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!