Before dawn a deep voice calls out “jambo, jambo” and wakes
me out of a deep sleep. Were those hyena
calls and the sound of paws running through camp real or in my dreams? Did I really hear the deep pulsing,
cough-like roar of a lion last night? I
roll out of an army cot with a feather mattress and feather comforter onto a
canvas floor. I wash up from a wooden
bowl with cold water, get dressed, put on a hat and go from my canvas tent
across the camp to the large canvas dining tent. Fresh hot coffee is waiting, most likely made
with beans that were grown less than 20 miles away. Breakfast is an assortment of hot and cold
cereal, scrambled eggs, and toast with the most delicious mix fruit jelly.
After breakfast I load up into the greatest vehicle ever;
The Range Rover Defender. It has been
extended and upgraded specifically for safari companies, the bucket seats are
cushy and very comfortable, each row of seats is slightly raised higher than
the one in front so everyone has a great view and the roof pops up so you still
have shade but can stand up and see 360 degrees. Off we go, across the Serengeti or down the
sides of the Ngorongoro Crater. Everyone
has their eyes peeled looking for the slightest bit of movement in the grass or
on the high rocks of the kopjes.
Inevitability the ranger guide spots things first, his eyes are trained
by hundreds of hours of looking for and observing animals. He first spots two female lions lounging high
up a few hundred yards away on the large kopje rocks. We watch as they lounge in the morning
light. A bit later he catches just a glimpse
of the cheetah’s dark tipped tail flicking just above the tall grass as she
hunts something unseen to the rest of us.
We slowly get closer, he turns off the engine and all you hear are the
clicks and whirs of digital cameras frantically taking photos. Just up the road is a small group of zebras,
slowly grazing, completely ignoring us as we drive near. There is one very small youngster, whose
stripes are still brown, standing next to mom, he looks at us, unsure of what
we are, but mom is not nervous so he just watches us.
Farther up the road is an enormous, wrinkled,
gray elephant butt with a tiny flicking tail, walking down the road as if it is
his personal highway. He does not move
aside and he is twice the size of the range rover so we happily follow without
tailgating. Eventually he turns left
into the tall grass and meets up with a herd of females and juveniles of all
ages who are standing along the edge of a small forest. They all graze there without even giving us a
second look. We sit and watch as the two
yearlings and a new born (maybe 2 months old) run in and out of the large
tree-like legs of their mom and aunts.
The oldest female keeps a close eye on the big male but allows him to
feed with her family. After a while we
drive on again, the scenery changes from wide open planes to a forest of fever
trees with their eerie yellow bark. We
hear the loud chatter of vervet monkeys and laugh as they jump and play in the
trees. We are not there long because our
guide sees something, none of us see anything.
He slowly coasts a few feet down the road and points into the tree, what
is it? I don’t see anything. And then, I see the small twitch of a tail
and realize it is attached to a huge leopard sleeping soundly, draped over a
large branch high in the tree. Now it
is so obvious but seconds ago I saw nothing.
The large cat is muscular and beautiful, oh how I would love to give it
a pat on the head and run my hand down its back like a house cat. The cameras are clicking and whirring at each
stop! Before you know it we have been
driving and watching for 3 hours so we head back to camp. Back at camp, lunch is cooking, some people
order a shower and the rest of us gather around the camp fire talking about the
events of the morning. We all take turns
plugging our camera chargers into the cigarette lighters of the vehicles. 
Lunch is casual with sandwich fixings, and various hot
dishes of pasta or meat. I normally
stick to drinking water because there is no ice in the bush and sodas are too
warm to drink. The cooks do have small
refrigerators run by generators but space is precious so the sodas normally
don’t get put inside. I have found that
it’s good to make friends with a cook or two because they will sometimes do you
a favor and put a soda in the frig so it will be nice and cold for lunch. After lunch there is time for a small rest
and then it’s back out for the afternoon game drive. We go a different direction this afternoon
because our guide has heard there is a group of female lions snoozing right
next to the road. We race along bumpy
dirt tracks and turn a corner to find 7 female lions sleeping just next to the
road. As we came to a stop, one female
raised her head and looked at us as if to say, “Hey I am trying to sleep here!” This was the closest we had been to lions so
everyone in the rover was excited and snapping photo after photo. We must have annoyed her because she stood
up, stretched and ever so calmly jumped right onto the hood of the rover behind
us. She stood there looking into the windshield at
the people in the rover. The driver, a
Meru man who was black as night, slowly stood up and gently pulled the roof
closed. All I could see was his dark
face with huge white eyes as he closed the roof. Those of us in the front rover were literally
hanging out trying to get photos of this lady standing on the rover behind
us. Miss lion made herself comfortable on
the warm hood and just sat there looking around as if she were a model posing
for photos and board by our attention.
Then as quick as she jumped up, she jumped down and slowly wandered off
across the plain followed by the rest of her group. After that, the rest of the afternoon was
almost unmemorable. 
Back at camp we sat around the campfire still excited about
the lion encounter, each person telling what they thought and how they felt
about our close encounter. The kitchen
staff served us fresh fire roasted peanuts and popcorn for an afternoon snack. It is so relaxing to sit around a warm fire talking
about what we saw that day. Before
dinner I would order a shower. The
shower consists of water boiled over a camp fire and then dumped into a bucket
with a hose out the bottom. The bucket
is hoisted high above a canvas shower with a grated teak floor. The hose out the bottom of the bucket leads to
a metal shower head with a pull string; you pull and wet yourself down, let go,
soap up, and pull again to rinse off. It
is so warm, smells like campfire and feels so good after a long hot day on
safari. Dinner was always a grand affair
with many courses; a delicious creamy soup (different type every night), assorted
meat dishes, potatoes cooked many ways, fresh veggies and fruit. After dinner
we retire back to the campfire to relax in canvas director chairs, hunt for the
Southern Cross in the sky and wonder what we will find tomorrow. The fire feels good and pretty soon my warm
comfortable cot begins to call.
After another night in the bush with the occasional hyena
call, I get up and do it all over again.
You might think this would get boring but every single day brings
something completely different; a new and different animal or an interesting
behavior to watch. SAFARI NJEMA RAFIKI! (Good Journey Friend)
