got up and sauntered off, acting more interested in the potential meal she could see grazing across the plain.  She walked a bit and then laid down again.  So we waited again.  And still only 5 vehicles here, which is delightful for being in the national reserve and not a private conservancy.  After another 20 minutes or so we decided to give her 5 more minutes and we’d move on.  She got up again, surveyed the plains again and then flopped down, again.  Ping thought she wasn’t hungry enough yet, so we added her to our to-do list for tomorrow.

And then we headed to the leopard in the tree.  And pulling up to it, I never would have believed there was a leopard up there except for the 10+ vehicles sitting around looking up in the tree.  Ping saw it easily but I couldn’t.  I saw the dead impala hanging up there (she’d brought it up there to nibble on after she caught it yesterday) but no leopard. Ping drove around the opposite side of the tree and way up top I could just make out a pile of spots.  Once I saw her, he wanted to move back to the other side where we’d be shooting away from the setting sun and where he was certain she’d head “when she comes down.”  But unfortunately neither time nor light were on our side and we had to leave once it got dark.  So we’re also adding her to our to-do list for tomorrow.

Back to camp for a G&T and dinner.  We had a lovely cream of butternut squash soup to start, fish sticks with mashed potato and steam cauliflower and broccoli and a chocolate brownie cake for dessert.  It was tasty!

The camp lost wifi after a storm last week so I don’t know when I’ll get to post this but I’ll do a big update when I’m connected.  For now, off to bed for a 5:25 wake up, out at 6 am!  A great first day!