2Kwara Camp
The plane was late. Flight interesting – saw several elephants in waterholes, barely identifiable from the air. Got to the camp late, so had only a bit of time to settle in before tea and the afternoon game drive.
They prepared me a special tea – gobs of onions with a piece of pretty good meat between two corn cakes. The onions were so strong I couldn’t eat them but fortunately there was some fruit, and I am never that hungry in the mid afternoon. But the contrast with Selinda was potent.
The game drive started out well enough. We were looking for a group of three year old lions, two males and two females. We drove around for a while, then Mike, one of my two companions, saw the lions off in the woods. Neither the spotter nor the guide had seen them. We drove over and watched them and took a couple of pictures while the guide radioed the news to the other guides. Two other vehicles arrived before the lions started out on their hunt. We circled around while the other two vehicles followed – all very familiar from Selinda. The lions emerged from the wooded area into a large meadow of relatively short grass. Then we saw several giraffes across the meadow. They obviously saw the lion and the lion saw them. Ordinarily you would expect the lion to ignore them, since a lion cannot run as fast as a giraffe – you would also expect the giraffes to leave. Instead, the lion started toward the giraffes, and one of them started toward her. It was very dramatic – three year old lions are pretty inexperienced, and it was entirely possible she would try to take the giraffe. At that intense moment, inexplicably, Jacob said “We are only allowed to have three vehicles at one spot and if another vehicle comes we will have to leave.” He heard another vehicle coming, so we left! I was flabbergasted – one of us saw the lions, we were first on site, and we had to miss the most exciting part. We drove around a while, saw nothing exciting, and stopped for gin and tonic at sunset. On the way home we also saw nothing of interest. I later learned from passengers in the other, Johnnie-come-lately vehicles that some zebras with babies showed up and the lions turned away from the giraffes and tried, unsuccessfully, to take down one of the young zebras. I am so, so very pissed about it. One of the other guides at dinner explained that “Your guide knew from their body language nothing was going to happen and it was time for the sundowner.” Gin and tonic instead of a zebra chase!!! Not a very good exchange.
At dinner, the waitress announced the buffet was set up, then said everyone else had to wait while David served himself first. I don’t care who knows about my celiac condition, and I make no secret of it, but it is awkward to be singled out that way. The food was good, but one dish tasted somewhat like German spaetzel. I ate part of it but should not have eaten even a bite – I woke up in the middle of the night with familiar symptoms of wheat poisoning. Symptoms lasted most of the next day, although I gradually got better.
Based on the first day and night I am very unimpressed with this camp. The staff has a hard time understanding things – I still don’t know if they quite understand gluten-intolerance, and will have to be fully on my guard the whole time here. The guides are competent but not spectacular. Similarly, the food is reasonably good, but doesn’t come near Selinda. If I’d come here first, without the comparison, I’d probably feel more positive toward it. On the other hand, I’ve managed to have a really good time here thus far, and I’m sure the remaining two days will be just fine.

May 19
Morning game drive was better – managed to spot a male leopard who did not want to be photographed and quickly vanished. However, we saw lots of other interesting game so it was overall pleasant. Vultures alerted us to a kill – all that was left were a few ribs and the lower jawbone of an impala, which looked very fresh – Jacob thought the vanishing leopard may have made that kill in the morning, and the hyenas probably finished what was left.
Jacob is a nice person, very knowledgeable, although I don’t think he is nearly as knowledgeable as Obi. Aside from not sticking up for his passengers, he’s a pretty good guide.
In the afternoon we drove down to the river and got on a flat bottom boat for a slow ride downstream to the main river, where we drank gin and tonics and watched the sunset, then took a much faster ride back up to the car to come home. We saw a baby crocodile on a log and a couple of elephants in a field of grass, plus a couple of hippos. But on the way back we bumped the back of two more hippos – Jacob says that a small bump like that won’t hurt them – and if you go slow when they get active around dark, they have been known to kick a hole in the bottom of a boat with their sharp hooves and strong legs. It was a fun leisurely afternoon / evening – quite a change of pace from other recent activities.

May 20
Today started out on an interesting note. I awoke at midnight and there was total peace and quiet – then the mayhem started; lions roaring, hippos grunting and munching near camp, and what I believe was two baboons fighting, culminating in what sounded like one of them humming a sad song. When I walked over to the fire pit for breakfast, I learned that two of the guides were chased by – actually faced mock charges from – lions near the parking area. Then,, as I was eating my sweet roll and sipping coffee, someone spotted a lion just behind the trees next to the fire pit. Eventually we saw three, two females and a male. I had to take a picture in spite of the very poor light. After breakfast we followed them for a half hour so the guide could identify them. It turns out the male is not part of the same pride as the females, and they appeared to be trying to lose him so he wouldn’t take over anything they managed to kill. He is a mature lion, still strong enough to dominate others, although he has a wound in a hind leg from an old fight. It appears to be a tendon problem – his stride is normal and gracefully smooth until the very end, when his leg appears to pop as he lifts it. I’m sure a vet could diagnose it just from a video. In spite of the gimp, the guide says he is still a good hunter.
We had to take the couple from New Zealand back to the airport, so we drove out in that direction. For a while we didn’t see much, then we came to a large park-like setting with deep lush grass a few inches tall – green and edible unlike much of the grass here. In that area we saw several varieties of antelope, zebras including two males fighting, wildebeest, giraffes, including a cluster I had to add to my large collection of giraffe photos (I’m struggling to delete as many poor pictures as I add good ones). Particularly amusing – we came to a tree literally filled with baboons who were chasing each other around, leaping to a nearby bush, and leaping down to the ground, a fall of about 20 feet. At one time at least a dozen fell within a few seconds, like it was raining baboons. Unfortunately we drove on before I could deploy the camera. I realize I need to have the small pocket camera out when we’re driving, take out the larger camera only when we stop so I have time to fuss with it a bit.
Afternoon game drive started out leisurely. We dropped off Mike and Carrie but picked up two others, brothers from New Zealand, so we still have five in the car, the most I’ve experienced. All nice people, fortunately. We watched a large male elephant eating grass for a while. They use the hard sharp front edges of their front foot to loosen the grass, then grasp a clump with the trunk, beat it against their chest several times to knock off the dirt, then put in the mouth to chew up. We revisited the water hole where we saw the hippos this morning and there were three as well as some ibises and geese. Then we drove around a little, and the spotter saw cat tracks in the road, so we headed off into the grassy park-like area and found the four three year old lions again, and watched them watching a couple of kudu and a red antelope for a while. Then a call from another guide came – he had found a cheetah and her cubs eating a freshly killed impala. Jacob said it was on the other side of the concession and we’d have to drive very fast to get there before sunset but we all wanted to see it, so he set off. There followed the wildest ride I’ve had in a long time, bouncing over the hardened roads and plowing through the deep sand parts. We got there just as the sun was setting and I took sixty photos, some using flash (which didn’t seem to bother the cats). About forty turned out quite well.

May 21
Two interesting events today. In the morning we went for a nature walk – again with the guide carrying a big game rifle. As before, we saw some interesting wildlife from a respectful distance, including elephants, zebras and several species of antelope. We also saw a pad terrapin, a small turtle that lives in the water holes but, when we found it, was several hundred yards from the nearest one, on the way to another one. It is lucky we were walking not driving. The tracker picked it up to show us and it peed on him – a very stinky substance that serves as a defense. We also learned about a creeper vine that is used as soap – a few leaves and a little water, rub it together, and it emits a soapy, slightly oily liquid that serves well. I used a little, didn’t rinse, and found that it dried leaving my hands feeling as if I had used a good hand lotion.
In the afternoon we came back to the same area, looking for the lions spotted the previous day, and saw a surprising (for hear) scarcity of game – as if everything was hiding. About an hour before dark, a radio message came that some wild dogs had shown up at camp (some days it doesn’t pay to leave home!) Apparently they chased an antelope right through camp, overturning chairs and making a general ruckus.

May 22
Some days it doesn’t pay to go very far from home. Jacob wanted to see if the wild dogs were still around so we drove around some of the nearby roads and, instead of dogs we found three spotted hyenas. We followed them for about a half hour and I managed to get a couple of pictures (I was on the wrong side of the vehicle, then they were in high grass, then another vehicle was between us ant them, then they went back into high grass). Jacob said they were heading into the brush and he didn’t want to spend the morning bouncing around in the brush so, instead of following them we headed for a different area to see if we could find four male lions who have formed a coalition.
I was rather disappointed about the decision to abandon the hyenas – I would have liked to observe a lot more of their behavior. One of my minor disappointments about both camps, really, is the tendency to focus primarily on cats and on species count (see it, photograph it, move on to the next photo op). I would prefer focus on primates and canid species, and on more prolonged observation of behavior such as hunting and the male competition happening now as mating season approaches. However, my disappointment was at least partially assuaged when we found the three cheetahs again and I had the opportunity to watch the cubs playing.

Some general observations: The veldt is covered with several species of grass, each of which has a barbed or burred seed that is worse even than cheat grass. Several times we would see a lioness start limping and stop to dig a burr out from between her toes. The elephants and termites seem to play the major role in shaping the landscape: elephants rip up and pull over trees, and they keep the trees they like to eat pruned down to barren stumps with only a few leaves showing. They also eat the bark off of a certain acacia species, so that it is girdled and dies, accounting for all of the standing dead trees. Termites build the huge mounds, which are often populated by trees. As these areas connect up they form “islands” (which actually are islands during the rainy season floods). The islands are often covered with forest – either the tall, more open forests or groves of brush and trees stunted by elephant grazing habits.
One frequently encounters several prey species grazing together – it appears that each species has a particular perceptual talent, eyesight, smell, hearing, and grazing together increases all their safety.