 I met my family from Seattle and Austin in Nairobi. Yes Nairobi is a big, busy and probably dangerous city. Whatever. We enjoyed our few days there. I did find the perfect hotel! I can’t say enough good things about this hotel. It was very British. That’s neither here nor there. There was live piano at mealtimes and when he heard our accents he played Jack Johnson and Billy Joel.  (left to right) Ryan from Austin, TX, and Elaina, Jennifer and Doug from Olympia WA We spent 8 days on a wonderful safari organized by Seraphina with Africa Dynamics out of Seattle. Not a single single detail was overlooked. Our favorite camp was Sentinel Mara—a tented camp perched just above the Mara River. Below us were 2 pods of hippos and they snorted and giggled us to sleep every night. One hippo snortles and then the response is a “ ha ha ha ha...” it was fun to imagine their jokes about the silly humans.   All the guides were A+, the food was superb meal after meal, the camp staff were kind, interested and had their own interesting stories. Of course there was the Big Five: Lions, leopards, rhinos, Buffalo, and Elephants. While the Big Five now mostly refers to camera wielding tourists, the name comes from the game hunters wielding big guns. 
The Big Five refers to those prized feisty beasts that would fight back when hunted. Cheetahs run and hippos don’t wear ivory.
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AuthorJennifer Williams MD, from Olympia, Washington is working and traveling in Africa. Archives
August 2019
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Our next destination was South Luangwa National Park in Zambia
When we arrived at our lodge the first thing we were told is not to walk around the campus without a guide. This kind seemed extreme. But sure enough each morning we awoke to new friends: the first morning there were two hippos right outside our front door and the second morning a family of elephants traipsed right across the yard. |
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Our first evening safari — Everything but the lioness and cubs
14. AND THE LEOPARDS. The South Luangwa is best known for its leopard population. Our first leopard casually strolled around the Land Rover, not more than 4 feet away. Our most leopardly leopard was perched on a branch in an Acacia tree, just above his 1/2 eaten impala. The hyenas circled the base of the tree hoping for scraps to fall
- Elephants- maybe one in ten without one or both tusks. Cause is both congenital and poaching. But of course poaching elephants with the biggest healthiest tusks alters the gene pool and begins to favor elephants without tusks.
- Giraffes, mostly living. We saw a freshly killed giraffe and awaited the lions to return for dinner but the smell became too overwhelming and we moved on.
- African buffalo, (the ones with the horns that look like a curled mustache)
- Hippopotami, wading, yawning, wallowing, and bellowing.
- Impala and puku are small ungulates (leopard snacks)
- Zebra--this species has only pure black and white stripes. (Some have brown patches and “shadow stripes”)
- Vervet monkeys
- Yellow baboons
- Male lion-probably an adolescent
- Spotted genet (cat family, nocturnal, spotted body like a leopard and long bushy ringed tail. Size of a Maine coon cat. Omnivorous. )
- White tailed mongoose
14. AND THE LEOPARDS. The South Luangwa is best known for its leopard population. Our first leopard casually strolled around the Land Rover, not more than 4 feet away. Our most leopardly leopard was perched on a branch in an Acacia tree, just above his 1/2 eaten impala. The hyenas circled the base of the tree hoping for scraps to fall
