29. 12. 2018
Like every morning on safari, our day began before sunrise. Safaris are nothing for the long sleeper. Simone already got up at 5:30 am (because of the time difference this corresponded to 3:30am in Germany), then I followed and finally our daughter Luise. As we had ordered, at 5:45am we were served fresh coffee and pastries in the tent. At 6:30am we met Caleb at the LandCruiser and started immediately our gamedrive. First of all we looked for a place to watch the sunrise. Unfortunately it was cloudy at the horizon, nevertheless, a very nice golden light mood was developing.
After crossing the river again we first met a pair of giraffes:
The bull obviously had clear intentions, but the lady prevented this at the decisive moment by elegantly taking a small step forward. We watched the recurring procedure for some time, but then aborted, because Caleb said that it would probably not work any more today 😉
After that we followed a group of 5 male cheetahs for a long time:
These had joined together to hunt as a group and are called the "Fast Five". Female cheetahs are loners, but males sometimes join together in groups, because they can hunt together and also capture larger prey. We hoped that we could observe a hunting scene again, like last year, but unfortunately this time it did not happen. But the light was very nice and we got a lot of nice shots, some of them from very close:
Again Caleb had the right feeling and drove us to a river, because he thought that the cheetahs would cross it safely. And he was right: one after the other the five came and jumped over the rocks very photogeneously:
Then Caleb held the Landcruiser in the shade of a lonely acacia tree. Together we turned the hood of the Toyota into a small breakfast buffet and enjoyed the meal in the open air in beautiful weather
Afterwards we watched three young lions dozing and looking for shade in the increasing temperatures at midday. A young lioness lay down in the shade directly behind our LandCruiser:
But the three of them didn't show any major activities with still rising temperatures, so we also decided to return to the camp. After a good lunch the ladies rested on the terrace of our tent, while I already sighted and secured the first photos.
At 4:00pm we started again for the afternoon game drive, Caleb was already waiting for us at the car. After a few hundred meters we found a spotted hyena, which had made itself comfortable in a cool puddle of water (Caleb called this "hyena jacuzzi 😉 because of the heat:
A handsome lion also took a relaxed siesta under a bush:
Then it slowly became a bit cooler and the activity of the animals increased again. We watched lions:
another group of giraffes:
and a pack of hyenas with their young:
Towards the evening it became increasingly cloudy, so that we finally returned to the camp without any more photos. There the schedule was again the same (as in the following days): Shower/ copying memory cards, 2 Gin Tonic, 1 Bitter Lemon and a short chat with the other guests at the campfire, afterwards a great dinner prepared by Chef Obi under the open sky and afterwards a deep and restful sleep in the African absolute darkness, accompanied by the sounds of the night.
The hippos in particular were extremely nocturnal, but we also heard the hyena's calls, reminiscent of hysterical laughter, and the deep, sonorous roar of the lions. By the way, it always got so cool at night that we found a very pleasantly tempered hot water bottle in our beds.
Wonderful… tomorrow at 5:30 the alarm clock rings again.