Tanzania, Day 7

February 29, 2012

Today we are attempting to drive to where the great migration is happening, which is a few hours drive from the lodge. Lobo lodge (the lodge we are staying at) is associated with another lodge along the way, where we will stop for lunch. 

The day started out great where on our drive we saw a black-backed jackel running along the road with us. It ran along side our jeeps for a quarter mile before it stopped and watched us drive by.

Oh, hi there!

One of the drivers, Lazerous, said he saw a leopard, but no one else did. We spent 20 minutes arguing over whether or not something was a log or a leopard. 

Our fortune turned sour when we stopped for a pit stop and one of the jeeps broke down! We stopped by a hippo pool, and took pictures while a rescue jeep went back to tow the other one.

Happily for me, I saw my very first Nile crocodile, just a small thing bathing on a rock in the midst of the hippo pool. It didn't seem too bothered by the large and smelly creatures that fought and splashed in the water around it. 

The water was highly polluted with hippo poop, and due to poor water flow the hippo pool is not very well oxygenated. Few species can survive living in such poor conditions as a hippo pool, but according to a sign posted there is a kind of cat fish that can live in these murky, smelly, oxygen poor waters. 

The jeep wasn't fixed yet, but we had to move on, so we crammed into the jeeps to drive to the lodge, where we had a splendid buffet lunch, and got to stretch our legs again. This lodge was much like Lobo lodge, in that the lodge was built to be a part of the boulders it was built on top of. The pools are etched into the rock, and the stairs from the dinning hall to upper floors is carved into the sloping boulders. 

After lunch we found that the last jeep had been fixed, and we didn't have to squeeze into one jeep. 

When we saw the migration, it was beyond what we had imagined. Saying that you could see animals for as far as you can see, and even seeing pictures still lacks the "oomf" of actually being there and seeing it for yourself. 

We saw zebra, wildebeests, buffalo, and a few elephants, and all this only a part of the whole moving picture of a vast and moving migration. 

A thunderstorm soon darkened the sky overhead, and as a heavy downpour began we had to rush back to the lodge, hoping to overcome the worst of the rain before it muddied up the dusty roads too badly, for we might get stuck in the mud. 

For a while we stayed ahead of the rain, and our jeep made a quick pit stop at a village for some parts for the jeep that had broken down earlier. I saw my first Marabou stork, and they are terribly ugly and nearly as tall as me. 

Back on the road again as night fell, the thunderstorm caught up and forced us to drive slow through the muddy roads. We watched 4 lionesses cross the road in front of us, and scrambled to get a picture but had no luck in the dark. 

Then the thunderstorm was right overhead, with such intensity and flashes of lightning so bright that lit up the whole landscape, so that for a brief, breathtaking moment it was day, and then just as suddenly it was night again. 

This was when i saw my first leopard. 

It was first seen crossing in front of our jeep, but being in the back seat I didn't see it until it was on my side of the jeep, and the lightning flashed behind it, illuminating its beautiful silhouette. For just a moment I could hardly breathe as I could see every spot and whisker on the allusive predator. 

As soon as it was there it was gone, with a last glimpse of reflective green eyes it melted back into the shadows of its Serengeti home.