The third and final leg of the safari would be the longest, and take us all the way from Lobo Lodge to my parent's front door in Bunda. For some reason, maybe because we'd already seen so much stuff, and partly because we knew we would ultimately be leaving the animal areas and driving to my parent's village, our expectations for photo opps were pretty low. We were wrong. Tons more great areas, lots of yelling for Mashuka to stop, and two incredible highlights: First, we found a "small" herd of elephants (around 50 we think) in a little clearing that made for incredible shooting. I think I shot an entire card in that one spot. Things did get a little scary when a huge bull flared his ears and yelled at us. He looked totally pissed off. Mushaka backed away and explained that he'd had a really bad experience with an pissed off bull charging and ramming the vehicle (!!) so we agreed, time to go.
The second highlight (maybe the highlight of the whole safari) was when he took us to a hippo pool, so called because it's filled with scores of gigantic hippos who never ever leave the pool, except at midnight to come out and eat some grass. In spite of how dangerous the hippos are, it was ironically the one place we were allowed to get out of the rover and walk around (as long as we stayed 5 meters from the pond edge). It's because of the hippo's badassness that made that possible because predators won't go near the pond.
The hippos were incredible. Brenda found a rock >5m from the edge to sit on and I set up my monopod and shot and shot. I think I must have shot 4gig of hippos, no kidding. They were super active, fighting each other, chasing off birds, stomping around in the mud...it was awesome.
When we finally emerged from the Serengeti's north checkpoint, we were alarmed to discover we were now only 20 minutes away from my mom & dad's place. Mashuka started to close the roof, but I told him to leave it up and we rolled into the driveway with me standing up & shooting. My dad loves a good entrance.
Love the first hippo picture too. But I think my favorite is the one you'd already shown us with them greeting you.
Posted by: Adriel | March 12, 2008 at 11:17 PM