Day 23: Nairobi to Cape Town
We were up @ 0530 and Ingrid went off on her early morning safari with Gabriel & Peter (the guides). I went back to sleep for an hour before dragging myself out of bed to see what Christopher (our Masai cook) was preparing for lunch and helped chop vegetables for a while. We found out a bit later in morning that Hyenas had been roaming through our campsite and we found paw prints outside our tent.
Around 1000 Benji returned with the fixed radiator and informed Paul and I that as he was driving in to the camping area he had seen a Cheetah by the side of the road. I had never seen one in the wild so I grabbed my camera and we raced off to find her. 5 minutes later we found her lying in the shade of an acacia clearly exhausted & with hints of blood around her mouth, we looked around and we spotted a fresh gazelle kill and Benji said it would have only been an hour old. I captured her lying down for 10 minutes and as we started up the truck all of a sudden she sat up and started walking in our direction. Benji quickly turned the car off and we watched as she walked 3 meters in front of us and off into the long grass. 10 or so vultures came swooping in to where the carcass was and started pecking away at its remains, next minute a Hyena came running full speed charging at the vultures scattering them in all directions (we found out later that the Hyenas watch Vultures and follow then when they have spotted food). The Hyena then grabbed the carcass in his teeth and tried to drag it away but it was too heavy so he dropped it and started gorging himself so much so we could hear his teeth crunching through the bones and see entrails fly everywhere. We left him to his meal with the vultures looking on in anger.
Paul & I arrived back at camp and broke down our tents and prepared our gear for departure when the 2 trucks out on safari returned. We helped Christopher break down his kitchen equipment and when the trucks finally arrived loaded everything onboard. We left the camp site in our 3 truck convoy and proceeded back out towards the plains. We had driven for only 20 minutes when a Male lion was spotted at the side of the road. We slowed down and stopped 3 meters from him. He was clearly exhausted and we quickly found out why, he had killed a zebra less than 10 minutes earlier.
We left the lion and continued on when Gabriel received a phone call from Benji that the radiator fix had failed, we turned around and headed back. We rejoined Benji and tried to plug the hole with silicon which seemed to work, while we waited for the silicon to dry we had lunch knowing that only 10 minutes down the road there was very hungry male lion. Once back on the road we let Benji take the lead and gave him a head start, we passed several other vehicles with mechanical issues ranging from punctures, fuel line ruptures and the ever popular rock through the radiator, sadly the new fix on Benjis failed a short way down the road and we resorted to towing with a 20 ton rated steel cable. Once again we let Peter with Benji in tow take the lead and all seemed to be going well for a short time until we caught up to them again at the side of the road and saw that the cable had snapped, the bright side to this was that they broke down right next to a tree that we found had 2 three month old lion cubs under it. Several vehicles stopped to offer assistance and it ended up that the guys in Benjis truck got a lift to the park entrance where we met them a short time later and this let Gabriel formulate a plan for how we would be getting out of the Park.
After and hour communicating with Adrian (the owner of the Safari company) Gabriel informed us of the plan. Another company had offered to take some of the group from Benjis truck to the Ngorongoro Park entrance where Adrian would pick them up, Benji & Christopher would stay with the broken vehicle at the Serengeti Entrance. The other 2 vehicles would follow and we would all meet at the Ngorongoro Park Entrance. It was past 4pm by the time we left and the park has a very strict policy on closing the gates at 6 so Gabriel had Adrian arrange an exit extension (which in the 13 years Gabriel had been guiding had never been done) and we set off from the Serengeti Entrance hoping to make it to the Ngorongoro Exit before nightfall. We were making good time when as we were ascending Peters (our 3rd guide) Land cruisers fan belt snapped causing the Truck to over heat so we stopped again and were quickly surrounded by kids from the local Masai village herding their livestock back to the protection of the village fence. We played a couple of games with them and Paul even bought some souvenirs from them including a spear! One of the park rangers met us and accompanied us up tothe crater rim. It was getting dark quick and well after 1800. We made it up and over the Rim of the Crater and proceeded down the other side towards the park entrance/exit, we were stopped by armed rangers to check who we were and they confirmed our late departure from the park HQ and let us proceed. We finally made it to the park entrance/exit where we met Adrian and the other vehicles and celebrated with pizza and soda. We then had an hour and a half trip back the Snake Park in Arusha that was not so eventful and we were greeted when we got back by Gareth & Patrick and we got to relive our amazing adventure with them, even the locals couldn't believe it! We had a few drinks while absorbing the day's events. Unbelievable!!
