10 Lions, Elephants, and Zebras

Wednesday, October 11, 2017

   I slept better than I thought I would with no CPAP machine, but I did snort myself awake a few times.  I hoped it didn't keep Deb awake.   Our bathroom here is massive.  I took a hot shower.  They brought us tea and scones as a wakeup call at 7:00.  We were already awake so enjoyed my tea out on the veranda watching the monkeys in the trees around me.  Mary and Marlene had the monkeys right on their veranda.

No monkeys here, but this was our veranda.

     We went to breakfast at 7:30.  Finding the dining hall was a little tricky and we ended up asking a staff member, Anton.  He asked me what languages I knew and when I said Spanish, we exchanged a few sentences in Spanish.  Alex sat with us for breakfast, too.  We had some raised cinnamon rolls that were so yummy, toast and jam, and whatever kind of eggs we wanted.

Breakfast in the dining hall

     We loaded up into the Rovers.minus Russ and Mary1.  Turned out Mary had a small fracture in one of the long bones of her leg.  They had bought her a knee brace and some tylenol.  This morning her knee felt better and she could put some weight on it, but she chose not to go on the morning safari drive.  Today is her birthday, so what a bummer - to be in this fabulous camp and not able to go out and see the animals.  And we saw lots of animals: lions, zebras, giraffes, kudus, impala, elephants, cape buffalo, a cobra and a bee's nest.  There were many colorful birds also.  We crossed the dry (and sometimes wet) river bed many times. It was the Mwagusi River, hence the Mwagusi Safari Camp name.

Zebras and a giraffe.  Michael noticed there were nervous about something.  

A little further down the road and this is what the other animals were nervous about.

     When we got back about 12 we freshened up.  Our bandas had been cleaned up and opened up for all nature.  Our dirty laundry had been spirited away to be washed, sun dried and ironed by hand during the day.  We went to lunch in the dining hall again.  We had rice, meatloaf, some kind of vege (meat)balls, tomato and cheese salad, and wonderfully soft yummy buns.  While we were eating, small squirrels kept trying to sneak in and eat the food on the serving counter.  For dessert it was apple strudel.

Lunch buffet

     There was a big bird in a tree across the river bed.  I used the zoom on my camera to take a close up.  It was a new bird to the staff so they were using a bird book and my photo to try to identify it.  After lunch we came back to our banda to take a hot sweaty nap.  I used the hammock and Deb took the couch on our veranda.  It was so peaceful!

New bird (to them) in a tree across the river

    At 4:00 I went on an evening safari ride.  Deb2 stayed with Mary1 so Russ could go.  We saw tons more animals but all the same kinds.  One spot on the river bed had just about all of them at once.  We stayed there about 20 minutes watching the animals get water.  Watching a baby elephant kneel down and use his trunk to dig in the dry sand until he found water was amazing.  I just couldn't believe I was there, watching all this natural beauty in person.

Can you hear the baby elephant walk?

     The  next spot we went to had 2 lions, a male and a female.  We had heard that they might be mating.  As we watched, the male slowly got up and walked over to the female.  He licked her a few times and she just laid their ignoring him.  A few more licks and she got up and he started humping her.  He bit her ear and roared and it was over. Took all of 30 seconds.  He walked off and laid down to rest.  She laid there with her legs in the air for awhile.  Wow!  Talk about seeing animals in their natural state!  There were about 6 safari vehicles in a semi-circle around them.  We all took videos.  We felt privileged to be some of the few people in the world to witness this in the wild. The drive after that was a let down.  Michael tried hard to find a "chewy" (leopard) for us, but couldn't.

Wham, bam, thank you, mam!

    We got back about 6:45, just long enough to freshen up and have a glass of our own wine before being picked up by our "taxi" to go to supper.  It was down in the river bed again.  They even carried Mary1 (Queen Mary) down in a chair so she could be part of the group.  We had drinks beforehand again with Chris and Rebecca from London and Bob and Julie (great names!).  I had told them earlier that my husband's name was also Bob and he said he was sorry.  Dinner started with "crisps" (potato chips) and drinks, then pumpkin soup, a buffet with potatoes with parsley, beef stroganoff with mushrooms, leek muffins (good!), chapati (Indian flat bread), spinach something and broccoli.  For dessert they came out in a singing line with a cake for Mary1's birthday.  We had a grand time with lots of bad jokes told.  Then our "taxis" took us back to our bandas.  Deb2 threw up everything, felt better and we went to bed.

Mary1 and her birthday cake