One final safari drive this morning, before we had to head back to Tony's house. Our guide was still very keen for us to see a leopard, though seemed to ignore my dinosaur based entreaties, but alas the leopards didn't want to be seen. We did chance across another fresh lion kill that even the vultures hadn't noticed. An eviscerated zebra lay under a bush a mere ten metres from the track. And hidden behind it, the exact same colour as the reeds and grass around it was another male lion. We may have not seen leopards, but we'd seen lions three days running, which apparently made us very lucky. The zebra was not going anywhere, but it was clearly a very fresh kill. There was a neat hole in its belly that and the lion had obviously already eaten the juiciest bits, but without that you might have expected the zebra to jump up and run away.
The lion was being very lazy and hiding well so we decided to come back later and see if he'd do something more interesting for us. But we shortly chanced across some uneaten zebras. There were a couple of foals, one of whom was cavorting with its mother, but the other one of which looked a little forlorn and lost. It seemed likely that it was this foal'd mother who lay rotting in the morning sun just half a kilometre away. Whilst not wishing to anthropomorphise animals it was difficult not to feel sorry for this little zebra and imagine that he looked unhappy. Our guide felt it was very likely that this is what had happened. Such is life and death on the African plains.
Later we came across a tree that was full of baboons. The male baboons (and it was pretty easy to spot which was which as these creatures seem to have very little shame) sat in the branches, leaning back, looking proud of themselves, their little baboon penises hanging down in the sun. One causally rested his elbow in the crook of the branch as he even more casually did a shit without much care for whoever might be sitting below. If only he had a copy of "The Sun" he could easily have been a funny little man. At times like this it is very difficult to resist becoming Johnny Morris and providing your own little commentary of what he might be thinking. But if you did that you'd have to do it for the baby zebra too and that would just be too tragic. There were lots of little baby baboons too, which hung perilously underneath their mothers as they ran up and down the trees or across the track. The rest of the baboons were very affectionate to the little ones, apparently according to our guide because all the naughty monkeys are very promiscuous and so none of the males know whose baby is whose, so they are all nice to the kids just in case it's theirs. As if to illustrate this point one of the male baboons chose that moment to have sex with one of the females. He must have lasted all of five seconds. Where is Johnny Morris when you need him? I declared at this point that I thought I'd rather be a baboon than any of the other animals and none of my companions seemed to deem it necessary to make the obvious comment that essentially this is what I was. It was that obvious. We drank our coffee as we observed this charming scene of domesticity, scatology and simian pornography, but I did ask the others whether they would be happy if the peace was disturbed by a leopard pouncing into the middle of it and ripping our cute little cousins apart. At least then they would have seen the leopard that they so coveted. Our guide had no doubt that she would love that to happen (and apparently a leopard will have a baboon for his tea if the opportunity presents itself), but the others blanched a little at the suggestion. As sad as it would be to see these funny buggers and their tiny baby ripped apart it would have been something to write home about. Luckily for the baboons they lived to fight and screw and shit another day.
After the richness of yesterday's morning safari, today's was a little light by comparison, but we still had a few little treats. We saw more elephants at the hippos pool (though only a few hippo noses, as the river horses were now asleep). There was one buffalo standing nearby. The other 199 must have fucked off while he was asleep and not told him where they were going. Even in the animal kingdom there are clearly idiots who are best avoided. We finally returned to the dead mother zebra and the lion who had orphaned that poor little foal. He hadn't eaten any more of his catch, but we did see him strut around a bit this time. That was a pretty decent end to this little adventure. It was all even better than I had anticipated. It's well worth the trip if you fancy it.
Nearly time for home and a return to my humdrum life now, but thanks to the variety of this holiday I feel like I've been away for much more than a fortnight. I have had a brilliant time in Africa, but even without the brontasaurus this two days has definitely been the highlight.
