Safari So Good

At the top of the list for most tourists visiting Africa is to get a look at what is referred to as “the Big Five” — Lions, Elephants, Rhinoceros, Buffalo, and Leopards.  This term was coined from game hunting; they are the most dangerous of the game animals. The first of the big five we saw was a lone elephant in Lake Manyara Park (Thursday, February 21st).  He was back, quite a ways, off the road and mostly hidden by the trees.  Nonetheless, we were all so excited to spot him and we took many pictures.  Likewise with the large group of Cape Buffalo that we saw some distance away at the same park. Then on the 6 hour drive to the Serengeti Sopa Lodge, we found the lioness behind the rock (picture provided in earlier story).  This put our count to 3 out of 5!  Although excited to have made such progress, we really wanted to see a male lion, with a big mane and all that, so we requested that Masha find us one.  Fortunately, he was very good natured and asked us what we wanted to see and said he would do his best to find it.
On Friday we saw more elephants and took more pictures — you just can’t have enough elephant pictures!  Then, Masha spotted two baby leopard in the crook of a tree not too far from the road.  We stopped to take pictures, watching as one of the babies ventured down the tree onto the ground.  It was interesting to see him start down head first, quickly realizing that was not going to end well, he turned around and went down feet first, with great success!  We wondered where Mom was, as we could not see her anywhere.  We assumed she was in the tall grass around the tree, so we moved on down the road.  We soon happened upon Mom quite a ways down in the grass.  We couldn’t get very good pictures of her, but took many shots anyway of her walking through the grass.  We continued on our drive looking for other animals, then spotted Mom again coming across the grass, straight toward us on a road parallel to the one  where we first saw her.  As luck would have it, this beautiful creature walked slowly and deliberately directly in front of our Land Cruiser.  In fact, she stopped and turned to look directly at us, before sauntering on. Woohoo!!!  Four down, one to go!
Masha asked what else we wanted to see and we said we really wanted to see a Rhino and we still wanted to see a big male lion.  He said no guarantees, but that he would try.  We headed out on our game drive, sighting many wildebeests, gazelles, zebras, beautiful birds (and a few ugly ones), warthogs, etc. etc.  Then, we heard Masha say the magic words, “I think that’s a rhino out there!”  The animal was a long way off, but sure enough, with our zoom lenses, we could see the distinct horn on his nose.  He was a white rhino and was huge.  Five out of Five, baby!  That’s what I’m talking about!  Amazing as that was, we traveled a little further on and spotted another – not one, not two, but FIVE rhinos, off in the distance.
Masha tells us this was the best rhino sighting in 5 years or so.  Awesome, but is everybody happy?  Well, not quite; we would still like to see that King of the Jungle.  So, we continue on our drive, and as we come around the side of a rock quarry, the other American tourist, Meredith said, “Is that a lion’s mane?”  Sure enough, there, not far off the road was a male lion with his head barely showing above the grass!  What a terrific spotter.  As we watched the lion, we kept saying things like, “Don’t just lay there, get up so we can see you” and he would do it.  Then we noticed a female next to him as well as another big male down in the quarry, sleeping on a rock ledge.  According to Masha, a pride of several females can have two male lions.  While we only saw one female and two males, there had to be several more females and numerous cubs nearby.  These lions were very close to us, no more than 10 feet away at one point.  Masha assured us that all the big five have very distinctive behavior to indicate when they are aggitated or becoming aggressive.  The lions we were watching were relaxed and their shoulders were back, most of the time either lying down or walking with their backs to us — clearly not a danger.  It really pays to have a knowledgeable guide with you!!  LOVING THIS TRIP…

Posted on February 25, 2013 at 4:31 am in Africa Adventure 2013   |  RSS feed |   Reply   |   Trackback URL