26
JULY 2005 1848 HOURS TURNER SPRINGS CAMPGROUND SERENGETI NATIONAL
PARK TANZANIA
Another marvelous leisurely morning followed an odd recurrence of my cough that
came out of nowhere after I went to bed. During the day it had gone into remission
and I thought I'd licked it, but apparently not. With fits that I thought were
going to keep me up all night, somehow exhaustion found me and I slept like a
log until shortly before sunrise.
After breakfast of fruit and
eggs and a malarone anti-malaria pill, we were off on a game drive
very interested to return to the bridge where
yesterday we found the exhausted
lioness and its zebra kill. 
Expecting to find an eviscerated carcass perhaps
being finished off by vultures and or hyenas (a spotted one of which we saw
today canvassing the plain solo) instead we found the zebras remains
somewhat in tact
(at least its rump and haunches) and moved a few meters farther from the bridge.
Next to it, dozing was the now very rested and certainly much more contented
female lion.
Sadly, in the area where we first found the zebra, an aluminum can lay in the sand, no doubt tossed there by some fuckwad looking to hit the lion and shake things up. Wherever that idiot is right now they just stubbed their toe AND got bit by a venomous centipede which reminds me: I found one such centipede dead inside our tent this morning after Susan woke me with the heebie jeebies over something that moved beneath the floormat by the bed whenever she stepped on it. As disbelieving as I was sleepy, she made me a believer when she stepped on it again and something or a lot of somethings made scurrying noises, thankfully from beneath the tent itself and not the mat inside the tent. But still, the sound of however many hundreds of little feet carrying however many tiny exoskeletons out of the way of our plodding feet is mildly disconcerting to say the least.
Anyway, tangents are always a risk any reader of mine must take. The trick is in coming along for the ride to the return trip on my train of thought. So where was I? The beer can at the scene of yesterday's lion kill of the zebra. Moving on.
Away
from the camp and along a spring we came upon not one, but two male
lions that our driver sid may be brothers. As if on cue, one of the lions a
gorgeous specimen - rose from its place in the grass and walked slowly
to the water's
edge for a drink. After that we made our way back up to the bridge overlooking
the lion's
zebra kill and then we headed in the general direction back towards camp.
Susan's sharp
eye caught a well-camouflaged eagle owl with a guinea fowl it had caught
and brought up into the tree it was in. Our driver, radioed to others
and in no time
other safari vehicles converged upon what was not doubt a rare sight.
Proceeding further, we encountered no lions or leopards, but we happened
upon another vehicle
the occupants of whom graciously pointed out the location of a resting
cheetah a good 200 yards off. We soon spotted it when it raised its head
for occasional
looks around.
We then meandered back to camp for an excellent lunch and a two-hour nap in preparation for a late-afternoon game drive. I hadn't intended to nap the entire time, but after reading a few more pages of Hemingway's ์The Green Hills of Africa๎ in which he kills a rhino and even references the village of Mosquito Creek, I felt the eyelids get heavy and despite the temps inside the tent I nodded off until I heard our camp waiter call for us to wake up for coffee and ccokies prior to departing for what would be our last game drive in the park. I went into it, not expecting much. After all, what can one wish for in a two-hour span before nightfall. Certainly we would see more gazelles, maybe a buffalo or two, zebras, baboons, and the absolute vastness that is the Serengeti.
But
beyond that, I didn't hold out much hope which made it all the
more remarkable that barely two miles outside of camp, we crested
a rise and before our eyes
was an adult cheetah, trotting just off the road with a Thompson's
gazelle clamped firmly in its jaws. 
Startled by our sudden appearance,
the cat, hurriedly dropped its all-too-fresh kill and made for
a gully some 100 yards away, where,
situated in the
brush, set up its own camp to watch us, just as we were watching
it.
In a move that will never be forgotten, our driver did not radio ์Duma!๎ to any other drivers in the area, thus preventing an onslaught of vehicles to the scene that surely would have kept our reclusive cheetah from returning to its meal. And over the course of the next 90 minutes we watched as the cheetah ultimately concluded that we weren't a threat and slowly I mean sometimes only a few feet at a time made its way back to the lifeless gazelle.
Just as I must beg forgiveness
for the tangents I go on, so must I plead no contest for the repeated
inability to put
into words
the consummate
privilege of seeing
this cheetah come to tolerate our presence enough to finally
grab the good-sized antelope and move it over behind the cover of a
nearby bramble
and commence
eating it, still in plain view. I can think of no better way
to conclude our game drives in the Serengeti than to have been able
to
experience thisึ yes, I would call it beautiful event.
We were fortunate only to be disturbed by one tourist-laden vehicle whose occupants couldn't be bothered to hang around for more than a few minutes after spotting the cheetah who hadn't yet covered half the distance between the gully and its kill. But Susan and I were in it for the long haul, and the pay off was unforgettable. The sight of the cheetah perhaps a pregnant female getting the nourishment and energy it needed from the Tommy without threat of other predators driving it away was something I'll never forget.
And of course I kept busy alternating between my camera, my video camera and my binoculars the whole time.
When we finally left the cheetah to savor the rest of its dinner in peace, we witnessed a Martial eagle launching a dramatic if unsuccessful offensive in hopes of grabbing a meal.
Back to camp we enjoyed a hearty dinner of fried kingfish, potatoes, vegetable soup and potatoes and I tried to grab shots of the bats who help keep the camp's bug population reduced. Susan and I found the Scorpius Constellation again (we couldn't find it last night) and adjourned to our tent for the night. Tomorrow we get an 8 a.m. start for a visit to Oldupai Gorge before our next stop at the Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge overlooking the Ngorongoro Crater. On the road again.
But before I hit the sack, let me enter some of the GPS coordinate from the different stops on our journey (while lions once again call out at some distance in the night):
- Arusha 4717 feet, S 03d 22.155'; E 036d 41.709'
- Today's Cheetah 5036 feet, S 02d 25.615'; E 034d 54.534'
- Kirurumu Tented Lodge 4187 feet, S 03d21.682'; E 035d 50.008'
- Lake Manyara National Park 3148 feet, S 03d 25.029'; E 035d 50.041'
- Nairobi Intercontinental Hotel 5549 feet, S 01d 17.715'; E 036d 49.160'
- Parc Nacional De Volcans (where we first spotted the 13 Group of mountain gorillas) 9116 feet, S 01d 23.820'; E 029d 34.464'
- Parc Nacional de Volcans (where we first spotted the Sabyinyo Group of mountain gorillas) 8617 feet, S 01d 24.376'; E 029d 33.232'
- Virunga Lodge 7153 feet, S 01d 26.844'; E 029d 44.495'
- Turner Springs Campsite, Serengeti National Park 5036 feet, S 02d 25.452'; E 034d 55.864'
For reference, the front
porch of our house at 840 N. Occidental
Avenue in
Los Angeles
is presently
9,656 miles
away.