(Editor: Are you having a stroke? Writer: Not yet, why? Editor: You typed gibberish. Writer, indignantly: That’s not gibberish. It’s Swahili, and part of the great opening
scene to Lion King, “The Circle of Life.”
Editor: Okay, what’s it mean?
Writer: Um, let’s just get back to the blog post please.)
Our evening game drive was abbreviated, but still quite
interesting. Robert was a great guide,
on par with James. I’d give James the
nod on being educational about the wildlife we were seeing, while I’d give
Robert the edge on bonhomie and humor.
Don’t get me wrong, James had a sneaky sense of humor, such as when he
pretended the Land Rover died whilst we were surrounded by male lions and the
sun was going down.
By the way, there would be no words printable in a family
blog to describe Carol’s reaction to having to await rescue whilst surrounded
by lions in the pitch black night. Or
that’s my prediction, at least.
That’s a pretty big build-up to the fact our first animals
spotted were a warthog (the guides all call them “Pumbaa”) and hyenas
(“Ed”)*. That’s not by any stretch
anticlimactic. Both animals are pretty
entertaining to watch, and we weren’t close enough to smell them.
The hyenas were particularly fun to watch, as the den is
right on the side of the dirt road coming out of of Camp Bateleur. We had the hyenas to ourselves, as everyone
else had left for their drive before we even arrived in camp. The little ones played, rolling over each and
mom. Then they decided it was time to
nurse. A third young one tried to cut in
and nurse, but since it wasn’t her young hyena, she aggressively pushed it away
a couple times before the young one took the hint.
A few other adult hyenas alternatively dozed and watched the
mama feed her young ones, but someone else’s young one.
Just past there, we saw one Maribou stork at treetop level,
who was then joined by two more flying in.
More on them in a future post.
It’s ironic that we saw those three species back-to-back-to-back,
as the warthog, the hyena, and the maribou stork make up sixty percent of the
Ugly Five – a play on the Big Five animals of African safaris. The Ugly Five are the aforementioned three,
along with vultures and wildebeests. So, just like we saw all of the Big Five on this trip, we also saw all of the Ugly Five.
And yes, they are ugly. But you can't take your eyes off them.
As we drove toward along the border of Masai Mara lands, we
saw a herd of elephants, including little ones.
Once in Masai Mara, Robert took us to a relatively small pond, which,
surprisingly to me, had two hippos. I
always assumed hippos need a big river to thrive, but between the Lewa
waterhole and this one, but it’s clear my pre-conceived notion was
ill-conceived.
(Editor: “Pre-conceived/ill-conceived – nice piece of
writing right there. Writer: Thank you,
I though so myself.)
We also got a better look at the hippos than we did at Lewa, but even in this case their massive bodies remained primarily submerged. We were running out of time, so after admiring the hippos, Robert took us on a bit of a drive, but it was time to head out before the park’s closing at 6:30 pm.
*If you haven’t figured out, I’m a big fan of Lion King. One of my favorite scenes is where Mufasa has to rescue Simba and Nala from the hyenas in the elephant graveyard. The other two hyenas (played by Whoopi Goldberg and Cheech Marin) deny knowing that Simba is Mufasa son. Shanzi: “I didn’t know, did you?” Banzai: “No.” “Ed?” Ed has no dialogue at all, but just laughs maniacally throughout his scenes. In response to the question, Ed laughs and vigorously nods his head yes, so it was clear they knew.
Yeah, I know, you're thinking Mufasa should have killed them right then and there, but he didn't because the movie would have been way too short!
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