Serengeti, Ngorongoro,South Luagwe, Safari Part 3: The Family

Elephants

I expected to see elephants. What I did not expect was again the proximity and variety. In Serengeti, we saw the newborns. We peeled off to this road all alone and there was a huge family group of them grazing in the acacia trees. The small babies seem like their skin is not fully formed, deflated trunks and bony heads. They can fit under their mothers entirely. There were also the one and two year olds, who seem more like smaller versions of the adults.  They were fully tranquil here, grazing and moving slowly in large matriarchal groups. 

Elephants live to about 70 and what kills them, if nothing else does, is that they run out of teeth. An elephant has 7 sets of teeth and when they run out, they can't chew their food and then they die of starvation. When they get this old they go to Ngorongoro, because the grass is softer in the protected crater than on the open savannas so they can eat longer. Elephants discovered Ngorongoro, the first people followed the elephant trails, and it is known as the elephant graveyard, because they go there to die.

Because Luangwe is wetter, the river and all, we got to see more drinking, and generally messing around with the trunk. And an elephant got startled by some of his fellows running behind us and half charged with an almost trumpet. He just whipped his ears and took two steps, but our driver revved the car and prepared to take off. 

Hyenas

In Ngorongoro two hyenas were fighting over something. Kisamo said it was the placenta of a newborn calf. He said if you looked over there you could see the mother. And a wildebeast was turning circles confused, as though looking for something. 

The hyenas in Serengeti weren't afraid, and were happy to hang out in the ditches near the cars, like stray dogs. They were always in small groups and I'm pretty sure I saw a pregnant one. 

Hippos

Luangwe was the most hippo infested stretch of river in Africa. You could hear the hippos say and night, grunting like hogs. See their little ears submerge and surface from our front deck. One ate weeds like hungry hungry hippos, mouth full open. And at night, they come out of the water and we saw them, pink and startled on their improbably stubby legs. 

Giraffes

Giraffes never stop being interesting looking somehow, you can become inured to the zebras maybe, but the giraffes you keep wanting to figure them out. 

Beyond that. they love the acacia, which have inch long spines but they have the world's toughest and very long tongue, so they can basically graze on these thorn bushes. They vary a lot in color, much lighter or darker. 

We got to see one acacia grove where they were so close by the verge of the road, 2 metres maybe for the close ones, every part of their mouths, eyes, legs was visible. 

We saw one run, crossing the road startled by the car in front of us. A giraffe running is strangely magestic. Their stride length is so long and they are so ungainly that it appears to be happening in slow motion. 

And unbelievably, we saw them fight. It was far away. I would never have known but our guide spotted it. An activity I did not know existed until Norah and I watched that documentary, which I thought was stupendous on TV, I got to watch in life. 

Birds

Some of my favourites were some of the most common. 

The spectacular starlings who had plumage like a blend of a peacock and the sky. 

The weaver birds who made intricate nests, like christmas balls hung from the trees, who you could watch coming in and out. 

Small kingfishers, one of whom I spotted killing a frog in Luangwe. We stopped to watch it dash out its brains, just like a kookaburra killing a snake. 

We also saw ostriches, male and female, walking, and the bastard bird and secretary bird and the crested one who is the national bird of somewhere, much more giant and distinctly African. 

Ok I'm closing there. To talk about up to now, I have to talk about Lake Malawi some, and Victoria Falls and Afrikaburn. 

By way of catching up a bit, I can quickly say I've been in near hibernation in Cape Town, sleeping 12 hours a night, taking long baths, cooking my own food. It's pretty great, though sadly means I've seen little of an amazing city. My mom says I'm just saving it to do with Melinda when we come back ;). I did go up to Table mountain yesterday on the cable car, which had suitably awesome views and I could walk all around and you can see the city and Blaubergstrand where I'm staying and Robben island and both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the cape. 

From my hotel, where I have almost exclusively been, you can see the sea at all times, and the sunset, and table mountain and the city lights and robben island. So it has been a very good place to hibernate.