Crazy

Feb 19

Last night I went on the most amazing drive of my life. We went out to do research for our bat project which studies the relationship between bats and elephants. We left at 4:30 and drove around, asking vehicles we passed if they had seen elephants. As we were driving, we passed a buffalo and then we saw a giraffe just walking down the road toward us. It walked up to the car and then turned into the bush right in front of us. (In the picture you can see part of the car to see how close it was). We then drove until we reached a group of 4 elephants hanging out under a tree. They were eating the fruit from the tree and it was really cool to watch. Also, we were so close to them, which was amazing. But it was still light out so it was too early for bats. A car drove by and told us there was a leopard 7k up ahead so we decided to go see if we could find it. So we drove and drove for a while and we kept seeing a lot of birds of prey—including rare ones that you like never see. I’m not usually that interested in birds but some of these were pretty cool. We drove further and we saw a lion in the distance but we couldn’t really see it that well. And then after a while we decided the leopard must have left so we turned around. We’re driving and then all of the sudden Kevin shouts STOP! And there it was. Up in the tree, on a branch, just relaxing. It was absolutely beautiful. We stared at it and took pictures of it for a long time and then decided we should go back and try to find the elephants again because it was starting to get darker. As we were driving, we saw a huge grey thing in the road—a rhino! I was really excited because I hadn’t seen a rhino yet. It was literally 10ft from the car and it just slowly turned and walked off to the side, but it was so amazing to watch. We kept driving back to where the elephants originally were, but they were gone. We then passed a cool hyena right next to the car. People don’t care about hyenas that much because we see them so often but I still haven’t gotten a good picture because it’s always so dark out when we see them. (A few nights ago we had a party and because there are noise limits at the camp, we had to have the party out in the park where we’re not protected. The idea is that there will be so many of us that animals wont attack, but it’s still kind of scary. And there were hyenas walking around the party area, which was a little terrifying.) But anyway, as we drove we passed over a bridge and we saw a hippo out of the water walking in the reeds. At this point I thought I had seen everything and I was so happy, but then the craziest thing of all happened. We saw figures walking down the road. And as we got closer, there were more and more of them until soon we were surrounded by a pride of lions. There were 11 lions around us, just feet away from the car. There were 5 or 6 cubs, 3 males, and a few lionesses. They were all so beautiful. And the cubs were so adorable. But it was sad because one of the cubs was limping and you could tell it was the runt and that it was going to die. I suggested that we save it, but that was turned down pretty fast. We were right next to the river, so a mom, dad, and baby started drinking the water right next to the car (see picture). And one of the pictures I’m posting looks really dark, but you can see lions walking toward the car and you can see a bunch of light spots, which are all eyes. We hung around with the lions for a half hour because we just couldn’t bring ourselves to leave, it was the most amazing sight. People never see that many together, that close to them. Our bat project was somewhat neglected because we had seen so much, but we did manage to record a few bat calls with a machine the bat guy had. Oh and we also saw a bunch of impala and I took a picture to show you why they're called the McDonalds of the bush. See the M?