Twiga, Kifaru, and Simba. Oh My!

For the first time since moving to Africa we finally had the opportunity to go and see some animals in the wild. Yesterday, guided by a couple of friends who have gone many times before, we spent nine hours in a national park seeing many different animals and having a picnic lunch. It was a lot of fun, especially for the kids who thanked us repeatedly for taking them.

A view from "Baboon Lookout"

The boys sat on top of the car as our "spotters". They really enjoyed it. Unfortunately Kevan was attacked by a small lion which left it's mark on his face. Okay, that's not exactly what happened. Actually I drove under a low-hanging branch of an acacia tree(the one with the enormous thorns that was used to make a crown to pound into Jesus' head before He was crucified) and I didn't warn the boys fast enough. So now Kevan has tasted just a small portion of what Jesus experienced (at least that's how we're playing it off so he won't be mad at me for almost beheading him on accident).

We saw lots of giraffe, zebra, buffalo, water buck, bushbuck, ibex, gazelles, eland (even the carcass of a dead one), some hippos, ostrich, a huge crocodile with part of his tail missing from a fight a couple of years ago, a large warthog, a jackal, and other animals I just don't know the names of.
The warthog we saw was a bit rare in that he was much larger than any our friends had seen previously (and they've been going to the park about once a month for the past couple of years). He walked out onto the road in front of us, criss-crossed the road a few times, dug into the damp soil with both hoof and snout for a moment, and then eventually wandered off.

We stopped for lunch by the hippos and our friend, Robbie, cooked up the hot dogs and beans on his gas cooker while a park ranger escorted us to see the hippos.Jada with the Ranger

Our Picnic Lunch

The crocodile we saw was truly enormous. I've heard of bigger ones, and have seen one a similar size in an enclosure in Burundi, but I had never seen one so large in the wild before. He was sunning himself on the far side of the watering hole we drove up to. We could see him with Jada looking for the Croc through the Binocs

binoculars but he was out of range for a simple point-and-shoot camera. I took the lead and drove around the small, muddy lake in hopes that we could sneak up on him and get a quick photo. I told the kids to be absolutely silent and hoped that the big croc wouldn't find the slight pinging of our diesel engine annoying. We made it all the way around and were on a small incline directly above the old dragon. I put the car in park and jumped up onto my feet, standing on the seat of the car, my large frame protruding from the vehicle. Just as I turned on the camera and was about to utilize the whopping 3x zoom to try to improve the photo op, the lazy lizard jerked himself clear off the ground in a near 180 and flopped into the water. I instinctively pushed the camera's button hoping to get something - anything - and was fortunate to get a picture of a large portion of his body as he was submerging. Oh well, my mind can still see the beast clearly, all sixteen feet or so of him (maybe a bit more if he wasn't missing the end of his tail).
In the late afternoon we saw an enormous buffalo laying in the grass. I took some photos of his huge head, but I really wanted him to stand up so I could get a shot of his entire body, and throwing rocks or honking the horn just didn't seem appropriate to me (not to mention illegal). Before I could really think it through I found myself speaking buffalo. I'm being serious. Carrie always tells me that I have a gift for languages, accents, and speech in general. I just didn't know that the gift crossed over to other species. I just made a certain noise from the back of my throat while inhaling strongly, and the resulting tones and pulses seemed to be near-fluent buffalese. The big bull immediately lifted his head and snorted loudly while giving me the evil eye. I continued "speaking" to him in diverse pitches and timbres and apparently I said something offensive (maybe about his mother, I'm not sure) because he popped up rather spryly for a guy his size and postured at me, once again snorting, the dirty air from his nasal cavity exiting visibly in a cartoon-like puff. I paused for a moment, standing on the seat of my car with the majority of my body outside the cabin of the vehicle, wondering if he was injured by my words or just insulted (the former possibly resulting in him charging at the car). I continued to say various things to him, using even more complex combinations of tone, pitch, and speed. Whatever I said last must have struck fear into him, because he turned suddenly and began to run away, tripping at first over a large tree like a clumsy pubescent boy running from a bully in Jr. High. After recovering his footing he ran parallel to the road so that I could simply pull forward and continue the conversation, taking a few more photos while talking. He eventually ran away and my brief "buffalo whisperer" moment expired.

Near the end of the day, just before the sun set, we spotted our first lions. Carrie actually spotted them from inside the car and alerted me so I could back up and get a few photos. It was a small pride, three females and one young male. We would see another pride later, in the dark of night. But before the second lion sighting, we finally saw our first rhino. She was a big girl, and because our friends knew that she had a young one somewhere nearby and an even bigger daddy rhino lurking about in the dusk of day, we decided not to linger and risk looking like a threat to the youngster, which would result in mom and dad "eliminating" the threat. Unfortunately, because the sun was near set and the creature was about a hundred meters away, I wasn't able to get a photo. Maybe next time.

The sun setting behind an acacia tree in the park

After the sun was tucked tightly into bed and the full moon was one third risen in the night sky, we once again saw lions. I was driving with only my fog lights on when suddenly a single lion walked out of the bush and onto the dirt road directly in front of the car. I immediately slowed to a crawl to see what would happen next. What happened next was that another lion came out of the bush, and then another, and so on until a total of eight lionesses had emerged from the black of night and cover of the acacias and savannah grass. They meandered down the road as if strolling home from church with Grandma and Grandpa on quiet Sunday afternoon. From time to time one or two of them would disappear into the night on the opposite side of the road only to reappear a few moments later. I turned on my normal lights, which didn't seem to merit much more than a brief turn of the head by one of the prowling ladies. I was trying to use a digital point-an-shoot with a "video" feature to video these beautiful creatures, but there just wasn't enough light. I turned on the high beams, again not warranting much more than a glance from the lead cat, and was able to get a little bit of footage as I followed them down the road for a bit. After all but one had veered right off into the night, the one remaining cat paused for just a moment. It was long enough to turn the car directly at her, with high beams on, and video her momentary pose before she, too, sashayed into the shadows of night.

(because of the slow connection here I had some trouble uploading the video - sorry)

So all in all it was a good day of observing some of God's creation and spending time with family and friends. It would have been perfect had I not been robbed by a police officer on the way home (yes, literally robbed - TIA). But I don't want to spoil your vicarious experience so I'll save that story for another time.