Honeymoon – Don’t let the bed bugs bite – Weirdos, Wedding & Wildebeest

As a fully grown man, I feel that when I retired to bed last night, the sound of Hyenas and Lions in the background shouldn’t have phased me too much. It certainly didn’t phase Lucia who, as usual, was sound asleep within 30 seconds of her head hitting the pillow.

I lay awake actually not worried about the big beasts but the sound of insect Armageddon freaked me out completely, the soundtrack was unbelievable and the more I thought about it, the more freaked out I was, to the point that I got very little sleep. I was sure at one point that our tent must have been completely infested but there was no way I was going to light it up to check. Instead I tossed and turned, feeling like all manner of creepy crawlies were taking their own safari all over the bed.

When daylight broke it was clear that I was just being a wuss, the tent was in fact empty, with the exception of a single but angry looking spider (it did look like it may have been poisonous, honest). We got word that the bucket shower was ready, thankfully no sign of scorpions either.

We went for breakfast, Lucia fully recharged and myself with heavy eyes. Our tour guide Ahmed arrived and we discussed the poor nights sleep I’d had and the “deadly” spider that had paid us a visit. Our tour guide asked us if we killed it but neither myself of Lucia were brave enough to try, he seemed to think we should but it seemed to us that it was a jumper so we decided to leave it be.

Straight after breakfast, we packed another picnic lunch and headed off to explore the Serengeti once again with Ahmed. As we left the camp, we were greeted by a lone male giraffe, the odd warthog and some impala.

Wildlife is of course totally unpredictable, we seemed to spend most of the day trying to track down the more elusive animals, mostly the big cats. It seemed as though all the safari guides were struggling as the radio chatter discussed the whereabouts of the Elephants and Cats. The tall grass of the wet season provides ideal hunting grounds but also makes spotting cats a big problem.

We got word that there were a pair of Lions hanging out in a tree so headed immediately to see if we could find them. Sure enough we found a pair of young Lions and took the opportunity to take a photo or two.

They were young and with no sign of the rest of the pride, Ahmed suggested that they were looking in the direction of a Masai Copje, possibly looking for the pride so we decided to head on over.

Ahmed was spot on as usual and we arrived at the copje to find a pair of Lions basking in the sun, clearly far less effort than hunting.

To the left there was also a Leopard but it was so well camouflaged, it was impossible to get a photo.

We moved on to see more buffalo grazing when the radio chatter started again, other guides were reporting the the Leopard was on the move so Ahmed asked us to hold tight as he belted the Land Cruiser back over to the copje. The Leopard was in fact not on the move, just getting itself comfortable for more sunbathing.

We parked up and had our lunch watching for any Leopard movement but that didn’t happen.

We moved on through the park, spotted various birds, crocodiles and hippos but overall it felt like a bit of an anti climax compared to yesterday.

As we returned back to camp we stumbled upon a Leopard in another tree so took a couple of photos and admired its beauty.