It had been a remarkable weekend overall with plenty of big cat viewing, and even though we hadn’t found the big herds of the migration, we had seen nearly 80 lions, several leopards, and more than a handful of cheetahs. We had not seen any kills, but those are really hit and miss, and one can never truly have an expectation of seeing one. It had been decided that we would be leaving a bit earlier than our usual departure on Sunday, though we would still have breakfast at the camp rather than on the trail. We had some delicious oatmeal and fruit, and all had made to order omelettes from the kitchen. Once finished, we all loaded into Turtle, Vitalis still having to climb over the stick shift to reach the driver’s seat and said our goodbyes to the camp staff who were all out to see us off. I have been coming to Dancing Duma since it opened several years ago, and many of the staff have been there from the get-go and will be there when I return.
Our plan for the day was to head to Moru Kopjes first, an area where one can occasionally see rhinos, and then head south towards the Kisini airstrip and ranger station, eventually turning to the east in the direction of Lake Ndutu. We have driven this route often as the wildebeest herds are there in the spring, though so are the rains and flooded roads that can often be impassable as we discovered last April when we became hopelessly stuck and had to be rescued. This time of year, though, there would be absolutely no difficulty as far as the roads were concerned as everything was so incredibly dry and dusty.
The Moru Kopjes sit up above the plains below with spectacular views and are host to the main rhino research facility in the Serengeti as well as a rhino reserve where they are constantly tracked by the rangers. There is a steep extra charge to see the rhinos there, unless of course one wanders out from the reserve as there are no fences. I’ve seen rhinos here several times before, but you really can’t count on it. In Moru Kopjes, though, we spotted another leopard hiding in the tall grass and clearly looking for prey, though there were only Thompson gazelle that were a fair distance away. A lonely warthog was also meandering around in the distance but was heading directly towards the leopard. Leopards do not really chase their prey down, but rather stealthily sneak up on them and then suddenly pounce. It was doubtful that the leopard could even get close to the warthog unless it were right on top of him and our hopes of seeing a kill were soon dashed when the warthog reversed direction for now good reason as I’m sure it hadn’t seen its potential attacker. We’d have to leave the scene once again unsatisfied.
The route to Kisini takes you almost directly south and into a more forested area of the Serengeti before reaching the airstrip and ranger station that constitute this waypoint. The airstrip there is incredibly remote and is made up of a single small building with radio equipment alongside the landing strip. Vitalis told us that the ranger was offering to take us to see one of the rhinos that were in the area, which of course was something we’d be interested in as the only rhino we had seen so far was in the crater and was a long distance away. The ranger, carrying his carbine rifle, got into our vehicle to guide us in the direction of the rhino, but it soon became apparent that we were more or less searching for it, though it’s always hard to imagine how you would hide something the size of a VW bus. As we were driving across the landscape, though, there was suddenly a large noise at the front of Turtle and a scraping sound as we tried to drive. Vitalis and the ranger got out to check what had happened, and it turned out that our winch, which sits up under the front bumper, had come loose on one side and completely dropped to the ground. This was indeed a problem for us as unfortunately we didn’t have any rope in the car to tie it back up under the bumper. We ended up sacrificing the passenger side seat belt, which actually worked great, and after jacking up the winch housing, were able to secure it back into the bumper with several loops of the seat belt.
Once we were back in action, we continued to search for the rhino until finally we heard the ranger say that he had seen it in this area yesterday which gave us very little confidence that we would actually find it. I had thought perhaps that he was in contact with the rhino trackers who were radioing the location of the rhino to him, but we had no such luck after all. We eventually had to give up the chase and make our way back to the airstrip to drop off the ranger with the entire expedition taking around two hours. Though we hadn’t found a rhino, we had at least seen a large swath of the Southern Serengeti that I was unfamiliar with. One bonus was that we also found four more cheetahs – one at the end of the airstrip and a trio comprised of a mother and two nearly full-grown children, a male and a female. That had brought our total of cheetahs for the weekend up to 13.
While driving around the big marsh at Lake Ndutu, we ran across most of a giraffe carcass that had only been partially eaten, and a short distance away, two male lions (related of course) snoozing with full bellies. It’s pretty unusual for an adult giraffe to be taken as their kicks can be lethal, so Vitalis thought that it must have taken at least six or seven lionesses to have accomplished such a feat, though they were nowhere to be found at the moment. With the wildebeest and zebra no longer in the vicinity, the lions must have been fairly desperate to have gone after a full-grown giraffe.
Ten years ago, just a stone’s throw away from where the giraffe lay, I had seen four female lions ambush a group of zebras by the watering hole when we were visiting Ndutu in the spring. The lions conducted the ambush a bit clumsily (their timing was off) and, in the end, were unable to catch any of the adults, but did manage to nab the baby who couldn’t run as fast as their parents. The four lionesses devoured their prize in very short order as we stood by and watched. I have a video of the event that was taken by one of my residents, and in the background you can hear the four women in the vehicle with me excitedly shouting, “Oh my god, oh my god,” when the lions began their ambush, but when it was clear who they were going to catch, it changed to, “not the baby, not the baby.” I explained, as I always do, that it’s the circle of life and that it would have happened had we been here or not. The animals here are not putting on a show or trying to impress us, it’s a matter of survival and a part of nature.
The drive from Ndutu home travels through some of the most picturesque landscape in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in the Endulen region as you gradually ascend to the rim of the crater through huge groups of Maasai bomas and villages. This was the way we had traveled last April, but leaving Ndutu, there was so much water from the rains, the road was essentially underwater and eventually proved impassable. We become stuck and had to be rescued by the Rangers, but not until a failed hike out in the dark through the water and mud with hyenas running not far from us. The site where this had occurred along with the river that was flowing just beyond it were completely bone dry now as we passed them.
We made it to the Ngorongoro gate with five minutes to spare, which is our typical MO despite our best intentions to get there early. We had dinner plans that night at a new lodge where Dr. Annie’s sister is now the manager (The Ngorongoro Haradali), and we made it home just in time to take showers and head off to dinner. I sent Turtle back to Arusha with Vitalis as there were now a number of things that needed to be fixed. The driver’s door was stuck, the winch housing had practically fallen out and was now being held on by the passenger seatbelt we had sacrificed, and we had been push starting the car for the entire day as the brushes on the starter switch needed replacing. We make it through the weekend, though, and all was pretty much par for the course as far as Turtle goes. It’s always something here, but somehow we manage.