The Big Five

Safari is the Kiswahili for journey or travel, and by common usage and extension, a journey into the wild in search of animals is now commonly referred to in English as a safari. And there are not many things as exciting as heading out on safari, unsure of what will be found, what you will be able to see, ever hopeful that just under the next tree will be sleeping lions, or just surfacing in that shallow pond will be a Nile crocodile, or that slightly sagging branch is concealing a leopard.
Safaris are big business in Arusha, and Leopard is one of the larger companies. Since it was recommended to me, and my email to them was promptly answered, I proceeded to book our safari with them. And not once were any of us on the safari disappointed. The Land Cruiser never broke down, not even a flat tire slowed us up – and we saw plenty of tires being changed along the roads. Our lodging was good, even on the luxurious side some nights. The weather was perfect, the sunsets better than Hollywood could produce. Our driver guide seemed to be able to conjure animals on demand. As we drove under the gate that proclaimed we were entering the Serengeti National Park, my son Sean announced, "More than anything, I hope we see a cheetah," and soon, Kassandra stopped the car and we were looking at a cheetah. As we drove through the Serengeti, with the pop top up, scanning the grasslands and trees and occasional rocks and slight hills, Kassandra would pull up and look through his binoculars and say, "Yes, I thought so. Look over there." And there would be warthogs, down on their front legs munching away, or a fish eagle perched on the top of a tree.

Some people are fond of lists. I suppose, if you have been reading this blog, you would say that I do some list making. Going on a safari could turn anyone into a list maker. There are even published lists with little boxes next to the animals and birds and plant life so you can tick off things as you see them. It is kind of tempting. But I found that the animals were so beautiful, so powerful, so beyond moral judgements that checking them off seemed futile, even insulting to the grandeur of the moment. Even the smallest birds have a startling and rare beauty. The sun bird flashed neon bright colors, surprising us.

I never tired of the scenery. Rudyard Kipling writes in The Elephant’s Child of the "great, grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever trees." And it was such fun to see a fever tree! It is a type of acacia, and also called a tortilla acacia because of its flat top. There are more than one hundred types of acacia trees, including the wait-a-bit acacia because it snags you as you walk by and the umbrella acacia, which looks just like an umbrella. One of the leopards we saw was in a yellow barked acacia, and the other was in a sausage tree, named because of its fruit which looks like sausages hanging down. And then there were candelabra trees, looking like huge cactus, but not.

The grasslands of the Serengeti stretch into the distance, and I found I never tired of the scene. Looking out towards the horizon you can see topi, wildebeest, heartebeast and kongoni grazing or posing majestically on a terminte mound. Or an elephant group appears out of the grass, walking steadily towards you. I didn’t expect to see ostrich, but there they were. We watched as a mother cheetah dragged a reed buck which she had attacked down into a dip in the plain and then stood watch as her four cubs finished it off. It was good she was on guard, because not too far away were several lionesses with their cubs, and lions are notorious for stealing other animals’ kills. Hyenas make me nervous (not as nervous as snakes), but I had to laugh at the scene outside my window one morning. Walking past the sign, certainly meant for the hotel guests, that read "Do Not Walk Past This Sign" was a hyena! Add that to my list of pictures that I didn’t get!

Our last stop on our safari was the Ngorogoro Crater, and we drove down a narrow and winding road into the crater. If I had known how narrow and winding the road out was, I would have saved my fears for that. Most of the animals there are permanent residents, as the crater walls are too steep for access, and the animals are more easily protected from poachers. We hoped that Kassandra’s eagle eyes would spot a black rhino, one of the hardest and rarest animals to find. There are said to be eighteen of them in the crater, and as it turned out, we found eight of them. Kassandra first spotted one because the rhino was running, leaving a trail of dust in his wake. Who knew they could move so fast? They are solitary, except for a mother and her child. So, not that we were checking things off our list, but it was satisfying to have found each of the "big five," so named because in times past hunters hoped to shot these trophy animals – elephant, buffalo, lion, leopard and rhino.


Yet, as well as these magnificent beasts, other animals brought us great joy. A Kari bustard fluffed up his feathers in a display rarely seen. A male elephant used his trunk and tusk to peel the bark off a tree, eat it, and then continue to knock the tree over. The impalas and gazelles leap gracefully, the flamingos flying overhead by the hundreds change the color of the sky for a while. And staring into the eyes of a lion is something that touches your very soul.