Our one-stop flight to the Lobo airstrip was uneventful. We were greeted with coffee and soft drinks by our tour company. After caffeinating, we begin the hour-long drive to Klein’s camp in the northeast corner of the Serengeti. Our driver, Issaya, asked if we’d like to have a small game drive along the way. We, of course, said yes. The landscape here is quite different, with more larger rocks and rolling hills. Even though the drive was short, we saw more than twenty animals such as zebras, giraffes, elephants and even a new one, the hartebeest. Klein’s camp sits at the crest of the Kuka hills overlooking a valley. The camp, leased from the Ololosokwan Masai community, sits on a 25,000 acre private conservancy adjacent to Serengeti national park. Like the other camps, we were were greeted by a welcoming party. We enjoyed a tasty lunch and a couple of hours of R&R before the afternoon’s game drive. We joined a family from South Africa on our afternoon drive. We were all in agreement that the goal was to find the big, predatory cats especially leopards and cheetah.
We saw many of the species we had previously seen. We were almost disappointed because, in spite of several confirmed ALT (animal looking thing) sightings, we hadn’t seen anything new. This was proof that we had been spoiled by four days of great safari. As we were heading back to camp, our guide stopped the truck and motioned to a giraffe and some zebra who, to the untrained eye, appeared to be doing what every other giraffe and zebra we’d seen had been doing — eating. He pointed out that they all appeared to watching something, indicating that a predator was most likely in the area. He immediately took the vehicle off-road and the search was on. A few minutes later Eagle-Eyed Aasma spotted movement near some rocks. Our guide was determined that the motion belonged to a leopard and steered us in that direction.
A few minutes later we came upon her hiding beyond a rock. We’ve now seen the Big Five! As we headed back, we got a call that there were two leopards mating not far from our camp. Instead of turning up toward our camp, we headed into the brush. This wasn’t the regular brush, this was the hill that leads to the camp…which happens to be at a 45 degree angle. Oh and did I mention that it was now dark? We were getting instruction from camp as to which direction we should head. This was great until we heard “turn right and then go very fast.” Are you kidding me? We didn’t feel safe moving at the pace we were moving. It was surreal teetering on the hill looking for leopard in the dark while we could hear voices from the lodge’s dining room. We found them when their glowing red eyes gave them away. Then came the big challenge. How do we get back down the hill? Somehow our guide and tracker plotted a route between rocks, shrubs and trees and got us back to the lodge. Today was our big drive day as we were heading back up near the Kenya border in hopes of seeing one of the many large herds of zebra or wildebeests cross the Mara river.
The landscape along the road was dotted with the remains of the many animals who’s migration had a premature end. We saw many creatures on the three and a half hour drive to the river including some new animals such as a cheetah, Gamaleza lizard and a black-necked spitting cobra.
As we approached the river, we were surrounded by thousands and thousands of wildebeest We asked our guide if they always crossed at the same location and he told us unfortunately, no. He said the best approach was to drive along side them at a distance that wouldn’t disturb them and then wait. He said there really was no other way because they don’t cross in the same locations. After doing this for a while he received a call that they had begun the crossing further up the river so we made a U-turn and drove like we were in an off-road race. We arrived at the area shortly after the crossing had begun. Only thirty yards from where we were sitting, thousands of wildebeest braved the rocky crossing.
Lucky for them the rocks and water were their only challenges as that section of river appeared to be free of crocodiles.
After nearly forty minutes, the crossing stopped as abruptly as it began. We were a little surprised because there were still thousands of the herd left on the Tanzania side of the river.
It was incredible that with what appeared to be nearly ten thousand who made the crossing, we only saw three that had suffered what would be fatal leg injuries. All this animal watching had made us hungry so Seleu headed for a shady spot for lunch. Our lucky streak continued as two more cheetah were spotted along the drive.
We hadn’t even had lunch and we had already witnessed a crossing and and spotted the one animal that had evaded us, the cheetah. After enjoying a leisurely lunch under a large, shady tree we started the slow drive back to the lodge. The sightings continued on the way back as we saw ostrich, yet another cheetah and a herd of elephants that included two babies that our guide estimated were only a couple of weeks old.
When we returned to the camp we found that in honor of our anniversary, the staff had decorated our deck with rose petals and had given us a a bottle of sparkling wine. They offered to bring dinner to us there as well but we decided that it was a little too breezy so we dined with the rest of the guests in the dining room. The next morning we had our final breakfast at Klein’s Camp and headed back to the Lobo Airstrip. Our driver seemed a little hurried so we didn’t see much but we did experience quite the free African massage — what you get when being bounced around in the Land Cruisers.
For more Klein’s Camp photos, click here.