Now I could try and go all poetic, or maybe a little David Attenbrough with some prose trying to describe the wild side of Africa - but I won't bother. It wouldn't do it justice, and I would just sound like a tit. But I will give you a few of our highlights from the last 6 days....
Firstly, it started in luxury (and continued that way) - but hey, it is our honeymoon and we really splashed out on this. It was 5 star lodges all the way, and just the 2 of us with our guide in a 7 seater modified landcruiser... oh yeah baby ! Safari done properly ;)
As I said, day 1 was lake manyara, and to be honest we weren't *really* sure what to expect... so we checked in at the gate, put the roof up in our ride and headed into the wild. Well, it must have been about 1min 30s before a massive group of baboons decided to cross the road in front of us... (not a bad start we were thinking - is this normal)...with one of the cheeky buggers trying to hitch a ride. After a frenzy of photographic activity from the lovely Mrs Rudduck we decided to continue on.
Now, surely it was no more than 4 mins later (and we passed some other animals but forgot) when we were in the middle of a bloody great herd of elephants !! And I am sure I don't need to tell you, Josie was happier than a pig in sh*t, in fact I am pretty sure there was a tear in the eye (but hey Africa and dust maybe?). The rest of the time passed in a bit of a blur...it was animals everywhere, and not like little specs off in the distance either...in fact, we were probably closer than seeing them at the zoo !! probably the last highlight was a male and female lion perched up a tree (nearly above the car) doing what we discovered lions do best - a lot of bugger all, and snoozing.
So, We thinks to self this Safari thing is pretty special huh, and this is day 1...but will the Monkey Whizz Voodoo come back to bite us...
So we drove about 4 hours to the central serengeti...now the problem with this, was the migration was in the southern serengeti... so the longer we drove, the less animals we saw. We then found out from our Guide (Daniel), that the muppet in the UK didn't know his arse from his elbow in booking our accommodation. I starting preparing myself to get all irate and stroppy at the thought of 3 days without seeing any animals - when out popped a cheetah in front of us (maybe 30ft) from the long grass - and jumped across the flooded stream....oh, yeah - flooded stream.
I must admit when we orgainised this we didnt think rain would be a problem...you see Small rains were supposed to fall in Nov/Dec and then big rains in Mar/Apr. Well, the little rains turned into big rains and haven't stopped since November (much like at home in Townsville). This means everything was brilliantly green and the grass was long - making it harder to see everything but giraffes and elephants.
So, anyway the appearance of the cheetah - yet again, furious camera activity - had it been a hunting safari think Rambo III with the minigun ! (we will be able to cure insominia with the number of photos we have). Well it was a like a ray of sunshine...a really fluke chance sighting given the length of the grass, and all to ourselves...we then saw another long list of animals as we made our way to the lodge...
Day 3 we decided to see what we could see in the green grass and spent the day buzzing about the roads... again we got lucky (although I suspect everyone sees a hell of a lot) and managed to catch a quick chase by 4 lions of a antelope (or Warthog as both were legging it) that was unsuccessful...and so the 4 lions climbed a bloody big tree for a sleep (surprise surprise). We then mosied over to the 'hippo pool' to watch the 16 of them do much the same as the lions, with some occassional bickering over postion in the pool. Don't get us wrong, that is not all we saw, but we would bore you to death listing all the animals, and blah blah. In fact, my fingers are starting to get sore already and I have not done these days justice (and thankfully you might say) will shorten the telling of the rest.
The next day brought a cunning change of plan - by driving back to the migration itself ...no flies on us ! And what a day (perhaps the best) which started with 2 cheetahs on a hill surrounded by zebra, antelope etc. Well now the zebra were a bit noisy, making their zeebra noises and going forward and back towards the cheetah (kind of like young lads geeing each other up for mischief)...well then, one (brave) zeebra went the cheetahs, and quickly followed by another 3...and the chase was on!! Thats right, in reverse ! These 4 zeebra giving the 2 cheetahs a lot of whoopass...in fact the 2 cheetahs bought a very hasty retreat to the horizon. Well, the zebras obviously very fired up then ran 0ver and give 3 hyenas a good kicking too !! Daniel had never seen that before :) herbivorse 2 carnivores 0
...numerous other less exciting sightings before we came across 3 full grown male lions, you guessed it, lounging ! Damn these big boys are a little scary up close, despite being holed up in our trusty vehicle....puts the hair up on the back of your neck !
Skipping ahead to our last day (yesterday as I write this and Josie starts looking bored after 1 hour in the kiosk) and we were into the Ngorongoro Crater (for the 2nd time, the 1st time was good but very muddy and we got bogged). But this day we got up before the other lazy tourists and must have been 3rd car into the crater.
We found a pride of 2 males and 3 female lions right on the road....but this time instead of lounging - the females were a little frisky and there was some naughty business going on! In fact, one of the lioness' got a serve 3 times in the 45mins we were watching them! The male (doing all the shagging) even scent marked our truck - he was obviously aware of my manly presence and threat to his title of 'king of the jungle' - my guide advised I didn't respond by pissing back... hmmpf, obvioulsy not an alpha male !!
The day continues with amazing sight after amazing sight, probably the best being another hunt from a single lioness after a baby wilderbeast (in a herd). With Josie egging the baby on, and me cheering for the lion...unfortunately the lion lost (not really surprising giving the amount of lazing they do, lions could use some fitness training)...
So I will stop there...we are back now in Arusha, amongst the noise, no longer staying in luxury and trying hard to deal with reality... sigh. Not sure yet where we go tomorrow, we only know we want to go back to where we were!
if you get a chance, do a safari! Bloody brilliant and not easily forgotten...
I asked Josie for a quote, but she needs a wee....maybe in the next post !
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