Dec. 31, 2011 - Day 16
This
morning I was awoken by the grunting of hippos so loud I ran outside in my
underwear to see if they were right outside. I didn’t see anything, but Samson
told me later he had heard them tearing the grass by his tent, and he looked out
the window in time to see a mamma and baby waddle away.
We’ll be
going on our last game drive in about an hour. I have not been so sad to end a
vacation since Italy 1998. For me, this is heaven – endless wilderness swarming
with abundant wildlife. I haven’t checked Facebook in 16 days and could not
care less if I ever see it again.
Today,
we started out visiting the lions from yesterday’s ambuscade. No kill, but they
had been joined by a young male, probably the one viewed in our camp the night
before last. We didn’t stay long as they were most interested in sleeping.
When
drinking coffee this morning, we spotted 3 Dik-Diks off the veranda; one was a
baby, as if anything could actually BE smaller…
I had
really wanted to see elephants again, but Samson said he didn’t think there
were any in the area. I kept thinking about them, though, and lo and behold, we
spotted two far off the road amongst the trees. Unfortunately, we were in the
Serengeti which does not allow off road travel, but this guy carried the
biggest tusks I have seen on the whole trip. Again, you could understand why
hunters of yore coveted these things. Samson agreed to take us of road just a
bit, though to be caught carries a heavy fine and possible suspension. We never
got close enough for the photo I wanted, however I did get ot view them with the
field glasses. Spectacular!
We learned that elephants are right of left side dominant like humans, and
that is the foot they’ll use to help them knock loose plants, and the tusk
on that side will grow bigger. Elephants grow and lose six sets of teeth, and
after they lose the last one, they end up starving to death. The high calcium
concentration in the volcanic soil nearby contributes to both their large tusks
and their long lives, as their teeth last longer.
We also
saw a striped hyena, as opposed to the multitudes of spotted hyenas we’ve seen.
Samson said he’s only ever seen 3 in all his years of guiding. They live on
insects!
We
gathered with about 20 other trucks to watch a cheetah on the hunt. Everybody stayed
so far back it was hard to distinguish the cat among the grass with the naked
eye, but you could see him well with field glasses.
We
watched her prowl along after a herd of gazelles, hiding in the grass from the
big bucks who would sound the alarm and could conceivably spear the cheetah
with their long thin horns. The bucks knew something was up and pranced back
and forth pawing the dirt, scampering away, then wandering back.
Eventually,
the jig was up and the cheetah rose and strode to a nearby rock as if she were
no longer interested in the herd at all. After watching this scene play out for
about an hour, we drove on, but we learned from other guests later that the
cheetah indeed succeeded in pulling down a young gazelle.
Of
course there were other animals, but I can’t remember it all now, being 3am on
Jan. 2 in the Kenya airport…
I told
Samson at lunch that for our last drive, we wanted to see elephants and
giraffes, but he said he didn’t think we’d find those elephants again, and
talked about how wide a range elephants had. Also, we hadn’t seen any giraffes
in the past two days. Kathryn and I have become very fond of “Twiga” (the
Swahili word for giraffes) and we miss them.
Back at
our tent, on the patio, I pulled out my telephone and played the Johnny Weissmuller
Tarzan yell (my ringtone) a couple times, just to get in the mood…
We got
in the truck, drove out of camp, and BOOM – there was an elephant! No, it
wasn’t the one with the giant tusks, but at least it was an elephant and we
were able to get close to it. You KNOW it was coming in response to that Tarzan
yell, right??? :^D
And what
was on the other side of the road? Giraffes – two or three. For the rest of the
afternoon, we must have seen 50 giraffes, they were everywhere.
What
else did we see on that last drive? We saw 5 or 6 hyena’s bathing in a pool.
We
saw a tree totally covered in vultures – I counted 25 and I couldn’t see the
far side of it. We saw jackals, dik-diks, steinbocks. We had to drive by and
check on my lions, I kept hoping they would make a kill – but no luck. Some
vultures had gathered nearby. Samson said they knew the lions needed to eat
within the day so they were getting ready for the leftovers.
We drove
down by the lake shore and guess what we saw! A crocodile! Lying totally
exposed on a little stone island. What made this so cool is I had wanted to see
one more croc since I was never happy with the views we saw of the other 3. I had
asked one of the staff about crocs in the lake. She said “I’ve heard there’s
one crocodile in the lake, but I’ve never seen it.” Well, we saw it! Samson
said he’s been coming here for years and never saw it, and when he told the
guides about it, they didn’t believe him!
Another
funny sighting – in the back of the truck, I played the Tarzan yell again, and
about two minutes later, we spot something
under a tree. We make Samson drive back and what is it? A large, male baboon,
the first primate we’ve seen since coming here. There aren’t many trees about;
this is not baboon or monkey territory. And he’s all alone. Where’s his troop?
Of course I know that – like the elephant – he came in answer to the Lord of
the Jungle’s cry! ;^)
Down by
the lake we watched the hippos make a big show of displeasure as some staff
from our lodge siphoned water into a big tanker truck. We saw some jackals
here, too. Our lodge is on the hill above us and we can see the veranda from
where we’re parked.
Across
the river, a massive herd of wildebeests are gathering. Samson says it looks
like they are about to cross the river. 
After about 1000 or so have bunched
themselves on the shore, a few dive in and start swimming, but unfortunately,
directly across from them is another safari truck and Samson said this probably
scared them off cause they turned back to shore.
So – on
our last game drive we saw elephants, giraffes, lions, hippos, zebras,
wildebeest, Thompson gazelles, grant gazelles, impalas, elands, jackals,
hyenas, storks, buzzards, vultures, eagles, and a crocodile! What a day.
We went
to the tent and got cleaned up for New Year’s Eve and had a fabulous dinner of
ham and turkey with all the trimmings.
Then we
went out on the veranda and danced some swing to a tune on my telephone, and
then turned in early to get some rest for our long journey tomorrow.
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