The 2022 Africa Journals, Chapter 27: Leaving Our Home away from Home

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Chapter 27:

Leaving our Home away from Home

“It is always sad when someone leaves home, unless they are simply going around the corner and will return in a few minutes with ice cream sandwiches.”--Lemony Snicket

It’s moving day and we have a long drive to make.  After six nights at Enkewa camp, our home away from home, we are heading north to meet up with the drivers from Great Plains Expedition camp, our fourth and final camp of this safari.

I will also miss the wonderful food at Enkewa.

 

I’m not at all ready to leave.   Oh, my luggage is packed and waiting by the front flap of the tent—inside so the vervets don’t mess with it.   I simply love this camp and its staff and don’t want to leave.    Its relative isolation  provides us with many wildlife sighting with few, if any, other safari vehicles around.

 

However, off we go at the appointed time.   Marg, Virginia, and I are in Dominick’s truck.   

 

Our first sighting is a lion have breakfast, although from the condition of the wildebeest carcass, I think he might be having fourths or fifths.

 

 

 

 

He walks away, and a lioness approaches for her multiple serving.   Both of their bellies are huge, indicating they have been eating for a while.

And, yes, the rumors are true.    The males will eat first even though the females might have brought down the animal.   If the males aren't around, the adult females are first, and then the cubs.

 

Lions are very social and affectionate with each other, though a male might growl at little cubs climbing all over him.   They make a number of vocalizations to communicate.   The loudest, of course, is the roar which can be heard, they say, up to five miles away.

The roar is usually made to locate another lion in the pride.   Contrary to the song about the lion sleeping in the jungle, lions prefer the savannah grasslands.  They spend most of their days lolling about and sleeping.  Most hunting tends to occur at night, though there are exceptions.

Then we find Luluka, the leopard who has two cubs tucked away somewhere.  She has a small antelope down and is moving it.   

 

 

She is soon surrounded by safari vehicles.    The trucks are supposed to stay on the established trails unless the occupants have purchased an off road permit.  Some of the vehicles on the right mat or may not have the permit, which must be displayed on the vehicle.

 

Luluka is to the right of the tree.   Just a little spot.

 

We watch Luluka for a long time, hoping she will carry the carcass up  into the small tree.   

 

 

Then, as we have a timeline to follow,  we’re off and moving again.

 

Eventually, we stop for breakfast.

Under the shade tree.

L-R:   One Ten, Virginia, Sylvia, Peter, Marg, me, Ben, Pere, Shelly is hiding in the back, Cory, Randy, and Johnson.

 

Dominick

There was a lot more to start with.

 

Still heading north, we meet the Great Plains guys and transfer into different vehicles.   Frank is driving and Alex is the spotter.

It’s overcast and raining lightly for most of the trip.  

  

These are the sightings during the journey to camp:

 

 

 

Lark

Gray-headed kingfisher

Sacred ibis.

This variety of ibis got its name from ancient Egyptians, who consider the bird to be the god Thoth, who protected the country from plagues and serpents.   The Sacred Ibis is an ancient species with fossil records going back 60 million years.

A fig tree with its roots exposed by erosion.

Little bee-eater.

Female agama lizard.

 

Safari ant trail.

The below photo from Fact Animal shows safari ants, also known as army ants and driver ants, on one of their trails.    They are voracious predators and will attack anything with protein.   Their colonies can number up to 50 million ants.

NOT MY PHOTO.

Spurwing lapwing on a nest.

Blue-eared starling.

Topi with her calf.   I love the hair patterns inside their ears.

Two topi calves.   The one on the left is starting to grow horns.

Warthogs and a Thompsons gazelle.

This bird is called a water thick-knee.   Look at the huge eyes.

Great Plains Expedition camp is lovely.   It’s located on a parcel of privately-owned land, surrounded on one side by the Maasai Mara, the private conservancy Naboisho, and another conservancy called Olare Motorola, or OMG for short.

 

 

 

Remembered to take a photo before I messed it up.

Where all the photo-editing gets done, batteries charged, etc.

 

The main dining room and lounge tent.   We occasionally had lunch on the deck.

Just for starters.   There was lunch after this.

And a zebra joined us for entertainment.    Expedition camp is fenced, but only to keep out the elephants that can be so destructive.   Anything else can wander through the front gate if it can fit under the overhead cross bar.

After lunch, we were treated to a wee bit of rain (she says facetiously).

  Click on the arrow to watch the short video.

This jackal is gobbling the termites that came up from the wet ground.

Hadada birds.

To top off the day, we visited a hyena den to see the pups.   Hyena pups have black hair that slowly turns to the usual black-spotted ginger color.

We had dinner back in camp and then roamed the grounds watching bushbabies leap from acacia tree to acacia tree.

Bed time.   It was a long, thoroughly enjoyable day.

The 2021 Africa Journals, Ch. 28: In Which We Visit a Maternity Ward or Two or Three

 

Chapter 28:

In Which We Visit a Maternity Ward or Two or Three

 

All my life I'd longed for adventure, but I'd done so without realizing it was almost always a consequence of carefully laid plans going badly wrong.... --Verne Albright, author of Horseback across Three Americas

 

Late one afternoon we followed a lioness.   She led us directly to a spot where she had hidden her very young cubs.  Deep in the brush, in a depression in the rocky mound, the cubs were very hard to see and the light was poor.

The photo at left shows her looking at us through the brush.

The photo below shows you what I could see--the color of lions, but no definition.

 

 

While trying to see something that looked like a cub, I turned to see this sausage tree lit up in gold at sunset. 

 

 

 

We moved away from the cubs and I photographed another sausage tree in the sunset. 

 

 

Below are the fruit of the sausage tree.   Although poisonous to humans, the fruit is used to treat various medical maladies.    Giraffes. elephants, baboons, bats and birds also eat them. 

 

 

 ***

Morning in the Mara.

 

On another day, the guides took us back to the cubs.   We would, they said, park away from the den and only one vehicle at a time would go to the only spot where the cubs could be seen.  That vehicle could spend a SHORT time and then leave so another could take its place.

That sounded wonderful to me, especially after the debacle with the serval cats the day before.

This time, we saw the cubs.   Their eyes are open, so that makes them at least ten days old.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We each took our turns and then drove away.   In the distance, we saw a lioness on a rock ledge.   It would make a nice photo if we could get there in time before she moved.

 

We couldn't.   She was on the move, and we followed her. 

 

She led us right to a brushy gully.   Our vehicle was the first one there but as we attempted to move into position, a large vehicle full of tourists beat us to the one and only place they could be seen.   And stayed and stayed and stayed.   The grumbling from our vehicle might have been loud enough for them to hear.

Eventually several vehicles were lined up and the big truck finally gave way, coming right at us us the trail from the shallow gully.

 A vehicle right behind the big truck followed it into the best spot.    They, at least, didn't stay long and we finally got our turn.

 

  

 

And there they were, about the same age as the first litter.  

 

The little ones went exploring on wobbly legs.   Mum kept rounding them up, trying to keep them in one place.

 ****

 That wasn't the end of lion cubs that day.    We wandered around and the guides spotted a single lioness so they drove near by.   Imagine my surprise when I looked down to see infant cubs beside me.    We lingered only a few moments and left them alone.

Neither lioness showed any indication of  being upset by our company.   In fact, Mum lion went to sleep.

 

 And away we went.   Three litters of baby lions in one day.   Friend who came several days later reported seeing five litters of small cubs!

NEXT:    The whole zoo around Enkewa camp in the Maasai Mara.