Safari! Day 2 - Lions!

For me, this was the real reason I wanted to come on Safari…  I wanted to see these majestic creatures up close – and boy, did we ever!   First up was a large, solitary, male lying up against the base of a large Baobob tree.  He was initially faced away from us so we couldn’t get a clear view of all of him, and being the lazy creatures they are, wasn’t about to get up and move around where we could see him better either!   Sam told us that if he was around, his pride would not be far off (he was so big that Sam was sure he’d have his own pride).   Only a few hundred yards later, just over the crest of a hill, we spotted 5-6 females lying under a tree… and then a hundred feet away or so, another bunch of females.  One of whom was sitting up looking around keeping an eye on things.  They are such beautiful creatures… you just want to run up and wrap your arms around them.  We all had a great laugh at how they’d roll into each other with paws outstretched so it looked like they were embracing each other.  We watched them for about 40 minutes even though they weren’t doing much as we had such a good view. 

Then we noticed another Land Cruiser over at a bush about 200’ away down by the dried up river bed so we went over there to take a look… and we saw 2 females with a bunch of very young cubs.  Sam said he thought they must be about 2 months old as the mom’s don’t let them out before then.  They were initially fairly well hidden deep in the thicket and behind one of the mom’s but every now and then you’d catch a glimpse of one of them climbing over or around the Mom to nurse or just to try to get her up – without the slightest bit of success.  The other female got tired of this, so got up and moved to an adjacent bush to have some peace and quiet… but it wasn’t more than a minute or two before the first cub got up the courage to run across the open space to join her… and then SIX more followed in short order!  Then they’d go back to the other female… this went on for quite a while.  They’d all get to one side and then they’d turn around and go back… just like they were working up their courage.  It was magical as any one of these could have been baby Elsa.   We stayed for a long time (> 45 minutes) and then saw a big elephant come down the dried up river bed towards the lions (and us)… when he got to about a 100’ away, he apparently caught their scent and trumpeted loudly and made a head long dash towards the bush (which was safely high up on the river bank).  The lioness’s weren’t fazed by this and the elephant moved on but kept on coming back under their “den”.  It was clear he couldn’t see them, but he sure knew they were there!

There's six more and another mom you can't see.

It was about lunch time so we decided we’d leave them alone and headed back towards the other lionesses and as we were doing that, we could see a large herd of elephants coming up out of the stream bed towards them!  This certainly got our attention – especially as they had several young calves with them.  It didn’t take the elephants long to figure out there were lions around and they started flaring out the ears and making short runs towards them…  this was enough for the lioness’s and they up and moved to a tree within about 10’ of us!  We hadn’t realized it but in that pile of lioness’s were 23 lions – including some young (perhaps a year old).  Wow… it was something to have them walk right up to the vehicle (and then promptly ignore us).  A couple of them caught sight of a warthog up the hill and started to stalk him… a few of the young ones tagged along but it wasn’t long before they spooked him and he took off for safer grounds…. So no kill on that try.  Then we headed back past the big guy we called Mufassa, who by now was wide awake and sitting up.  So some great shots.  Looking into their eyes you get a sense of how mesmerized their prey must get.  A fantastic morning!

Yup, he's king of the Jungle alright!

Then we drove over to a picnic lunch area high up on a ridge over looking much of the river bed.  From there we could see scores of Cape Buffalo, Zebras, Giraffes and herds of Elephants.  As we were pulling in, Sam told us we had to close the roof and wind up all the windows to protect against the local thieves… then he told us he meant the local monkeys and baboons!  Walking down to the picnic tables, we saw what he meant.  The place was crawling with these little monkeys but no sign of the baboons.  We enjoyed a nice box lunch while Sam regaled us of stories… one of which we found particularly relevant.  It seems that these Baboons know the difference between Black and White people.  Apparently the last time he was there, he was with three young women and had told them that the Baboons and Monkeys were leaving them alone because he was there.  They didn’t believe him, and so they asked up to walk away to prove his “theory”.  He said he got about 50’ away before he heard the screams.  They were swarmed by Baboons and one of them had one of the women on the ground!    Needless to say, we decided against our own personal demonstration!  As we were driving out, however, we discovered a Land Cruiser that didn’t have its pop up roof retracted, and inside was one large monkey throwing up packages of food to another sitting on the roof!  It didn’t take those two long to get through the cookies!  Sam, backed us up and then called out to the guides to see which one had left his roof up and one sheepish looking one came running trying to figure out how to get an aggressive monkey out of his vehicle!  We all had a great laugh over that!

In the afternoon, lots more of all the other animals before we, regrettably, had to leave the park as our permit was about to expire.   About 5 kms out of the park, there was a small town, having a local Masai farmer’s market. We weren’t keen to get in the middle of it but Sam backed the truck up gainst this old shack, jumped out and then started jacking the vehicle up to take off the rear tire.  A man of few words, our Sam!  Anyway, it turned out the tire had developed a slow leak so he wanted to get it repaired.  It was a complete mystery to us why he didn’t drop us off at the lodge first (another 5km’s away) but this is Africa, and we’d been told to grin and enjoy the adventure so we did… although it was quite hot in that vehicle.  It wasn’t much more than about another minute before we again got streamed with hordes of street vendors trying to sell us stuff (or just young kids mouthing with their hands that they were hungry).  By this time, we’d learned enough Swahili to say “No thank you” so it was just bothersome rather than frightening.  One particular guy, wouldn’t leave Jen alone… even after she made it very clear we had not brought any money along with us for the day – we’d told Sam, we had no capability of carrying tourist stuff with us so weren’t interested in local markets, etc.  This guy told us his name was Moses and that he lived in a village about 40 kms away called Mosquito River.  His English was pretty good and he told us he was studying tourism at college and just wanted to practice so Jen obliged him nicely.  Meanwhile some little urchin was reaching through the window on my side and prodding me in the ribs to ensure I knew he was there!  Anyway, after about 45 minutes, and two attempts to fix the flat, they put a tube in it and mounted back on the vehicle.  I looked at the tires and Sam claimed they only had 7000 kms on them..  Looking at them, you’d think they were 20 years old and had 700,000 kms.  Large chunks of tread were peeling off.  They were Goodyears.  The fronts were well worn as well but at least didn’t seem to be coming apart.  He said they had 22K Kms.  It’s a good thing, all these vehicles carry two spares! 

Anyway, after that, back to the lodge for a nice hot shower to wash away the dust and a quick beer at the lounge before sitting down for dinner.  The previous night, we’d met a nice Dutch family that had flown in 2 days before that had kids a bit younger than Shawn/Rachel’s age.  The parents spoke good English (unlike me!) but unfortunately, the kids hadn’t learned any yet.  We again shared our daily experiences and they volunteered that their kids were getting bored.  Luckily ours were still totally fascinated by the experience.  Rachel had discovered that if she held her new iPod Touch up to the binoculars she could get some great shots of distant objects so she got some of the best shots of the lion cubs.  By about 9pm, we were all beat, and the porters guided us back to the tents and we hit the sack for another night.  The next am, we were off to Lake Manyara.