Back to Africa; Chumbe Island & Kenya: Simbavati Monday & Tuesday, 5 and 6 October, 2015

First a little bit of background. For our game drives we are seated in an OPEN Land Rover that has 9 passenger seats. So far there have been 4 empty seats in our vehicles at both Garonga and Simbavati Safari Camps. While we are 30 to 50 feet from game we can carry on normal conversations - and the large animals ignore us. They even ignore the crashing and crunching of shrubs we drive over to get to them and they ignore the sounds of the vehicle. It is kind of surreal. The wildlife tends to ignore us as long as we stay seated in the vehicle. Both of the leopards walked within 5 feet of the vehicle that had, moments earlier, been chasing about 50 feet off to the side of their paths. Our guide and tracker are more clever than all the rest, it seems, as they anticipate where the animals are going to go and they get in the path. That is how we get the good views and photos. By the way, during a game drive we drive TO the game. We do not "drive" the game.

Yesterday, on our Monday afternoon game drive we started by mingling with a herd of more than 100 African buffalo. Since they were scattered among the shrubs and trees we could never see more than a small percentage of them at any given time. Then while cruising round we saw a Water Buck. Photo attached. Then we heard by radio that a female Leopard had been spotted nearby so we proceeded briskly to it. She was very cooperative in spite of the commotion our vehicle made.

Then we went to a road that defines the boundary between Kruger park and the private game reserves and went to a large waterhole. First we noticed the herd of zebras on the other side; then we noticed that there were 3 Wild Dogs near the Zebras. When the Wild Dogs wandered into the brush we headed out at a good clip - not knowing what the plan was. It turned out that we intercepted the Wild Dogs. They went by pretty rapidly, so I did not get any good photos when we were close. So I have attached a photo taken from across the pond. Then we went back to the point where we first entered the clear area around the water hole. That gave us an opportunity to watch the four Hippos in the pond. They did their yawning behavior at least 4 times but I was never ready any of those times so I did not get a shot. When it got fairly dark one of the Hippos went to the other side of the waterhole and left the water to graze. I got a photo of him out of the water, but it is pretty dark.

At about that time a herd of Buffalo started going to the pond across the road on which we had driven in to the pond. Before long we realized that it was a HUGE herd. They just kept coming. There were probably 800 of them. Even more surprising to us was that there was a mother and baby Rhino among them. Seeing a herd this size is not a common occurrence.

Last night our drive-partners from Denmark were asked what they would like to see on their final drive since they were leaving after this morning's game drive. The lady said she would like to see a Pride of Lions. This morning we went to a water hole and our tracker observed that some females and cubs had been there during the night. Our tracker guided us the the general area where he thought they were. He was on foot and we proceeded without him. As we were driving I spotted a moving leg through a small hole in the underbrush that was the Pride. They were feasting on last night's kill. Three females and 7 cubs. They were on one side of a small dry creek bed. We were on the other side about 50 feet away.

After we left there our guides took us to a Hyena house. They had made their home in an abandoned termite mound. We saw the two females lying around. Then they moved and laid down for the youngsters to suckle. The youngsters were more shy, but we did see them and get some pictures.

On the way back we saw another type of hoofed animal, Duiker Deer.

This whole trip is surreal! And it just keeps getting better.