Monkey with Ziggy's cookies
We got up and got ready to go meet Ziggy at 7:30. Breakfast was another buffet. We saw monkeys on the roof while we were eating. There was a variety of bread, sausage, potatoes, an omelet /egg station and fruit. Ziggy was out at the truck waiting for us and he told us a monkey had just jumped into the truck, stole some left-over cookies from the day before and it was sitting up outside of someone's room opening the package to eat them. I was amazed by the fact that the monkeys know how to open a package of cookies! He said they were in a bag on the front seat and the monkey jumped in, took them out of the bag and took off.
Ziggy asked how our evening was – how was dinner, did we sleep well, etc...? I asked him how his evening was and I was curious about where he spent the night. He said there were some cottages nearby that all the staff stay at. He said they were OK but from what we gathered, these cottages were pretty basic accommodations. He pointed them out to us as we drove by them. He also pointed out the Frankfurt Zoological station which was also located nearby.
Ziggy took us out in a different direction and we saw some more hippos and baboons. There were a lot of other people out and about in similar trucks driving around. We didn't really see any other tourists on our drive up on Saturday but on Sunday we came to understand just how touristy safaris in Tanzania really are. We would drive around a bit, then when we would pass another safari truck, we would stop and Ziggy would roll down his window and the other guy would roll down his window and while the conversation was always in Swahili, we could tell this is how the conversation would go “hey – what's up?” (Mambo!) “Not much, its cool” (Poa). “See anything good down that way?” “Yeah, we saw a hippo/baboon/giraffe/etc.” or “Naw, nothing exciting down that way”. “OK – see ya later, have a good one” “Yeah, you too”.
The landscape was interesting – it was pretty open but there were clusters of trees – Amarila trees and acacia trees – there were some rivers and creeks – and some water holes and some swampy areas. It was a lot more varied than I expected.
Sometimes, if someone found something interesting, they would call each other and then we would race off to see whatever it is. This happened Sunday morning. We were driving around and then Ziggy got a call and tore off really fast down the road (which is an adventure all on its own). We came around a corner and there were 3 or 4 other trucks stopped there and what everyone was looking at was 3 female lions milling around in an area with some fallen trees. Suddenly, one of them jumped up on one of the trees, then another one did. The third one laid down in the grass. There were baboons nearby and one of them was trying to get from one tree to another one – the lions were eyeballing them all the while but in the end, they didn't do anything other than lay there. One of the lions was wearing a collar – we are guessing that is the work of the zoological organization there.
We sat and watched the lions for a while then we took off for more game driving. We drove around and saw some other animals – by now, we were getting used to seeing Thompson gazelle, zebras and wildebeest – ho hum! We drove up to another picnic/rest area and took a restroom break and saw some giraffe off in the distance. While there some of the other guides told Ziggy there was a leopard in the area. We took off in search of that and along the way we saw a group of elephants. We were able to drive up very close to them. One was a juvenile and it was rolling around in the mud while another one (we are assuming its mother) stood guard.
After a while, they wandered off and we drove off. We drove around some more and then Ziggy got another call and took off at top speed back toward the rest area we had been at earlier. There were lots and lots of safari trucks there – at least 30 – and probably about 100 people standing around looking through their binoculars at a tree – we found the leopard! It was sitting up in the tree. Everyone was very excited. After a while, the leopard jumped down and we couldn't see it through the grass. We wandered off and were ready to go when there was more excitement and the crowd started moving. We went back over to see what it was – and the leopard had gone INTO the restrooms were just in only about an hour before! Then it came back out and jumped up onto the roof of the restrooms! It was AMAZING how easily it jumped up onto the roof. At this point the crowd was going wild – and one of the guides started yelling at everyone to get back – we were getting too close and we could all see just how fast and how far that leopard could move. It took off again back toward the tree. Someone said that it had some cubs and it lost track of them and it was looking for them. It went back up into the tree, came back down, and was slinking around in the grass. It was hard to see after that and we finally headed out. I was totally freaked out by the fact that the leopard was in the restroom I was just in! I was much more cautious about going into the restrooms after that. It is a really good thing there was nobody in there when it went in.
We drove around some more and then headed back to the lodge for lunch. We had lunch (another buffet) and we hung around there for a few hours then Ziggy came back for us at 4:00 and we went on another game drive until 6:00. On this drive, we saw a cheetah! We were driving around, not really seeing too much and he spotted it in the grass. We have no idea how he was able to see it but he did. He pulled up pretty close to it – which made us both nervous as we thought about how easily that leopard jumped up onto the roof of the restrooms earlier in the day – it seemed like this cheetah would be able to jump into the truck. We watched it for a bit and then it took off. We drove around some more and then headed back to the lodge for the evening. It was pretty much the same routine only it was raining pretty hard so we couldn't go up to the viewing platform. We sat at the bar where we met a couple from the DC-area! Small world. They told us they are JAG lawyers and on vacation doing a safari. They were doing the opposite route from us – we started in the Serengeti and ending in Ngorongoro crater, they started at the crater and were ending in Serengeti. Afterward they were going to Zanzibar.
We tried to get to bed earlier Sunday evening because Ziggy wanted to pick us up at 6:30 in the morning on Monday for an early game drive before breakfast and then after that we were going to head out to Ngorongoro crater.
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