Two honey badgers today, making three total for this trip; the lady that runs the lodge says she’s never seen one, so clearly fortune favors those who head out in jeeps prior to sunrise at 6:15 each day. More cheetahs, lions, elephants, giraffes, ostriches, and other critters today – our driver had the best eyes of any person I’ve ever met, and spotted the cheetahs immediately when we were more than a mile and a half away and they were merely blobs on a small hill to me. I can take credit for a couple of sightings today, but if it was a football game the final score would have been something like Yuda 54, Ryan 3; the guy is a wildlife-spotting savant.
So far what we seen of Africa has been inspirational – there are a million different types of animal, but each one fills a specific niche. Cheetahs are the best hunters, but are the weakest cat and thus must be on constant patrol for other cats. Elephants are the least susceptible to predators, but also need the most food and water. Gazelle can get by without much water and only a little bit of grass, but are preyed upon by the fastest cats. It’s like a perfectly balanced system, and you gain a huge appreciation for how amazing the natural world is by being out in a mostly-pristine system each day and watching it function as it has for hundreds of thousands of years.
We haven’t seen a leopard yet, and Doug says tomorrow is a good day for them, so I offered Gail $20 if she would reunite the same four passengers and driver from yesterday in a jeep tomorrow (Cheesemans assign passengers to vehicles each night so that everyone gets an opportunity with each of the drivers). She refused the $20, but obliged on the request for the Magic Bus reunion, so hopefully our luck from yesterday will be rekindled and leopard photos will accompany tomorrow’s journal entry.
