Month: February 2023

Africa, Kenya, Vacations

Malaika Camp – Part IV – Brotherly Love

Neeners

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone out there reading this. I have no idea how some of you found me, but hey – hi! Clearly we all love animals and reading about them. Or maybe we love to travel and don’t care about the animals. Either way, welcome. Please do me a favor and give this post a comment or a like. I like posting, but it is quite a bit of work and I want to make sure you still want to hear these stories. Thank you 🙂

Good morning, Kenya!
Selfie of my hair every morning.

Have I mentioned that every day at Malaika Camp had great sightings? Because it truly did. While we saw everything in general on our wish list even before we got to Malaika, Malaika delivered on every single extra bonus viewing we had added just for kicks. Male leopard? Check! Cheetah running? Check! And my favorite extra bonus…The Brothers.

Yes, I am giving them caps, because they are that important to parts of Kenya and its history. I had no clue about these five male cheetahs until I saw their photo displayed in the dining tent. It drew me in. They were all walking in a line, projecting all of the confidence in the world. Looking at the photo all I saw was power. These Brothers were not all biological brothers, and that is what made them special and unusual. The bush is a very hard place, though, and even with all their success with hunting, nature would take its course and each would eventually die. Luckily for us there were actually two still alive! I was surprised when I found out and so I immediately added them to the wish list and figured it would be pretty unlikely we’d see them. I underestimated Tony, our guide. I was wrong, and it was fantastic (for the most part – more on that later!).

I remember Tony saying had heard the brothers were in a certain area that was a bit of a distance away; were we up for a drive? Of course we were. We were absolutely shocked by how many vehicles there were. This is how many people wanted to see these beautiful boys. I was sort of surprised it was allowed, to be honest. You see some pics of a gazillion vehicles watching an animal sometimes, but this is the first time I experienced it. I did not like it. We didn’t stay around them all that long, and to be fair they didn’t seem that bothered by cars. I was happy that I got to see them at all, but wished it would have been in better circumstances.

Narrator’s Voice, “Don’t fret, viewers; it happens later in better circumstances!”. 😉

Here are three videos of the superstars.

I realize that it looks like there are only three vehicles watching them right now, but all of the vehicles were on our side except for a couple. There were so many.

How about some pics, too?

Tony wasn’t sure which of the two are left. I’m sure someone has the information. They looked identical to me!

When people ask me what my favorite thing I saw besides elephants was, it’s hard to decide. Going back through the pictures, though, I am reminded of how drawn to these Brothers I was, and how much I truly loved observing them. They were definitely a top three of the trip for me…besides my elephants, of course.

Yes, they get close…

This day was unusual, though, because we also got to see our pregnant cheetah that we saw run. I don’t know what would have happened if they had all run into each other…

Hello, Ms. Pretty!
Cat nap.

We were so fortunate to see three cheetahs in one day.

We also had some fun encounters with ellies. First, we had a small group of them walk by, which is always exciting.

Quietly walking through the grass, past our vehicle.
Two things to note: broken tusks & whiskers.

On the afternoon drive we saw them by the water. There was one in particular that was actually playing in the water and moving stones with his trunk. He was having fun.

He, not she.

There must have been something in the air, because a couple of zebras were really getting into a dirt bath.

The other excitement, (well…) was seeing two ostriches mate. It lasted about two seconds, and after it was over the male literally ran away. Imagine teaching your massai warrior safari guide the saying, “Hit it and quit it”. I’m side eyeing myself now, remembering that little lesson. I blame it on the lack of sleep.

Hey, it’s Valentine’s Day, so I had to get some sort of love story in this trip report other than brotherly love 😉

I’m saving the best drive for last as far as Malaika Camp is concerned. My plan is to tell that story next week, and then move on into the elephant portion of the trip. Have a great week!

Africa, Kenya

Malaika Camp – Part III

Neeners

It was on this day that I stopped recording notes daily. I’m not sure why. Good thing we have plenty of photos to tell several of stories. But let’s just start with some pics!

I know the lighting in this pic is horrible, but for some reason I love it. Good morning, Kenya!
Ellies and zebras and balloons…oh my!

Every morning there were a bunch of hot air balloons. It’s pretty expensive, but now I wish we would have gone up. Maybe next time. In the bumpy video below you can see them all and also get a lay of some of the land.

A jiggly ride and shoddy camera work. You’re welcome!

How about more elephants? This silly one had fun on a tiny mound getting belly rubs and just being goofy.

Time for breakfast!
All quiet except for the munching!

I thought you might like to see the sort of locations where we had breakfast:

A nice spot for a breakfast with Tony.

Now back to the animals!

Uh oh. Lions.

In this video you can tell I’m feeling a little more comfortable around lions. Emphasis on ‘a little’.
I see you, too, little cutie!

That day we also saw our fourth (and last) Serval Cat of the trip.

There were herds and herds of zebra.

We were watching them all and saw the cutest baby.

I don’t know if the guy on the left ever blinked…

This brings me to the first story. Zebra are weird. I had no idea how strange they were until we were watching a small group of bachelors. They were walking along in a line, then two started to fight. They would stop, then another couple would fight. One would run away, and from the other, and another fight would break out.

Weirdos.

Warning! If you are squeamish maybe come back next week…

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Africa, Kenya, Vacations

Malaika Camp – Part II – Here Kitty Kitty

Neeners

I actually have a recording on this day and it starts as such:

"Today is September 11th. I woke up at 2 and then could not get back to sleep because a small hippo (Sal) was in bed snoring away with me. So we had our wake up call at 5:30 even though both of us were awake. Well, actually no that's not true. Sal slept for nine minutes *giggles while saying the next part* I don't even know why he tried when I saw there was only 10 minutes left. I looked over and saw him try to sleep and thought *whispers*, 'ten minutes?!'."

So even though this day started on limited sleep, at least it started out with a giggle, right?

We asked Tony if we could head back to camp early because we hadn’t gotten any sleep and wanted to nap in the afternoon. We asked to be back by 11, unless we found something really good. Even getting back at 11, when you leave at six, is five hours in a vehicle and that’s a long time. We figured we were going to be there for four more days and we didn’t want to get run down. He said sure.

Balloons at sunrise.

The first thing we saw were three male lions, sleeping. This is when I tried to tell Tony that I don’t like to get too close, but of course he got closer than I would have liked. What else is new?

Just a yawn. Shew!
Please don’t look at me.
Thank you.

Thankfully these were just sleeping and not really interested in us at all. They’d put their heads up every once in a while and open their eyes, but that was about it. Then we drove down a little further and saw there was a couple of cars watching two female lions. So apparently the story was that the three sleeping lions were sub-adult males. When the three got kicked out of the pride these two sub adult females went with them. The five formed their own coalition. I don’t know how normal this is, because I thought usually it’s only the males that get kicked out and form a group. Anyway, I found it interesting.

So when we drove up we saw the two female lions were trying to hunt while the lazy boys slept. They were walking around spreading out a little, watching zebra, but then would sit and watch.

All the sudden one, who had been in the tall grass a comfortable (for me) distance from the road, got up and started walking toward the road…AND US.

No no. Please just stay there.

Then, faster than you could lie and say, “I promise I am not food!”, she was next to us.

Sorry – no way to bleep out the last word. LOL.
Nothing to see here, Ma’am.
Whenever she would look our way my heart rate increased at least 30 beats per minute. It doesn’t sound like much, but keep in mind it was already going at around 5429048590.

This was the closest I’d ever been to a lion. And she was a biggie. Sal put his head out a little bit taking pics and I whisper-yelled at him to bring it back in the vehicle because I was afraid it would distract her and put her attention on us. It didn’t, but again – this was the closest I’d been. I couldn’t blame Tony for that – she came right to us.

So this is a crazy story that happened right after she laid down. There was a vehicle that pulled past us and stopped. Now this car was in front of us, which means still in front of the lion. I would say the vehicle was only a few car lengths (certainly less than a city short block) ahead of us with no vehicles between us. Well. It stopped and the DRIVER GOT OUT OF HIS CAR TO PUT IT IN FOUR WHEEL DRIVE (he had to adjust something on the tire). You guys. YOU GUYS. This was one of the craziest things I’d seen someone do in a while. The lion perked up and watched him, too. Keep in mind that the steering is on the right there, so this means he opened his door, walked around the front of his vehicle, and went to the back tire – LION SIDE – to make the adjustment. I was blown away. Gobsmacked, if you will.

This lead to a quick disclaimer to Tony that went something like this:

“Tony, don’t ever do anything like that and expect me to save you because I’m terrified of lions and that would be a stupid thing to do.”

He readily agreed. At least we were on the same page!

Finally she got up and went with her sister and they halfheartedly tried to hunt a warthog. I’m happy to say they were not successful. Tony had told us just a little bit before then that when they kill warthogs they can’t suffocate them so….there are a lot of bad noises. No thank you!

We then drove all the way over to where the Tanzania border is on the other side of the river and saw all the wildebeest and zebra on the other side congregating. It looked like hundreds and they were potentially going to cross at some point. Now I did not have on my wish list that I wanted to watch a crossing because I am a wimp and don’t want to see all the guts and gore that I figured would be associated with it. No thank you. Also, people wait there for hours and hours, and I’d rather spend my time seeing other stuff! Like birds:

And giraffe!

Part 1
Part 2

And hyenas!

Kenya spa

I loved that every day we had breakfast outdoors. After our meal we drove down a little bit and saw two steenbok (antelope) at the Sand River. This river is very shallow and mostly sand, so no crocodiles. We saw both males cross. So after that, we told Edward (who loved to tease me) that we had seen a crossing. We just didn’t tell him it was only two antelope until he congratulated us. Those antelopes were smart fellas to cross in the no-croc zone.

And let’s not forget the goober wildebeest interaction we had…

He got separated from his pack who crossed the road quicker. He decided to race us and cross in front of us…as opposed to just waiting one second for us to drive away. What a ding dong.
Warthogs (they call them Radio Africa because they run with their tails up) are not easy to get a good shot of because they are never that close and they are almost always running. Good job, Sal!

We then went back to camp for lunch and met two of the people who would be joining us for the elephant portion of the trip. We went back to our tent and I could not sleep, but Sal slept for an hour and he was a little hippo again, snoring happily.

At the very beginning of the afternoon drive I was very sleepy. There were a couple things to see:

This guy was there almost every day to greet us!
A window with a view.

I woke up quickly when we got the best sighting at Malaika thus far… a male leopard! His name was Lorgorgol and he was magnificent! He walked past our car a few times and we got to spend a good amount of time with him. I was so excited because this was the first male leopard we had ever seen in Kenya, and second overall. They are so much bigger than the females; still smaller than lions, though. And let’s not forget the main reason: they are striking!

He was walking around a lot, going into the ravines, walking by vehicles, etc. He gave us all a good show. There were quite a few vehicles there and towards the end I felt a little bad. It was clear he wasn’t bothered by the cars, but I wanted to give him a break. Prepare yourself for a lot of leopard pics/videos and meet Lorgorgol:

Beautiful boy.
Loved watching him.
One happy Neeners!

We left then and spent some time with ellies.

We then had sundowners and had a beautiful sunset. Probably the best one of the trip.

Sunset and a cutie!

There were thunderstorms in the distance and even a rainbow.

We drove back in the dark, had a quick dinner, then went to bed at 8 PM hoping to get some sleep. What a great day it was, and we already crossed off something on the extra wish list – a male leopard – score!