Safari Day 4

Safari - Day 4

Banded mongoose - muchiro
Red Hornbill
Impala - swalapala
Maribu stork
Crocodile - mamba
Dik dik - digidigi 
Elephant - 22 mo gestation, 75 yr lifespan 

Well, we made it through the night with no hyena attacks!  At one point I heard a very loud breathing right next to me. I woke up with a start and tried to wake up Jonathan, but he was dead to the world. I didn't move and didn't even breath and listened to this heavy breathing for at least a few minutes straight until I finally realized it wasn't a hyena - it was Jonathan!  Much relieved I went back to sleep. 

If yesterday was the day of the lions, today was the day of the elephants!  The previous 2 days we saw these magnificent creatures from far away, but today they were close enough to touch (don't worry, I didn't try.)  We came upon a big group of them in the morning, including a few with babies of about 4-6 months.  They were about 50 yards off the road, and we just sat quietly and watched them. Gradually they came closer and closer until they were right beside us and then crossed the road directly behind our truck. 

They were eating grass and acacia trees. Ignasoro told us that the grown elephants eat up to 300 kg of vegetable matter a day!  It's so interesting to watch them eat. They use their trunk to rip up huge wads of grass and stuff it in their mouths. They also eat the acacia trees, which have huge thorns, but they don't seem to care. They wrap their trunk around a branch and then rip off the whole branch, one strip at a time and eat all of it. Pretty impressive, but they leave a scene of destruction behind them. 

We also got to see impala by the thousands today. They are so beautiful, and the males have the most impressive set of curved horns. We saw dik diks for the first time too.  They are tiny little deer that are the size of a toy poodle on longer legs. They are very shy, and I didn't get very good pictures of them, but they also have little tiny horns. So sweet!

Another amazing site today was the hippo pool. There is a spot where the river makes a big pool, and there are about 100 hippos that hang out there during the day, all piled on top of each other. It's a smelly mess. They sit all day long in this pool and then go out at night to eat grass by the ton. They also poop all day long in the pool, so it's pretty gross.  But they are such fascinating looking animals. One guide book described them as a bean bag on little legs with a bad attitude. The grown ones are absolutely huge, and their massive mouths can open up to 150 degrees. They do this from time to time to show off their huge canines in a display of aggression. We didn't see any fighting, but we heard that they can be very nasty to each other and we saw big scars on many of them. The baby hippos were so adorable, and they would try to crawl up on top of the pile sometimes, only to get yelled at by their parents. They make hilarious noises - grunting, blowing bubbles, farting. We watched them for a long time and then headed back for lunch. 

In the afternoon we went out again and saw many animals taking a siesta. We came across another group of elephants, at least 28 by my count. There were two adolescent males who were play fighting. It was amazing to watch and hear their tusks scraping against each other. I don't think I would want to see a real fight, this was enough!  There were two very little babies in this group, and they never were more than a foot away from their mother. Their gestation period is 22 months, and they can live up to 75 years or more. 

As the sun was setting we watched a female lion slowly wake up and come down from her spot in an acacia tree. Quite a way to end the day!