to-lion-track-or-not-that’s-the-question

First night at Sweetwaters tented camp! I am in bed now and all around me I hear the sounds of the African night bush. I am just loving it. Could I be fortunate enough and hear the lion’s roar? I sure hope so.
A few seconds ago I wasn’t so calm and serene so to speak. Here I was ready to jump into bed as it’s a bit cold now. Open de duvet, crawl inside…YIKES!!!!! As fast as I could I stood back on the ground. What the hell was that??? So I put on slippers and pulled the duvet away only to find 2 hotwater bottles 🙂 You should have seen the smile on my face. I do feel a bit stupid now haha.
Early day tomorrow as I am leaving on a morning game drive at 6:30am!! I don’t think I’ll need an alarm clock as the sounds and light of mother nature will wake me up in time.

lala salama!
Rise and shine!! And it was a fairly cold night I must say. I woke up in the middle of the night feeling very cold! Luckely my 2 hotwater bottles were nearby and still warm so I put them close to my body to warm up and it sure helped.
I was up before the alarm but there was still no light nor sound outside. By the time I had my morning coffee the first light apeared and soon after the sun rose!

And what a beautiful sight that was! Sunrise on one side and a little further we could see the peak of Mt Kenya. Nothing like the Kilimanjaro at all but a very rugged peaked.

During the drive we got to see plenty of animals again, which made me very happy as you can imagine. Twice we came along black rhino! Yes, first spotting was of a mother and her calf and the second one was a lone, I think, male rhino. Male because it was huge!
We also saw 2 white rhino!! Those were on the other side of the fence so we didn’t get to see them up-close but Justus had seen their mouths and told me it was white. I can’t recognise them from behind so I am taking this word for it!

We saw many big herds of zebra as well! They were gorgeous and there were so many of them. Even babies, well youngsters really. They still had their brownish colour.
Other animal encounters were the giraffes, elephants, jakals, hartebeests, impala, grants gazelles and ofcourse the ever-so-funny warthogs! They are funny indeed. They sure run fast with those little legs underneath them.
I was still on the look-out for the King of the Jungle, even though I am not in a jungle 😉 but so far no luck at all! Not one big cat to be seen and no wild dogs either unfortunately. Are you all keeping your fingers crossed tight enough?
Our morning drive ended at 8:30 and left me freezing cold!! I sure could use that breakfast and hot coffee. Still cold now and it’s just past noon.
Now, we still had that lion tracking issue to resolve, hadn’t we… ???
After breakfast I went back to reception to inform again.. again, no answer. They hadn’t been in touch with the person who I wrote to so I went online for an hour or so. After that hour I informed.. again.. oh they weren’t able to reach her yet.. another person got involved and when he came back he said she was going to be about 15 to 20 minutes. I could wait there or in my tent. Ok, let’s wait there..tick tock…tick tock..half an hour, an hour.. still nothing. At this point I was ready to EXPLODE!! About half an hour later I get: one more minute (sure after 2 1/2h I can wait another minute, right?)… long minutes here in Kenya I must admit. FINALLY after a total wait of just under 3 bloody hours Angela arrived when in fact she couldn’t do much about it as she had told me, yes I can do the lion tracking but make reservation with reception. Which I did by email and I was told no booking was necesary! They argued a bit first English than Swahili (so I couldn’t understand them I suppose) about who said what and who blamed who..
In the end they told me sure you’ll have a lion tracking!!! You’ll have it either today at 3:30pm and if that doesn’t work out for us, tomorrow morning at 6:30 am. We are not sure yet but you’ll have one!!! sure?? I still won’t believe it until I am finally on that jeep!!!
Wasn’t a vacation supposed to be a time of relaxation?? Today I have not noticed that, I can tell you that much!!
I now have about 3h before I can either go on the lion tracking or my regular safari. No doubt that I will keep you posted 🙂
Right after either one of those I will have a night drive (well, dark drive really as it won’t be night time just yet).
I am so hoping the sun will come through today and the winds to calm down! This feels like Belgian summer and I was trying to escape it.

TO BE CONTINUED…

(and it’s on tomorrow morning)