Safari Part Two: Hippo Pools Smell Like Tillamook and Other Life Altering Insights

Well, maybe no more insights, but hippo pools do stink like Tillamook on a soggy day (if you have been there, you know what smell I mean). Since I wrote last I have gone on four game drives. They have been great and very unique from one another. The first night we went on a three hour game drive. I was paired up with a very nice British family that were on a weeklong safari across Kenya, they ending up being great safari companions. We started seeing some waterbucks, antelopes, and a well-hidden warthog. We also encountered a small herd of elephants (small in numbers of course). After this we started driving and spotted a black rhino way off in the distance. Even in the Masai Mara, spotting black rhino, especially at night, is a rare deal. At this point our driver, Wilson, went tearing off down a side track and then off the track onto the crest of a hill. We were actually tracking a rhino and the embarrassing thing was that we couldn’t find it… how do you lose a rhino? Then finally we spotted him and get within 20 yards of him. It was really cool. After this we spotted several female lions and then a den of spotted hyenas. Needless to say, a very fulfilling first day of safari.
The second day began with coffee prior to the sun coming up. I would like to say that I was well-rested, but the before mentioned hippos are quite loud when they wander by your window. Only slightly more unnerving was the lion that was growling outside the cabins. Two of Africa’s greatest killers hanging out by my room, sweet ;). We quickly tracked down some more lions and watched as they half-heartedly watched a herd of buffalo. I have seen plenty of Animal Channel shows with the buffalo posting rear guards to keep an eye out for predators, but it was pretty cool to actually watch them do it and then mock charge the lions when they got a little too close. The rest of the morning was spent cruising around looking at gazelles and antelopes and checking in on the lions again. At the end of this trip the Brits headed out and Wilson and I headed south towards Tanzania to see what we could find. What we found was the beginning of the great migration. It was pretty incredible to watch lines and lines of zebras flooding into the Mara from Tanzania’s Serengeti. There were thousands of zebras and hundreds of wildebeest everywhere we looked. Wilson said by the end of the migration there will be 1.5 million wildebeest and 400,000 zebras on the Mara! Unfortunately, our search for leopard and cheetah was unfulfilled, but other than that it was a great morning.
In the evening a gal working in Nairobi for the CDC joined us for the evening safari. This time we can upon a pride of fourteen lions lazing about under a tree. They had eaten a zebra earlier in the day and were letting that digest off. We were just feet away, it was pretty impressive. We next watched one of the dominant male lions of the area prowling about. He was quite the creature, the way he moved you could see why he was the king of the jungle. There was nothing that scared this old boy, he just wandered around. I was starting to get awful tired of watching lions though (which in any other circumstance than on a 3 day safari sounds ridiculous, I know). The evening was quickly saved when we found ourselves in the middle of a herd of 11 giraffes. It was incredible, they were everywhere. They are a beautiful creature and I was snapping pictures off as fast as I could. After spending a while with the giraffes we headed back, but stopped to enjoy a beautiful sunset over the Mara. What a great full day of safaris!