Returning from the Masai Mara plains to the Big Smoke of
Nairobi, after a harrowing nine hours on the road, culminating in a delirious
karaoke session of Bless The Rain Down in Africa and Lion Sleeps Tonight and,
too exhausted to put up tents, we all opt for an upgrade to a hostel. Sunday
dawns and we pick up three extra passengers, Steve, a meteorologist from London
and Pam and Michael, a thrill-seeking couple from Scotland doing a world trip!
After travelling across the border to the bustling city of
Arusha in Tanzania, on Day Five of our Absolute Africa tour, we pick up five
Canadian lads who have just climbed Kilimanjaro who regale us with tales of
hiking the famous mountain. When we arrive at the camping ground, a dramatic
change occurs!
We switch vehicles from the big yellow bus, our mobile
lounge room, to a smaller safari vehicle with canvas roll-up windows. We change
crew from our happy-go-lucky tour leader, Edmund with his cheerful motto “Let’s
make a plan” and our pensive driver Stephen to a new commander-in-chief, Joe, a
stocky, athletic guy with a direct approach and “No guarantees” (about hot
showers) and our new driver Patrick, with his beaming smile and relaxed Reggae
style!
And we combine with another tour group to become 17 passengers in total.
A Camp Feast
Edmund and I rise to the challenge to become Camp Cooks
Extraordinaire and swing into action with Merethe and Julio pitching in with
gusto. I’ve never chopped up so much coleslaw in my life! Other helpers peel a
giant mound of potatoes for mash and enough carrots and beans to feed an army and
Edmund makes a mountain of rice and chicken. What a feast!
Monday morning, we meet our new travelling companions,
Nathan and Priya, a charming Indian couple on an exciting world trip, Rachel
and Paul, high flyers from London, Barry, a burly Aussie, Yan from Canada,
Hannah and Olga from California and Danielle, a Aussie nurse who’s been on the
tour since Cape Town.
Joe announces we have a roster for cooking, clean-up, security
and truck duty. We need to go shopping for food supplies before we hit the road
so my team and I frantically search the aisles for Mexican ingredients. When we
can’t find tortillas we improvise with Indian chapattis and grab bags of
cassava chips instead of corn chips for nachos! With mincemeat, red kidney
beans, tomato paste, chilli and a massive bag of avocadoes, we’re good to go.
Finally we set off through the rolling countryside of
Tanzania, passing through little townships, waving back at happy, laughing
children, heading for the Ngorongoro Crater, to experience a unique game drive
in this spectacular volcanic caldera formed three million years ago, which
offers an ideal, protected eco-system to many species.
The term ‘game drive’ originated when hunters with their
sinister guns would go out in search of
‘game’ to shoot and kill. Thankfully these days most people just want to
shoot these beautiful animals with their camera.
The landscape of the crater is eerie, like another planet! In
our jeep, we spot three lions and three lionesses eating a warthog surrounded by
opportunistic hyenas and a jackal, hoping to steal some fresh meat and later in
the tranquil jade green lake, we marvel at the sight of a school of basking hippos,
while a solitary elephant forms a magnificent silhouette against a mountain
backdrop.
Incoming Rain
Day Seven, on the road to Serengeti is abysmal. We bounce
along rough roads for endless miles when the sky opens up and pours with rain
so heavy that water is pelting through the canvas sides. We all sit in the
vehicle in our raincoats trying to squint through the haze and spot animals but
they have all gone into hiding and our game drive is a washout!
Tired and
hungry and keen to get to our camping ground, a tanker accident on the track
blocks our way for an hour.
When we finally set up our tents in the pitch dark, everyone
is ravenous and tonight is our turn to make our Mexican feast. So we crack on
and finally feed the hungry hoards our African-Indian-Mexican fusion capped off
with Julio’s delicious guacamole! I crawl into my sleeping bag, exhausted.
Elephants At
Breakfast
After the rain, we wake up to a sparkling, perfect morning
with elephants grazing near our campsite! What a promising way to start the
day, which turns out to be magical – safari gold! The animals are out in force,
grazing on fresh, moist grass and prancing and playful as we drive across the
famous Serengeti; a national reserve, Joes tells us, is 14,763 square
kilometres and as big as Holland!
We sight an abundance of zebras, gangling giraffes munching n treetops and a herd of old cape buffalo carrying cheeky yellow billed ox peckers on their backs!
Joe is in his element sharing his knowledge of wildlife and tells how the old, “bachelor buffaloes” hang out together, when past their prime, they are rejected by the fit, young herd.
We are all so exuberant today to be in true safari-mode with
zoom lenses at the ready. The Serengeti boasts a population of 5000 lions and
we are itching to spot the big cats.
Then it happens. Dozens of jeeps are stopped on the track
with eager tourists glued to cameras poking out the rooftops and windows
captivated by some unfolding drama. The frantic scene is like the paparazzi of
the animal world with the Big Cats the sought-after celebrities.
Mother Lion Reprimands Cub
As we draw closer, we see a female lion pacing the road while two other lionesses guard five feisty cubs sitting obediently on a log.
to say” “Come when I call!” The other two females continue to keep watch
while all the cubs feed.
What an extraordinary and thrilling drama to see played out
in nature! I have to pinch myself! We are privileged to witness this little
scenario happening in real-life, not sitting on the sofa watching a TV wildlife
show!
Joes explains that female lions live and hunt together
caring for a collection of cubs that can belong to the different mothers while
male lions usually leave the pride after mating and roam around as solitary
hunters or team up with other males.
We stop at the Serengeti tourist centre for lunch. Then five
minutes before the bus is about to leave, Julio and I behave like naughty
children running off to buy souvenirs and delay our departure, much to
everyone’s disapproval.
The Leopard Encounter
I am standing at the front of the bus when we approach a few
vehicles stopped on the track with binoculars and cameras glued to a small
bush. I spot her first! A leopard! She is motionless, transfixed, staring at
something in the distance. Everyone is lined up along at the open windows to
see what’s happening. In a flash she pounces and strikes the helpless gazelle
in the neck. We are gasp and shriek! Oh My God! We just witnessed a kill - the
Serengeti’s ultimate thrill! I feel sorry for the gazelle, which had obviously
wandered off from the safety of the herd. Isolated and vulnerable, he was easy
prey for the lightening fast wild cat.
Now the leopard is poised clutching the gazelle in her
powerful jaws as our cameras click this incredible image but she is shy and
nervous about the human audience so drags the dead gazelle under a bush to eat
in peace.
I admit it was irresponsible to hold up the bus buying
souvenirs, but I like to think the fateful delay led us to seeing the leopard
kill! If we’d been 20 minutes earlier on that road we would have missed this
thrilling spectacle!
A Serengeti
Thunderstorm
We arrive at the rustic Bush Camp, with its rusty iron
toilet and shower block and rickety old shelter shed in the early afternoon,
delighted to have time to wash our dirty clothes and hang them out in the sweltering
sun.
The hot sun is like a sauna and we strip down to shorts,
singlets and sunnies for cool drinks. Some opt for invigorating cold showers,
others are hard at work scrubbing clothes in plastic dishes.
A small group heads off for a guided nature walk and others
stroll to the nearby luxury lodge for drinks on the deck.
But the idyllic interlude is short-lived. Gunmetal clouds are
gathering overhead. We grab the clothes from the lines and relocate them under
the shelter and Joe is going around securing all the tents with pegs. I zip up
the front of our tent and flee to the dilapidated shelter. And then it happens.
The rain teems down with frightening force, coming in
sideways under the shelter. The strung-up laundry is flapped around and saturated.
Three camp rangers seek cover but they are unfazed by the familiar torrential
rain. We watch wide-eyed as the camping ground is rapidly submerged under a
foot of water.
The nature walkers return to join us in the shelter, two
girls have sought refuge in the bus, Joe and Patrick are waiting out the storm in
the cabin and the rest of our travellers are watching the show at the Lodge.
The deluge, thunder and distant lightning lasts for an hour
and abruptly stops. I realise I forgot to zip up the back window of our tent
and discover that one of the mattresses is soaked. Staring at the prospect of sloshing
around in a waterlogged camp and sleeping in a wet tent, in a moment of panic,
I want an upgrade to the safety of the luxury lodge! But lovely Patrick gives
us a fresh mattress and the water miraculously recedes.
That night the cooking team, Priya, Yan, Danielle and
Merethe cook up a scrumptious feast of stir fry veggies and chicken and we have
a sing along in the rusty old shelter. After the storm, all is well in the camp
again.
The Challenges of
Camping
*Taking cold showers
*“Drying” myself with a smelly, damp towel
*Running out of clean undies!
*Finding something to wear from a bag full of filthy clothes
*Obsessing over rummaging through my bags and sorting out
stuff
*Giving up make-up
*Dirty fingernails
*Gashing my thumb on the truck’s metal locker, and being
covered in a colourful assortment of bruises and cuts
*Getting sick from driving for hours on bumpy roads
*Catching my hair on the zip of the tent (every time!)
*Putting up the tent in the dark and putting down the tent
in the dark before breakfast at 6 am.
*Wishing I had a head torch
*Stopping the bus on a dusty track for us girls to squat
behind a bush while the guys go on the other side
*African toilets (say no more!)
*Hearing scary heavy rain
on the tent!
*Scrambling to find my hiking boots and raincoat
*Wishing I’d brought my Canon camera and zoom lens for
better close-ups of wildlife
The Joys of Camping
*Cooking outdoors on an open fire for hungry travellers
*Sitting around a campfire, gazing at the mesmerising flames,
with the smell of smoke in the crisp night air
*A chorus of bird song at dusk
*Looking up at a vast African night sky ablaze with
sparkling stars
*Finding zebras and elephants outside our tent
*The smell of the rain
*The relief of having brought a raincoat only yesterday!
*Climbing into a sleeping bag
*Lying snug inside and listening to gentle rain on the tent
*Making deep friendships by experiencing real adventures
together
*The private bliss of riding along in the back of the bus,
watching spectacular scenery roll by, waving at happy children, while listening
to my favourite music through earplugs, snuggling next to my buddies.
Game driving is exhilarating and addictive. I’ve developed a
taste for seeing animals in the wild and a taste for camping, tents and
campfires. The joys of this adventurous outdoor lifestyle far outweigh the
challenges.
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