
All night long the Samburu Sopa had been dark and quiet because they turned off the generator well before midnight. The power came back on about 5:00 in the morning, so we had lights and charging for my camera battery and phone when we got up. After a generous breakfast that included Dusty’s favorite bran flakes and, of course, coffee we were climbing into the safari van where Isaiah had already propped the roof open for our morning game drive.
We started down the hill and had our first sighting of an oryx in the early light of the day. This big member of the antelope family has a pair of javelin straight horns and muscular build with distinctive black and white markings on this tan coat.

As we were working our way from the lodge back down to the river communications began to come over Isaiah’s phone with information about sightings in the area. Other guides in the area had spotted a family of cheetah in the area and soon we were racing toward them.
When we approached we first saw a few other safari vehicles on a trail not far from a large tree. When we got closer we could first see an adult cheetah sitting in the shade of the tree. Momentarily we could spot one, then two, then three miniature versions of the beautiful beast. The three cubs were probably less than a year old and looked in a playful mood. Mom seemed to have something other than play on her mind as she started to stroll away from the shade of the tree and I hoped this would not be the last chance I had to photograph this lovely family.


As she slinked out of sight behind taller grass and shorter trees the cubs bounded after her. Another quick bit of chatter over the radio between the guides and we were repositioning to a spot uphill in the direction the little group disappeared. On the way we passed a tawny eagle that was devouring it’s first furry morsel of the day.

Once in position up the hill I was standing up in the van with the top raised as a roof over my head and holding my camera at the ready. Dusty scanned the brush with her binoculars in search of the cheetahs we had just left behind us.
We didn’t have to wait long. Within minutes mama cheetah was creeping though the brush and out into the open. She was in the act of stocking an animal. She was crouched down with the fur on the back of her neck standing up. The only problem for this dramatic hunting pose is that the only thing that we could see in front of her were two giraffes. Both of them were eyeing her intently as she was moving forward slowly appearing to be stalking her prey. Eventually I think everyone realized that cheetahs do not, and cannot take down a giraffe let alone two. She sat down and watched them and they watched her until the standoff ended with them both wandering off further into the brush. I just happy that this little bit of theater had played out where we could be witness to it all.




We went back down by the Ewes Ngiro river in an area where some elephants were known to be. We saw one safari van with everybody out of the van. A table was on the ground next to the van and food being placed on it by the driver. This is absolutely positively insane and illegal and wrong and whatever else you wanna call it. We very soon had a chance to see several of the the elephants wandering about and got quite a few good pictures within 100 meters of the lunching tourists.

Although Isaiah doesn’t seem to find impalas and the more common Kenya fauna very interesting when the light was good and the shot was right I would ask for us to stop to take advantage of the opportunity. I did get a picture of an impala in full stride while it was running in front of us with the light behind us. I hoped it was going to be a very nice picture on a beautiful day of real wildlife in the wild. By this point the sun was starting to get high in the sky and it was time to return to the lodge for lunch.


After lunch and a little down time we went out for an evening game drive where we finally got a chance to see a group of female lions on a fresh kill. There were four lionesses on their bellies sprawled all over the recently animated flesh and bones that had been an impala. On a loop in the trail twenty feet above them there were at least seven or eight safari vehicles lined up in front of us to get a look at them. In an effort to let others take a look and enjoy more of our game drive we left fairly quickly after taking our turn, but then returned closer to sunset for better light knowing that four lions couldn’t have finished off an entire impala in a couple of hours.

When we returned our patience was rewarded. In addition to the elephants and impala that we had seen in the hour or so we were away everything back at the lion’s buffet had progressed as we had hoped. We were treated to better lighting for the still feasting lions as well as a fish eagle waiting on a nearby stump.


That night I made sure to get Dusty up to take a look at the Milky Way and the constellations. Our waiter, Nicolas, was kind enough to point the stars out to us while we were preparing to have dinner earlier that evening. After Dusty had seen the stars I took my camera and connected my phone via bluetooth to use it as a remote trigger for a few photographs of the starry starry skies.

Nice action on day two, and I liked the rhetorical question as a title. I figured the answer was "no", but it certainly piqued my interest!