Africa 2009-Amboseli Game Drive- Part 4

LION WATCHERS
LION LOVERS
WHAT MAMMALS DO BEST BEER FOR BREAKFAST?
HAPPY TRAILS

The game drive at Amboseli starts promptly at 7:30 AM. We have no further brushes with squirrel monkeys or other varmints and after our coffee and cake we assemble in the trusty Toyota van to see what the rest of the park has to offer.

Our driver, Robinson, is a whiz at birds. On our way in to the gamepark, we spot a lilac breasted roller, a black bellied bustard and two spur winged plovers. I can’t tell one avian from another but I love the names!

One of our first sightings of the morning is two lions humping. Never seen that before! I'm reminded once again that on my 13 visits to East Africa, I’ve seen lions doing lots of different things, but I’ve never actually seen a lion kill anything. What’s with that? Where is ‘nature red in tooth and claw’?

In fact, as I reflect further, I’ve never seen any animal murders at all in my 20 years of visiting East Africa. It makes me wonder, why are real-life safaris so different from the usual serial killings that one watches on National Geographic specials or Animal Planet shows?

Rather than predator versus prey, mostly what we see on safari is lions making babies and lots and lots of breast feeding. We see baby elephants, baby wildebeests, baby zebra and their lactating Moms. Maybe Darwin and his followers have it all wrong! Maybe the survival of the species doesn’t depend so much on how great a hunter your Daddy is but on how great a nurser your Mommy is. That’s why Mammals are us. And Tyrannosauri are extinct. In which case, we humans would be wise to spend more of our resources improving the quality of our support for nursing mothers rather than beefing up our military might. Call it the “Boob Theory” of evolution! Just think, if Darwin had been a woman, perhaps ‘survival of the fittest’ would have a whole different meaning. It may be only a theory -- but I like it. Go mammals!

After the game drive, we arrive back at the Serena Lodge for a hearty safari breakfast. Gotta love those fresh mangos! There's no Kenya AA coffee for the young ones however. Seems like they've discovered the pleasure of Tusker for brunch. After breakfast, the expedition splits up – most of our fellow travelers head back to Nairobi where they will catch a plane to Kisumu and eventually meet the truckload of luggage in Esabalu village.

Next stop for John, Margaret, Rena and me is the Tanzania border for more safari adventures. A sign on the track to the border promises a bit of rough travel ahead! As does the sign on our Tanzanian land-rover – “It’s rough, it’s dusty, it’s an adventure.”

DAKTARI