4.2.2014 – 4.2.2014  29 °C

As the title suggests, we cracked #4 of the Big 5.. we saw a lion (actually we saw one and glimpsed another!!!) So day 2 of actual Safari-ing and we’ve already seen four of the five of the Big 5… Amazing!

Now that I’ve already told everyone the punch line I’ll go back to the start of the day and work my way forward. Our day started early with us leaving the “ranch” at 8am for more safari-ing. We spent the whole morning out looking and the biggest [expletive] issue of the morning was these [expletive, expletive] big grey bighting flys (which Dr Google has now just confirmed for me that they are TseTse flies. This is concerning as they can carry the Human Sleepness Sickness, which I’m guessing is along the lines of Ross River Fever and there is no known vaccine/ cure.. hmm) I’ll give you the tip though, the [expletive] little flies eat you through your clothes even when the wearer has slathered herself in insect repellent.. 80 DEET, long sleeved shirts and pants just don’t cut the mustard with the TseTse’s! (Should’ve brought along my 100% that I bought in the US……)

So although we all copped a few bites from the [expletive] flies we did also spend plenty of time snapping more photos.. We got super lucky today, lots of Elephants up very close to the truck, giraffes close by, more warthogs, LOTS of deer, more baboons and monkeys, ostrichs and even a super cute little tortoise on the road way!!

The highlight was probably seeing the lion, although unlike the leopard yesterday, our lion was sacked out for most of the time lying in the long grass… You wouldn’t believe how hard they are to spot if they choose to lie in the grass. There were two lions right near each other, one lying up on an ant hill (or rodent home hill—not sure) and the other was next door but hidden in the grass. For a long time we didn’t see his buddy until he finally popped up his head to have a small gawk! The lion we did see was an adolescent male and it was obviously siesta time because he gave some of his paws a big lick and then laid down for a snooze! Reminded me quite a bit of Albs when he is going to sleep.

Our morning was actually quite uneventful in regards to animals… to the point where I dozed off just before lunch time. It is an overcast and quite cool day so I figured all of the animals must have “rolled over and gone back to sleep”! We came back to the camp for lunch and a siesta before we headed back out, this time hoping that the animals were up and about.

We were a lot luckier in the afternoon with us seeing a couple of big herds of elephants up close! Both of the herds decided to walk right around our vehicle and both had little ones with them. The little elephants are like all children, they run around and play with their brothers and sisters, push their mums around and generally just have plenty of fun. It was common to see the littlest elephants head butt their siblings and chase any birds nearby! Too cute!!!

We also saw two different giraffe families eating their acacia trees. The acacia trees are the ones that you typically think of when you think of the Serengiti.. the flat topped, sparsely leaved trees. What I didn’t realise about these trees is that they have big mumma thorns all over them! Apparently the giraffes have adapted their tongues to be able to deal with the thorns so for them it is just the jam on top of the bread! Giraffes only live on leaves/ thorns from acacia trees; elephants they eat grass.

Animal Tally: