Well, if I were a lion, I’d be having gazelle, wildebeast or buffalo, as a hyena, whatever I could find but buffalo seems to be the main option, and as the Leopard, I think I’d just climb up a tree with my tasty treat – preferably the gazelle. I think that pretty much describes the lunch menu I have seen in the past few days.
We just left the Serengeti where we had some great wildlife viewing. The Leopard was probably the most spectacular. We got lucky enough to arrive when he had come down the tree to take a pee or get some water or something so followed him along the side of the road and down to his tree. It is anazing how beautiful and graceful (and undisturbed by all the jeeps) that animal is. He sauntered slowly across the road, glanced about just for good show, then leapt up the side of the tree, hopped about up to the highest branch and then began munching on his latest feast. It was phenomenal, disgusting, fascinating and beautiful all at once. The sound effects were quite spectacular as well. Jules and I were sitting on the roof seats watching through our binoculars and constantly exclaiming “ugh, did you hear that? Oh, what was that?” then back up with the binocs, then “I think that might be the back bone, hmmm, maybe the skull?” then back up with the binocs. It sounds quite morbid and sick to admit having sat there and watched it all but so amazing and fascinating.
The lion we saw was equally impressive, although the brush was quite thick and we all thought poor Mr. Lion had a limp and was not doing too well. He had no lady friends around to help him hunt and just seemed to be wandering aimlessly. Well, so much for that, after a minute or so of wandering, he pounced and up he came with a gazelle. I think it was a fake out on his part…the poor sick lion trick, you know the one. Either that or the gazelle hadn’t quite woken up yet and was happily sitting there thinking, “no one can see me, I am hidden in the tall grass and completely invisible”. Oops, not quite! Out came the lion with breakfast in his mouth and then he proceeded to walk proudly across the road showing off his kill to us.
On the happier note, we have seen tons of fat hippos lazing about (and rolling over - quite a feat!) in big pools of water, elephants galore roaming huge vast open plains with amazing blue skies behind them (perfectly offset by the golden grass of the Serengeti), zebras happily dancing about and, my personal favorite, giraffes, blinking in confusion at our truck as we pass by and then placidly returning to their munching of acacia leaves. All beautiful in their own right (even the hyenas, which seem to be getting more and more prevalent as we move to the different parks).
Bathrooms continue to be, hmm, interesting shall I say? Surprisingly enough, when we bush camped in the Serengeti, we had semi-flush toilets (had to bring your own water for the flushing) but did not have showers. Maybe that explains the Hyenas that continued to come into the camp each night and sniff around out tents. Two of them were even so bold as to walk up while a couple people were still up and sitting around the fire. That’ll get you to the truck right quick. Figure we were so minging (British term for nasty, smelly, yucky) that they thought we were a nice ripe kill. Can’t tell you how fantastic the show this morning felt after three days without one…when we got back to a camp with showers it was mass chaos on who could get there first. We ended up with settling for putting our toiletries in line for the shower and going off to do other things like put up the tents, help get dinner going, have a beer and chat, the usual evening activities.
Now in Arusha – just left the Ngorongoro Crater (also beautiful and saw another attempted kill by the lions)– heading past Kilimanjaro, visit to a Maasai village and then on to
No comments:
Post a Comment