We got a much needed early night in our Masai Boma hut, again no native to Tanzania wildlife that kept us up last night, just the local dogs – it was like we were back at home!
Normal service resumed today, thank goodness to a degree because yesterday threw us off a little! 6:45am alarm, which may or may not have been snoozed a couple of times…, Breakfast at 7:30am and ready to go for 8am.
The views we woke up to/ate breakfast looking at are breathtaking!
The plan of action for today was to head out on a 4 hour game drive locally in Pololeti Game Reserve and to do this, we needed a local Masai as our guide. His name was Kanga and he was an incredible simba spotter!
The history of the area is intense, in the late 1950’s the Masai were formally evicted from the Serengeti. They struck up a deal when they were evicted, they would leave in exchange for guaranteed, legally protected lands on the outskirts of the Serengeti – Pololeti Game Controlled Area.
The classification of game controlled area allowed for human and livestock to live and graze along with local wildlife.
Despite this agreement, in 2022, the Tanzanian government took 1,500 square kilometres of village land as a protected game reserve. This restricted the Maasai from living on the land or grazing their livestock and is now known as Pololeti Game Reserve.
History aside (which made for a very interesting read) we started off strong – giraffes aplenty! Easily 12+ giraffes of all ages, the youngest Freddy reckons was no more than a month old! They never fail to put a wide smile on our faces!
And then something we hadn’t come across specifically, especially in this volume; Vultures. 20 of them, littered the trees around us, watching everywhere. Kind of spooky feeling like we were being watched by them!
We kept driving, further up into the hills when we were graced with the presence of a beautiful herd of elephants! We counted up to 7 or 8 and then both immediately went no way! 22 in total, they just kept appearing as if from thin air! Again some were really young, Freddy reckoned again around a month old! 1 out of the big 5!
We carried on, we crossed a stream (god knows how Freddy has done it today I tell ya!) where we stopped to watch 4 giraffes what we thought were having a drink but Freddy quickly corrected us to the fact they were actually licking the salt from the rocks!
The usual suspects were enjoying the water the other side of the jeep; zebras, wildebeests, gazelles and pumbas!
Then we came across another big 5 animal – Buffalo. A huge herd of buffalo, they all seemed to stop and stare at us almost as if they were seeing which one of us would make the first move. A strange game of chess!
We made the first move and carried on the track, we came across different types of gazelle which Michael mistakenly took for donkeys and was quickly corrected to waterbuck!
Then nothing.
We must have driven for over an hour, up and down over the hills, back through the stream, looking in every direction as we slowly ambled forward hoping for something to jump out at us. This isn’t overly unusual because Freddy never tells us what he is looking for (I’m assuming to not get our hopes up) and our Swahili isn’t amazing so we can never tell what’s happening on the radio!
We were all just keeping our eyes peeled for some kind of movement.
And then a complete change of pace! Kanga, who was also not much of a talker, mostly due to his English, said one word we all understood: Simba.
And right he was – 2 female lions under a tree right by the road; we’d almost driven past them! So Freddy reversed and then Michael spotted a third lion, he turned out to be a young male! That’s when I said, is that their dinner in the tree behind?
Kanga and Freddy were on it! Freddy carried on reversing to check I wasn’t going mental and then suddenly we were going forward and around to get a closer look! 5 lions in total, 2 of which were young males all protecting last nights dinner: Zebra.
If you are particularly squeamish, my recommendation is to not look at that photo! But it was incredible to see! I expected them to be sleeping after such a big meal but Freddy said that because the kill is so fresh and there’s still meals to be had from it, they stay awake and keep an eye on it until they are finished with it – scare those pesky scavenger hyenas away!
He also said that they would likely stay around here, close to the carcass and that they likely wouldn’t need to kill again for another 7 days unless the carcass goes off before then.
We all watched, almost as if we were obsessed with what we had stumbled upon, before Freddy radioed it in and others started joining – he’s good like that, he lets us enjoy it first and then shares the find!
With more jeeps arriving, the lions moved away, almost as if they didn’t want too many to know that they were there, grinning from ear to ear, we carried on with our drive. 3 of the big 5 seen today!
We had seen more giraffes today than any other day, they seemed to like this area, so it seemed fitting that they were the final animal of the drive – this time laying down! This is incredibly rare because of how vulnerable it makes them, but suddenly they were all laying down! They must have known the local lions were full!
The drive sadly came to an end, and we headed back to our lodge for lunch and I couldn’t believe my eyes when they laid the plate down in front of me – Chips!!!
The food has been pretty good in the main, but there’s only so much rice, veg and meat (usually chicken or beef) a girl can eat so you can imagine how excited I was for chips!!
We relaxed for about an hour post lunch, before getting back into the jeep to drive to our next home for the evening: Africa Safari Lake Natron. Freddy had already given us the heads up that it was about a 3 hour drive, which was broken up very nicely when we came across a stretch of tarmac! We went from African massage to smooth coasting which was a very welcome change (but was only short lived!)
We arrived at Lake Natron which sits at the foot of an active volcano – Ol Doinyo Lengai – which translates to Mountain of God in the language of the Masai. It last erupted in 2007 when it sent a 3km high ash plume into the air!
We can definitely tell we are near the volcano because it is hot hot hot! They’ve even branched out and given us air con because it’s 30 degrees at 9pm!
The best thing about this lodge though, is that giraffes are wandering freely around and we had a family of 5 just chilling right outside!
Today was the last of our proper game drives and the pace of the holiday starts to change. Tomorrow we head to Lake Natron, which we can see from our lodge, and do a walk through some waterfalls before heading back to Manyara Escarpment for the evening and then the following day we head for a final short game drive in Manyara National Park (which Freddy says is quite small) and then to the airport to head to Zanzibar!
