kearneyjourney

When we awoke this morning, the sun was just rising; and the temperature both in and outside the tent was decidedly chilly (around 13C or 58F). I poked my head out of the tent to see whether any wildlife was still milling around the campground and snapped a lovely sunrise picture, then retreated to the shower. Outside, one of the campground attendants was bringing a bucket of hot water and raising it in a 20 liter plastic bag above our tent. This would be the shower for the morning. Afterward, I was very quick to dry off and get into my clothes; but interestingly, as soon as the sun was partially up, the temperatures rose by five degrees at least, and it was no longer chilly when we walked to the main tent for breakfast.

Chris was not feeling well in the morning, skipped breakfast and notified us that he would not be joining us for the day’s game viewing. Not knowing what he had or how severe it might be, I opted for the brutal method and immediately put him on a course of antibiotics (5 days, ten tablets at 500mg each). Whatever was ailing him conveniently disappeared within 24 hours; but he had to skip that entire day in the Ndutu region. This did not seem to bother him, however, as he took the opportunity to chill in front of the tent, gaze at the wildlife (zebras, impala, wildebeest) passing through the campgrounds and read a book in the sun. His comment: “I would have loved to go with you; but it was very relaxing for one day NOT to get all rattled about on those bumpy roads”.

We left with Ray at 08:15 and went out for the morning game drive. So far, we hadn’t seen any big cats and, in fact, no real predators to speak of (if you exclude the mongoose we had seen the previous day). But Ray produced plenty of predators during our morning drive. We first came across a very lazy male lion sleeping in the cover of an acacia thicket. Ray postulated that this lion had probably been evicted as head of his pride and was now a solitary male roaming the Conservation Area. He certainly looked fat and well-fed.

Right after this, we saw a female cheetah with a cub about six-months old. They romped through the marsh and put on quite a show. Ray figured the mother was looking for prey, as she climbed up onto a fallen tree to survey the area and appeared to be hungry.

Then Ray got a call on his radio announcing that a leopard had been seen not far from where the cheetah was, so we raced over and found a young leopard slinking through the trees and long grass. He was rather young and not yet full-size, but clearly already weaned from his mother. The morning was concluded with a drive through a massive wildebeest herd heading south on the annual migration. Various herds of zebra and Thomson gazelle were also intermixed with the wildebeest throng, which numbered easily in the thousands.

We decided not to have a box lunch that day, but returned to the camp for a warm lunch. This proved to be a very good idea, as Nicky started feeling sick toward noon. He had a headache, felt dizzy and also had the same digestive problems as Chris. We surmised that it might have been the ice-cream at the Ngorongoro Farmhouse that had caused the problems; but it could have been a host of other things, as well. So our safari party was down to three (plus Ray) for the afternoon drive. I also put Nick on a course of antibiotics, but reduced the dosage to 250mg twice a day for five days (Ciproxin).

During the afternoon drive, we saw two female and one male lion sleeping under a tree, then found a group of bat-eared foxes lying in the tall grass near their burrows.

Ray then took us to Lake Masek where we saw a wildebeest graveyard from a mass drowning during last year’s migration. Apparently, as many as 500 animals got stuck in the lake during their annual crossing and perished in the waters. We found their bones and skulls with horns rowed along the shoreline. From there, we ventured on to Lake Ndutu to see the Flamingo population.

There were also a half dozen Marabu Storks (which Ray considers Africa’s ugliest bird) and one odd-looking specimen that Ray could not place. Figuring it was a new discovery, we decided to call it “Ray’s Crane” or “The bird of Ray” in honor of our guide.

At the camp, we got to know a very nice Dutch family that kindly offered to provide medication when they heard that our two boys had taken ill. Since I was well-stocked myself, I politely declined. They were running pretty much the same itinerary as we were; and we bumped into them once again at the Ngorongoro Crater. During the night, we heard a lot of hyena noises and some lion roars.

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 16th, 2011 at 3:33 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.