Safari, Safari, Safari...

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A Day of "Relative" Rest

I am writing less today, and trying to simply get some rest from work. It has been an exhausting but fulfilling trip so far, but I am concerned that I will play out before it is done if I don’t take one day of rest. I still have a week of projects and business ahead of me.

We are up early, at 5:30 am, and down to the front launching area by 6:00am. By 6:30am the sun is just rising and we are already on the trail for our early morning game drive. It is wonderful to be on the Serengetti so early in the morning. We see several balloon safaris drifting helplessly across the horizon and it would have been nice to try that but it is an additional $450 USD for the pleasure. Anyway, I prefer to see my lions within arm’s reach. :-)

We are back by to camp by 9:30 am and we grab a quick breakfast. The afternoon is free so the girls take a dip in the pool, enjoy and afternoon nap, do some shopping, and just unwind a bit. I did about 2 hours of Internet and email work, and then take in a good deep tissue massage to sort out the kinks in now bruised armour.

At 4:30 pm we are off on another game drive. This time we have an extra passenger, Noella, a middle-aged lady from Australia who seems to be filling out her bucket list. She has a great camera with a good 70-400 zoom lens, and she really keeps the driver, Anthony, on his toes to position for this shot, then that. She is a bit of a hoot and we really enjoy her company. We won’t see her in the next morning’s game drive, however, because she has booked the morning balloon flight. We saw a variety of lions, elephant, cape buffalo, and almost another rhino (we were in the right spot but he didn’t come out of the bush). As the sun set, we were privy to another incredible sunset. In fact, this one was downright magical. An enormous storm was gathering on the horizon and as the sun hid behind the massive thunderheads, its rays blazed out from above the spectacle. I saw something, however, that I have never seen before in all my years of careful cloud watching. At the top of the cloud formed a brilliant “orb” of radiant multi-coloured light, shimmering in blues, purples, green, reds and alternating through the full spectrum of colours. I managed to capture it on film and hopefully you will all get to see it when I publish the photos in a week or so., It was truly a mystical sight.

We raced home in the dark after the sun made its final debut under the magnificent clouds. Lighten shot across the sky and the light show continued past our arrival to the camp. We relaxed at another extensive supper extravaganza. At nine pm, a Massai troop of warriors invaded the restaurant and began a boisterous collage of thumping chests, pounding feet and huffing grunts of song and dance. They paraded around the tables and eventually made their way out to the main lobby again. There, they engaged in the most famous of all “jumping dance” where young warriors prove their prowess by demonstrating to the crowds how high they can jump. I caught it all on film and make it available as well. It was quite a spectacle.

Finally, we retired by midnight. Our driver encouraged us to get up even earlier tomorrow so that we can be out on the drive by 6:15am to catch the best spots before the sun rises.

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