Lions do not like the rain

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And honestly, we’re a bit done with it as well. But watching animals waits for no man, so we don our trusty ponchos and toughen up…and sit in the jeep. The drive from Mara camp was long and muddy and we got a bit of African makeup but we were happy to arrive and have some rest time before lunch and some more rest time.

Off on our first game drive at Lion camp in the Olare Motorogi conservancy. Even though they’re only 2 hours drive away (which, given the state of the roads is probably only about 40k), the country surrounding Mara and Lion camps could not be more different. While still very green and underwater, Lion camp was characterised by open fields and rolling hills. The grass was particularly long due to the lack of wildebeest which meant that the other prey animals like zebras and DTWS were not in huge supply. I was initially a bit concerned what that meant for our game viewing experience but the peaceful vistas of vast fields of grass with hills in the distance did much to calm me. And then we saw lots of animals anyway.

Our first afternoon, we saw a couple of dominant males who were apparently hedging their bets with the pride they were going to be boss of. They were handsome boys so they had their choice of three. Then we saw one of their prides with gorgeous cubs and three females, who were busy scoping where they wanted to sit.

The rain was not being particularly co-operative and we did a few drives in the wet, which sent the lions hiding under bushes for protection and made them challenging to find. Particularly so when the bushes they are hiding in are surrounded by a swamp and the truck gets stuck! Glad it wasn’t me getting out to attach the tow rope!

So we had to make do with the animals that liked the rain - we stumbled across a family of elephants including a little baby. Most entertaining was the two juvenile males who were playing in the ‘bath’, having a lovely time play-fighting and chasing each other. Things took an amusing turn when one of them deemed himself to have the upper hand in the fight, as he was pooing in the water and holding his brother’s head under, before releasing a volcanic eruption from his rear. This triggered an exodus from him and provoked all the other to go running - we could still see them bolting through the adjoining fields about 5 minutes later, apparently desperate to get away from the fibre-rich beast he had released into the water.

The highlight of our stay, and possibly the entire trip, was on our last morning and the last thing we saw before we had to get ready for our departure - we stumbled across one of the lion prides with a kill, apparently from around 2am, so there were so full bellies already and the cubs were in full banquet mode. It was fascinating, but kind of gross to watch them chewing on it and we enjoyed watching the jackals loitering around to see what scraps they could collect…or just mosey on by if they caught the watchful eye of one of the lions.

All of a sudden, the lions got a scare and started running away, which signalled to the ever-patient jackals and the surrounding hyenas that it was on. They dove for the remaining carcass and started to claim their prize, however this upset one of the lionesses who apparently wasn’t ready to give it up. She then attempted an Uber eats style move, tripping and stumbling over as she dragged the remains away, watched by the rest of the pride who apparently had little interest in helping. She eventually gave in and conceded the remaining bits to the waiting rabble of jackals and hyenas who provided much entertainment in their devouring of the various bit. When we drove by a few hours later on our way to the airport, there was nothing to be seen. It was fascinating to watch nature truly at work and the sometimes comical interactions between all the animals.

We were sad to leave Lion camp and our very wise and calm guides Nelson and our spotter John, but our safari time was over and our flight (1.5 hours later!) took us back to Nairobi. A nice lunch outside the airport and we were in our way to Zanzibar.

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