Africa - Day 18 - 05-18-2025

It was really sad to wake up to the last day of the trip and realize that it was over and I would soon be flying back home. We did have one last game drive this morning which turned out to be a great send off from camp.  We were less than a mile up the road from camp when we came across two lionesses, with two yearlings and 4 very young cubs with them, all wandering down the road.  The cubs were chasing each other and pouncing on each other, while the adults seemed to be trying to teach the yearlings a lesson.  It almost seemed like they were trying to chase them off, but they just weren’t ready to go out on their own, so they followed from a distance as the moms and cubs kept on moving.
The light wasn’t great, but we did stop and got some photos…

We also saw some Giraffe again and some Secretary birds, which have been kind of elusive so far, but this morning they seemed to not mind us following them for a bit.

The drivers wanted to treat us to one last stop before taking us to the airport.  They took us out to a big marshland near the airport, which was full of birds and other wildlife. We stopped there for a mid-morning snack and just took in the peace and quiet of the area. I think a lot of us were just trying to absorb the last moments in this beautiful country and reflecting on our time with the great people that live there.  This trip is one I will never forget, and one I’m already hoping I can repeat again one day.

It's time to wrap things up, head to the airport and make the 3 flights home. 

Africa - Day 17 - 05-17-2025

 

This morning started off with another crazy encounter.  No sooner had we left camp, than we came across a Male Lion walking down the road in the early morning light.  He eventually veered off the road so we got up ahead of him and them pulled off the road to wait for him and photograph him some more.  No sooner did we do that, than our guide heard another lion up the road calling out and he broke into a fast trot right away.  Our guide said he also heard a few Hyenas calling out to each other, and realized the Lions must have had a kill and the Hyenas found it, and he was running to chase them off and protect his kill.  We raced off up in the direction of the calls, hoping to beat him there, which we did… only to see at least a dozen Hyenas gathered together, one carrying what looked like a blanket at first, until I realized it was the skin of an animal.  The Hyenas all took off before we could get any good photos of them.  We turned around to see where the Lion went and we couldn’t see him anymore.  Our guide said the kill must be nearby and we started to try to find it.
We drove back and forth a little bit not seeing anything, when the guide decided to turn off the jeep, and listen.  His face lit up and he turned to tell us that he could hear the lions eating and that the kill was very nearly, and he wasn’t kidding.  He pulled forward about 30 feet over the crest of a small hill, and there it was, with the Lioness and one of her cubs eating away.  Two other cubs were hiding a little back in the scrub and we weren’t sure if they had eaten their share already, or were hiding because they weren’t used to seeing the jeeps yet.

We parked and watched from about 30 feet away, and stayed very still and quiet.  The two cubs that had been hiding, came out after a few minutes, but neither went to eat so chances are it was just that they were already full.  The male lion was just on the other side of us, watching for any other predators that might try to come steal their meal. 

We noticed 3 Jackals that were hanging around, looking for any chance to steal a bite.. and the Lioness and her cubs did eventually move away from the carcass to go to the river for a drink.  As soon as they were out of site, one of the braver Jackals slowly worked up the nerve to take a quick bite of food, and tore a piece off and made a run for it, only to be jumped by another Jackal that stole that from him.

The Lion seemed to have enough of everyone knowing where his food was, and decided to get up and drag the carcass off to a better location that he could protect easier.

We decided to move away after all of the action slowed down, and went to look for the Hyena den.  Turns out it wasn’t that far away after all, and we sat and watched the opening for a bit, and saw a young’un come out and survey the area to see what all the noise was.

That was the crazy action of the morning.  We continued to drive around after that to just see what we could see.  We saw lots of Zebra, Giraffe, Elephants, etc.  The morning ended with a very fun encounter with elephants, where we just sat and watched them as they slowly worked their way past us.  There were a couple of young babies and yearlings in the group.

Africa - Day 16 - 05-16-2025

 Today was a relatively quiet day for once.  I mean, we still saw a male and female lion laying in the sun on the riverbed, we saw jackals, a lot of elephants that we spent time with and had very close encounters with, saw more Giraffe and still somehow it felt “slow”. 

If this had been day one, I would have been ecstatic about what I saw.  How strange to think that I’ve gotten so used to seeing so many beautiful animals in a day, that this felt slow and relaxing.

I think I’ll keep today’s entry short, as I’m tired after not sleeping well last night, and I can’t stop thinking about the end of the trip being so close now. I’m not ready for it to end, so maybe if I stop writing about that, it can’t be over.  😊

Africa - Day 15 - 05-15-2025

The game drive this morning started off slow. We went to check on the Leopards and they weren’t in their usual locations, so we searched around the surrounding areas, running across a band of baboons in a fruit tree, enjoying themselves.  We then continued our search, going into a very cool forest type area we hadn’t seen before.  We eventually did find a leopard in the forest area after lots of ducking tree branches as we went in and out and all around those trees.

After the game drive and lunch, we headed to the new camp, which was very cool and felt more like an oasis in the desert than a safari camp. The cabin is really nice, and big.  I don’t know how anyone couldn’t really enjoy this place.

We went on an afternoon game drive, but things were kind of quiet here… other than the typical, elephants, giraffe, zebras, etc. All in all it was a nice first game drive just to get used to the new terrain. I’m extra tired tonight, so after dinner, it was off to bed to do it all again tomorrow morning at 5:00am.

We are going to search for Cheetahs that have been spotted in the area. I’m excited to see if we can find and photograph them. 😊

Africa - Day 14 - 05-14-2025

 This morning might have been the craziest start to a day so far. We started the day heading over to check on the leopards, and found the mother and the two cubs, enjoying the morning sun just soaking it in up in the trees (for the 2 cubs) and on the ground for the mother.  She then spotted another leopard and her cub up on a hill not too far away and started running over there. I wasn’t sure what to expect but thought they might fight so I set my camera up really quick for action, and in the blink of an eye the two females snarled, swiped at each other, rolled around really quick and then both took off running back down the hill. I am still kicking myself for not recording video instead of thinking I was going to get a shot of action, and ended up missing it all with the camera, but am still happy I was looking at them when it happened. It happened so fast.  The guide said those two were sisters and that sometimes they would fight over territory with each other, but neither seemed the worst for wear after that tussle.

We were taking more photos of the leopards and enjoying the great light on them, when I noticed the adult was once again looking at something in the distance with a lot of intensity.  At first, I thought her sister was coming back so looked over my shoulder to see what she was looking at and was surprised to see a very large female lion heading our way in the valley.

This seemed to make this leopard very nervous, and she headed back down the hill towards her cubs at a pretty quick pace and our guide started up the jeep to follow.  We found a good place to watch what from, and parked up.  The leopard had taken up a vantage point on a small hill and was watching in the direction of the lioness. She was on high alert.  Next thing I saw was the lion come around the corner on the road, maybe 100 yards away and she suddenly spotted the leopard and started to run right at her!

The leopard wanted nothing to do with a fight and went running and scrambled up into the nearest tree… she kept going until she was almost to the very top of the tree faster than I would have imagined possible, and then they lion was there… throwing herself against the tree trunk and looking up at the leopard.  It was crazy to witness that, but it was over fast and the lion seemed pleased to have scared the leopard into the tree, because she then just slowly walked away and down toward the riverbed.

It was exciting to watch and encounter like that and we learned that those two cats will in fact fight, and lions will kill leopards if they catch them. Not for food, but to eliminate them so there is less competition for food in the area.

We all took a deep breath after all that action and decided to go check out a Bee Eater colony down on the riverbank, where we sat and photographed them for a while, enjoying the beautiful weather.

A huge male lion wandered by at one point and we photographed him for a bit, before calling it a morning and heading back to camp for lunch. It’s hard to believe how much better each morning has been than the last. 😊

Today seems to be all about Leopards. We went back out after lunch and came across a few other leopards during the afternoon.  We also got to watch a very large family of elephants as they moved across the landscape in a single file. They were just quietly on a march to somewhere and it was amazing how quietly they moved when you saw just how big they are.  At one point they even disappeared into some trees, so we went to the other side to wait for them to reappear.  It was almost like magic, watching these huge animals just suddenly appear out of the trees, ripping off huge bundles of leaves as they went, to eat along the way.  I can’t even begin to describe how awesome that was to watch.

The light this afternoon was so good!  I sure hope I managed to get some great shots today.  On the way back to camp, we also took time to just sit and enjoy the beautiful sunset.  We had some Giraffe wander by while we watched it and I attempted to get some good silhouette photos of them in front of the sun, so we’ll see how that went.

Today wore me out, between all the excitement and just the beauty out there. I’m sure I’m going to sleep well, but already looking forward to seeing what tomorrow may bring!

Africa - Day 13 - 05-13-2025

This morning started off bright and early again, wake-up knock was at 5:30.  Had a quick hot chocolate for breakfast at 5:45 and we hit the trails at 6:00am.  We decided to check up on the Leopard, but on the way, there found a female lion on the road, soaking up the rising sun.  She was listening to something off in the distance, and still looked half-asleep, so we shot photos of her at first with backlight, before moving around to get some photos from the front.

Then we continued the search for the Leopard, but on the way, ran across a bunch of Elephants drinking down at the river.  We stopped to photograph them, and after a few minutes, I realized there was a baby under her mama, nursing. She came out and played in the water a little, slapping at it with her trunk, like she wasn’t too sure what to do.  Then she went back to nursing for a bit.  When she was done, she took a break for it along the riverbank.  I think I might have gotten some good video of that.  She seemed to want to go say hello to a large elephant that was up on the top of the riverbanks, but before she could get all the way up the hill, mama and the aunts went after her and rounded her up and brought her back to the river. LOL

A second group of elephants then came down to the river, with a few older babies. and the first group slowly made its way back up the hill and wandered off.  We watched the second group for a bit before leaving again to look for the Leopard.

Once again, we got side-tracked when we ran across a large male lion making all kind of noise and we stopped to photograph him. He made his way back across the river, so we did the same, getting ahead of him and waiting for him to come to us.  I got some videos of him calling out a few times, and some good photos of that as well.  He slowly made his way over to a tree and laid down, eventually taking a nap which is when we left him.

Our driver accidentally got the jeep stuck on a stream crossing and we were jammed in there pretty good.  While waiting for another jeep to come pull us out, we stretched out legs.  Our other jeep showed up, and two of us jumped on with them as they had just seen a group of Warthogs, which I hadn’t photographed yet, so they took us to them.  We were supposed to head back after that, but since our jeep was still stuck…. That driver decided to take us with them, and we went looking for the leopard again. 

We ran across a tree with a bunch of white monkeys in it… and stopped to photograph that.  After a short stop there, we got word that the jeep was out the ditch and moving again so we were headed to meet up with them, when we ran across the leopard!

We tracked it as it moved through the trees and then it went down to the riverbank … we headed down there, photographing it as we went.  Once it went back up the hill, the two of us ran over to our jeep and rejoined our group and off we went to photograph the leopard some more.  It was a great morning.

After our mid-day break, we had Tea and then went to the hide in place of the evening drive.  We knew that it had been very rainy recently and that there were plenty of sources of water around, so the odds of anything showing up were slim.  Nothing did show up, but we all had a great time in the hide joking around and making the poor guy that worked there laugh harder than he had on the job before, according to him.  It was fun, but we all decided to skip the hide tomorrow and do another game drive instead. 

We came back to camp, had another wonderful dinner and now it’s time to call it a night.  Wake-up call is 5:30 again tomorrow morning.