Tanzania Journal, part 2

In which our intrepid explorers see some REALLY big animals but are not scared

Sunday Night

As I said in my last post Eugene immediately took us on a game drive after picking us up at the airstrip. I should probably explain what a game drive is at least in this context.

This is where you hop into an open-sided jeep and see how close you can get to very large and dangerous animals. Fortunately these animals have about as much interest in you as I have in country music or Mongolian politics.

Eugene give us two simple rules. First don't go out of the jeep. The only exception ifs you have to “mark your territory”, in which case he will stop the vehicle and let you take care of business behind it while everyone agrees not to look.

The second rule is to be quiet when the car is approaching an animal. The goal is to leave them undisturbed, as if you were tree that just happened to move sometimes.

In about 45 minutes Eugene saw a large of elephants in the distance. Fortunately they were very close to the road, so we got some great pictures. We sat and watched these majestic creatures for some time.

I’ve seen pictures of elephants my entire life, of course, but seeing them in the wild, twenty feet from your vehicle, was amazing.

And, since this was the closest I would ever be to an elephant, I wanted to ask them a few questions.

• What’s it like being the biggest land animal on earth? Like are you proud of it, or sick of the fat jokes?

• What are your hopes and dreams in life?

• Are you guys really afraid of mice, or that just another lie the Disney Industrial Complex has fed us?

But these gentle giants ambled on, seemingly unaware of my existence. Just like the girls in High School.

About 30 minutes later we ran into a HUGE herd of zebras. There seemed to be thousands of them. I started to count, but it was hard to keep track of who I already counted. Eugene told us that this is an advantage of their black and white stripes. When they are together, the vision is actually confusing to predators. The lion is all like, “hey, I can’t tell when one stops and the other starts. Crap. Guess I’ll just order door dash”. Well, Eugene did not put it that way, but that’s what he meant. I think.

He also told us that no two zebras have the same markings. Like snowflakes or fingerprints, their is infinite variety within a set pattern. Hmmm, kinda feeling a sermon illustration coming on. But I will spare you. For now.

About an hour later we came across a fascinating and and unsettling scene: A group of four lionesses and several cubs gnawing on a zebra carcas. Apparently that particular zebra did not get the stay-with-the-group memo.

A hundred feet north and just 10 feet from the trail 3 more lionesses were chowing down on another zebra. This kill was even fresher.

Eugene said it was very rare to see this; usually the lions hunt at dusk or morning, and the carcas is picked clean by the time the safari-tourists show up. In his five years of guiding he had never seen two kills so close in time and space.

We sat a few yards from them as they enjoyed their meal. I have to say it was a bit surreal to be in an open-sided feet so close to the lions you could hear them break bones with their jaws.

The light was failing, so we soon headed back to camp. And it was indeed a camp: a settlement of about 20 tents. Eight of these were guests tents, and then there was a meeting tent, a dining tent, a toilet tent, and some staff tents.

Now, don’t imagine these are the kind of tents you take for a weekend camping trip. These are semi-permament and large, and each guest tent had its own bathroom and shower. Even wifi. Which seems out of place, but I was glad of since we don’t exactly get cell service out here.

After dark you are not allowed outside your tent unless you are accompanied by Mahlou, a Massai who patrols the camp all night, spear in hand. The camp is, after all, in the middle of the Serengeti and completely fenceless. The first night a lone elephant strolled between the tents.

We fell asleep listening to the strange sounds of unfamiliar birds.

It's a little bit difficult to upload a lot of pictures, so I may have a separate post with more of those when I get back to the States.