a dead animal climbed that tree

safari day two

5:40 a.m. we stumbled out of the tent, bundled in too many layers to count. quick pee, breakfast at 6 - some tea/coffee, a cracker or two, and then we piled into the safari car and were on our way by 6:15 a.m., before the sun had even started to brighten the sky. Mohammed was wonderful about getting us out of camp before the other safariers had even started to stir. We loved being the first on the road, and got to see a nocturnal rarity, the east African civet, because of it. past buffalo, mbogo, that were massive shadows in the dim morning light, we made our way into the open in search of more early morning gems.

Mohammed stopped the car as the sky turned more vivid colors of pink and orange. With a picturesque African tree, the branches spread wide and high to avoid the reach of the animals, in the foreground we began snapping photo after photo, each more beautiful than the last. The clouds had set up perfectly to accentuate the rising sun, reflecting beams out above and glowing even more intensely than the red sun. the massive orb rose quickly over the Serengeti and the ‘oooo’s and ahhhhh’s’ coming from our safari car were certainly drawing the curiosity of nearby gazelle. Satisfied we had eternalized this sunrise with photos, we told mohammed ‘twende!’ and he drove on…

We wanted to play a trick on a few of the safari cars behind that had caught up to us. we asked mohammed to stop and quickly moved to one side of the roof, cameras out and pointing overzealously at nothing, the idea being that the other safariers would stop and look for the imaginary animal we were viewing. So funny right? not really, but the idea had entertained us and we wanted to give it a try. Mohammed wasn’t so keen on fooling his fellow safari guides and just as he realize our plan and started the car to foil our game, I spotted our first hippo!! Kiboko!! there in the water not far from the car. kind of ironic :) we snapped photos of the real life cool animal we had discovered and then moved on.

We soon came upon a line of safari cars, judging by the sheer number of them, they were looking at something good. and sure enough, there by the road was a young male simba, basking in the morning sun. then we spotted him, a giant male just across the way, walking lethargically with a huge female simba by his side. She settled down in the tall grass and he stood over her, his impressive mane only adding to his grandeur. We made a split second decision to head to the other side, where we had seen a few cars pull up on a road much closer to the king of the jungle. Mohammed drove like a mad man and we held on desperately with our numb fingers, icy from the cool morning. we made it around in time to pull up slowly as papa simba and his wifey passed between the cars and set out toward some nearby gazelle. Boy was he a sight to see. When they had disappeared in the tall grass we turned our attention back the ‘young boy’ as mohammed called him. there was also a female now, one we hadn’t seen at first, who approached him and playfully pawed at his face before they nuzzled just like simba and nala in the lion king! So freakin’ adorable. We watched them for a while then reluctantly moved on.

It wasn’t long before we were seeing more lions, a few females and some cubs laying in the short grass some distance away. If I thought I could watch the adult lions all day, I could watch the cubs for a lifetime. Their tiny fuzzy ears and cute speckled faces are so cute it hurts. I kept joking with mohammed that I would going to get out of the safari car and go snuggle with them now.

So speaking of getting out of the safari car, avy had to pee from her excessive morning coffee consumption and she was making it clear to mohammed that it was urgent. But let us consider the situation for a moment: we’re in the middle of the Serengeti, we’ve just seen lions, we are surrounded by tall grass where quite literally any dangerous animal could be hiding, and she wants to get out to pee. Mohammad finally finds her a semi-safe area along the road to jump out and do her business, and she did a lot of it, leaving her used toilet paper in the middle of the road in the freakin’ Serengeti protected wildlife reserve – definitely not appropriate!! Damn it avy, you can’t do that… ah, but she just did. Oh well… and this from the girl who was troubled by the fact that we’re disturbing the animals and wanted to find a better way of observing the wildlife. You think your poop in the middle of their home disturbs them? I think it does. Our safari continued…

We would drive along, photographing birds and scanning the scenery for animals. mohammed would stop every so often, grab the binoculars, and scrutinize the shady branches of the bigger trees for the rare leopard. Each time we would get excited that he had seen something, and each time he would say ‘just looking…’ so as not to get our hopes up. at one point a tree held his gaze longer than usual, and when he lowered the binoculars he said matter-of-factly ‘a dead animal has climbed that tree’. The girls all exchanged confused looks at this comment, and asked him to clarify… what he had meant is that there was a dead animal hanging in the tree, and in fact, it looked very fresh, meaning that the leopard cannot be far away. This got us very excited, and yes, we photographed the dead, allegedly tree-climbing, animal as evidence that we were close on the leopard’s trail.

Mohammed took us to a lookout point with a view of the Serengeti, part of which was charred black from a recent fire. We got out and stretched our legs. At this point it became clear that there was starting to be more a little more noise and excitement on the radio. We had picked up on when it was just garbled white noise that should be ignored and when we should listen intently for any hint of an animal’s name. when we climbed back into the car mohammed explained that they had spotted a leopard, but it was very far away. How far? We wanted to know. maybe 45 minutes he told us. what if you drive really fast?! We pleaded with him… he was already headed back to camp, we are running out of time he explained, we need to be back to camp at 11 to eat brunch and pack up all the gear (we had left prosper behind to pack up camp and cook).

We sat in silence, not sure if we were allowed to try to convince him otherwise. suddenly he stopped the car, put it in reverse, and plowed through the grass, turning the safari truck around. he took off at top speed, backtracking where we had just come from. On our leopard hunt we passed some giraffes grazing in the distance. I could definitely watch them all day, but there’s no time for that now, we were on a mission! We also passed another duma, but chances of seeing a duma on safari are about 60% according to mohammed, and we had seen one close up the day before. Our priority was the leopard, more rare (45% chance of seeing one), and arguably more breathtaking. We sped on, everyone bouncing along with the bumps in the road, unable to hide our excitement!

Wasn’t long before in the distance we could see a congregation of safari jeeps. Mahammed pulled up and nosed his way into the middle to get us the best view. In a tree not far off the road was, indeed, a leopard!! Draped over a large branch of the tree, his tail dangling to one side, his head resting on his massive paw. What a gorgeous animal!! After we got our fill of leopard photos it was back to the campsite at top speed! We were running late and we had to get prosper and make our way to our next campsite, on the rim of the crater!!

Of course the journey between campsites was a safari in and of itself. We’d periodically drive past an ostrich, and every type of antelope and gazelle, as well the occasional corey bustard (which mohammed would pronounce, with his accent and lisp, and always make it sound like ‘horny bastard’ – never got old). the serengeti is pretty much flat forever, but every once in a while we would pass these large piles of rocks. I couldn’t figure out how they would have gotten there, all “lion kind pride rock-esque” until mohammed explained that ngorogoro crater was once a mountain taller than kilimarjaro and it erupted about two million years ago, showering the Serengeti with those huge rocks. When we’d pass them you could always spot a rock hyrax (a small tailless rodent) or two scurrying out of sight. We also see the agama lizards here, also known as rainbow lizards, bright pink and purple, no joke! Speaking of cool colored animals…

The beautiful blue birds we saw are called lilac rollers, and the color of their wings is unbelievable!! ok, im just thinking… so it is now three weeks since my arrival back in the states and I’ve finally found the time to finish up this blog (had our first test of second year this morning)… and im trying to pick up where I left off but it’s not as easy as I thought it would be and I don’t think I’ve blogged yet about the kill we saw so im just gonna jump into that real quick. Im pretty sure it was day two of safari and not long after we saw the big papa lion. We came upon a line up of jeeps watching what we soon realized was four lioness’. One of them was obviously very interested in some nearby grazing gazelle and we decided to observe for a bit. A lioness by a tree, two in the grass, and one near us sitting, attentively staring in the direction of some nervously grazing gazelle not far away. So here’s my thinking, you’re a gazelle, a lion is eyeing you and licking her chops, maybe just get the heck out of there before she has time to make a move? Well that’s what I’d do, because otherwise this happens… as we’re watching them and wondering if we’ll get to see anything cool (how long does it take a lion to hunt down a gazelle anyway?) we soon realize that we’ve lost visual on one of the lioness’. Now the lioness nearest the jeeps begins making a move forward and before long the lineup of jeeps are all starting up their engines and moving forward in turn to maintain the best vantage point over the situation, or so they thought. Just as mohammed was going to start up our car (we were almost last in line), the m.i.a. lioness we had lost track of launches out of her concealed position in the grass just to the right of our car and within that moment of pure explosive predator strength she takes down a gazelle we hadn’t even noticed it was so well camouflaged in the tall grass. it was mere seconds before all four lioness’ were on top of the carcass, tearing off bloody pieces of meat, dismembering the decent-sized gazelle that moments before had been grazing quietly on the Serengeti plains. It’s the circle of life :) we were lucky to witness it in action!!

Ok, back to ngorogoro…. We pass through the gate (at which point mohammed stopped the car halfway through and goes ‘me and prosper, we’re in ngorogoro, you guys, in Serengeti’ which I found pretty entertaining). Another thing mohammed was doing that was cracking me up was that he kept getting hairs sticking to him. he’d be driving along trying to pick off a hair that had flown up from one of the six heads of long hair in the back and was tickling/annoying him. it happened surprisingly often, guess we shed a lot when we go three days without bathing. We saw more of the coke’s hartebeest, got a great close up shot of a topi, saw a black backed jackel, and passed by an impala with cool swayed horns.

We make it to ngorogoro crater campsite. There are zebras grazing right next to where our tents are set up and we have to walk directly past them to get to the bathroom. When we were photographing them I may have gotten a little too close and I hear amy yelling from a few yards behind me “linds, your mom is gonna kill you! turn around and smile” ha oops. Ask me what happens when you get too close to a zebra and start pissing it off. im allowed to tell these stories now that I’ve made it back safe, wait for the elephant story later on this night! so prosper’s making dinner and we set up our tents, and im visiting all of the cooks asking them what they’re making and prosper brings out the mountain of popcorn (candied on this night, I think he liked us :) and I grab a cup full and head down to drink my tea, eat my popcorn and watch the zebras. It was beautiful and sunny and I was in paradise.

By the time sunset came around we had busted open two bottles of wine and made our way to the top of our safari car to sit from that vantage point, wine glasses in hand, bottles closeby, watching the sun set over the edge of the crater. Also pretty much paradise. Soup and rice and vegetable curry for dinner, which was interrupted when avy left for the bathroom then came back in a frenzy and explained in her admittedly pretty cute accent that she had dropped her pants to pee outside the bathroom in the dark (apparently she had decided the bathrooms were too dirty and it would be nicer to pee next to them) when she realized she was, pants around her ankles, one a few feet from a massive elephant who had entered the camp to drink from the watertank outside of the covered area where we were eating. Naturally she panicked, ran inside to tell us the story, at which point we all ran back outside to confirm her tale, and sure enough there was a gargantuan elephant, trunk in the water tank, right there!! im talking feet away, and I needed a photo, and with the liquid courage from the wine I stepped forward and took one, and then another, and then one of the crowd behind me all staring in awe and shock at the massive wild animal so close to us. at this pint he turned to face me, and I think that’s when I realized I should probably back off. we headed back inside, guided by some of the locals who im thinking were pretty thankful none of us had been traveled. The goal is to return the tourists in one piece :)

That’s about enough excitement for one day. fried bananas and honey for dessert, then it was a matter of putting on every layer of clothing we brought with us and snuggling beneath two sleeping bags. it gets cold at the crater!! A quick visit from a bush pig who sniffed at our tent, then it was off to sleep, with visions of safari animals dancing in our heads.