day three and four of camping. lions, tigers, and ants going off to war

Day 34 (10/8)
This morning we went on an early morning game drive, left at 6AM. We drove up to the KWS base, and there is a small watering hole that is behind the building that they made because of the drought. All of a sudden we saw a lion cross the road!! It looked like it was watching the Impala but the KWS guards were trying to get it away from their campsite so it ran up a rocky hill and we got to watch it go up the hill and disappear into the brush. It was really cool, it was a big lion, and it only had a 1/3 of a tail.

Side-note: during our game drive we saw a tourist vehicle, and our land-cruiser stopped to talk to them. They were all Indian and one of the ladies in the car leaned out the window and asked “have you seen any big predators? Like tigers or lions?” We all immediately said no (because we hadn’t seen the lion yet ) and they drove off. After about 30 seconds we realized that she asked for tigers. There are no tigers in Kenya. Haha

At the watering hole there were a bunch of elephants (including sub-adults and babies) so we watched them, and cape buffalo interact around the water.

During the day we had a guest lecturer come (the director of research in Tsavo) and he talked about what projects they are doing, the lack of staff and resources, and how tourism affects the animals.

At Tsavo, it gets intensely hot. So from about 12-4 the sun is so strong that its hard to be anywhere without a breeze. Its not hot from humidity (there is zero humidity) but it is SO hot just purely from the sun that it heats up really fast and then cools down fast too.

After dinner we all hung out and played music around the fire-pit for hours, and of course we made s’mores. Its amazing the things that can entertain you when there is no internet, or computers but just a solar-speaker and an iPod.

Day 35 (10/9)
We had a transect count today. We split up into groups and drove around for hours in different sections of the park, counting animals. We saw a bunch of cool predator tracks on the road (cheetah, wild dog, lion), we had a stand off with a cape buffalo, and saw ants go off to war with termites…all before 8AM. The buffalo was basically just was in the middle of the road and we stopped about 200 meters away, we waited to see if it would move, or maybe charge the vehicle (because buffalo by themselves are often most dangerous). We ended up waiting for a few minutes and then just driving up to it and it moved off the road. The ants that were going off to war were crossing the road and there were at least a thousand. It looked like a big dark line on the road, so we stopped just in time not to run them over and waited until all the ants crossed. They were all carrying pieces of termites and or pieces of leaves.

After we were done with our area we drove up through the rocky parts of the Chyulu hills and it was, again gorgeous. This area gets more rain because its higher up so everything was very green and there were a lot more animals around. We drove up to a lava-flow hill. It was completely black and was made of little loose stones. And in SFS fashion we climbed it. It was hard because you took one step up and slid down a ½ step. The view from the top was great and when we came down we all just took huge steps and let the momentum take us 3 extra feet, and this was a lot easier than attempting to traverse up.

On the way back we stopped for ice cream again and then hung out at the truck stop eating cookies and drinking cold things. We went back to camp and after everyone went to bed, Lia and I stayed up talking to a couple of askaris, Sapaya, and Arthur, for hours. We were talking about snow, winter, America, and we could hear the lions calling (not roaring, more like bellowing) which was cool because you knew they were in the area but far enough away not to be a danger. Plus we were with people who had guns and spears around a camp fire so I felt safe.