As I changed for dinner I happened to look at myself in the mirror and couldn't believe the lobster that was looking back. I've been so good with the lobster juice and bug juice on all exposed skin. We had gone down to pool yesterday and, as usual, I was sitting in the shade. It was warm so I took off my shirt. Apparently the sun is so powerful here that you can get a burn off the reflected ambient light even while in the shade. But in any case, while looking in the mirror I found the adapter bag sitting on the counter where both of us must have looked 4 or 5 times. All is well that ends well, we now we are all charged up and back in business. SPF 50 here I come.
It's about noon and melainie and I are sitting on the porch of our tent, reading, writing and soaking in the scenery and sounds. Some sort of beast must have just passed below us - Odor is pretty strong and we've both had showers. Last night Melanie awoke to the sniffer again and I heard something gallop by around 5am. This morning we got off to our game drive without ants.
Today's feature was a visit to a couple of lion prides. Got a video of one female finishing off a wildebeest. These guys really weren't too worried about us. Again we were maybe 20 feet away. She'd look at us and then go back to her gnaw. This was a pride with about 4 children. Every few minutes one would jump another one and they would start to tousle. I identified with the mother. Why can't they play nicely? We are starting to recognize more of the birds. All sorts of eagles and vultures as well as song birds. Still in awe of the ostrich.
So since we've been in the Serengeti we go for a 6a game drive preceded by our pre breakfast and get back for breakfast. Then we grab a book and hang around the pool for a while and head to lunch. Then we go for another game drive around 330.
Whenever we pass near the lounge tent people ask us about or day. And the manager of the place makes a point to chat with us each day. Today David mentioned what a challenge it must be to run a place like this in the bush. "Not so bad" he said. Besides the issue of supplies and stalfing The most interesting Thing I heard him say was that when they hire, they make sure to hire happy people. It makes sense to me. They have a number of hotels around Africa and invest heavily in training. For the bush hotels, an employee signs up for a 1,3,4,8, or 12 week shift. You acrue vacation days in relation to the length of the shift and all employees get a 30 day leave per year. The pay is not great so i suspect that they are quite dependent on tips There is a lot of room for advancement and most people have been with the organization quite a while. He also talked about Michael's fundraiser and how the hotel tries to help a little with these things. and then I spoke with a young woman getting married and she talked about her fundraiser so I guess That is the correct term. Jan and Jerry give this idea to Tyler.
For the afternoon game drive we got to see a lion eating a wildebeest while his 5 friends watched. So here's the thing about John. All the other jeeps stayed on the road. As soon as they left John drove off the road up to the lions. Is that cool or scary? The answer to both is yes.
Then we saw some Monster crocs swimming around with some hippos. These guys were easily 18 to 24 ft long. They had killed a wildebeest and 2 crocs were not agreed as to how should control dinner. They had each latched on to one end and were playing tug of war. Occasionally another croc would sneak in for a quick bite-but that was discouraged. Besides us there were a half dozen other crocs, some storks, eagles, monitor lizards all hoping to get in on the action. Actually we were not interested in anything other than watching. We had our own dinner to back to. So all of a sudden, one crock-still with his jaws clamped firmly in place, rolls over a couple times. This annoyed the other guy and he rolled over a couple times. Between the splashing of the water you could see the horns of the poor wildebeest flashing by. It was clear that they were trying to twist it apart. Eventually one guy managed to pull off the biggest piece. He swam off a little way an then lifted up his head to show off his prize. Never seen anything like it- and did I say this guy was HUGE!!!!!!!!!
Apparently the only animal the croc doesn't kill is the hippo. That's because the hippo always knows were the water is and the crocs follow them. Oh yes, and the fact the the hippos jaws are strong enough to snap the croc in half. Have I mentioned how graceful the hippos are on land? They really seem to tip toe. David, he's David not me, said Disney got them right in Fantasia. Neither of us would have been surprised if they had tutus on. But in the water not so graceful. They also make the most horrid noises.
Before dinner we sat on the terrace and watched a beautiful sunset.
- Posted from the ipad
Location:Western Serengeti
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