Morning Kill
The first morning in camp was a quiet one. I was up at dawn watching a large male giraffe casually eating acacia a short distance from our tents. Terengeri National park stretched in all directions around our small tented camp.
Located in northern Tanzania, Terengeri National Park is one of the most truly special places on the planet Earth. Home to innumerable wildlife including elephant, lion, cape buffalo, and giraffe, Terengeri thankfully doesn’t draw quite the droves of tourist that it’s more popular competition in the Tanzanian northern circuit does. For a tented safari like the ones run by Choroa Luxury Safaris, it’s one of the most ideal settings.
The night before was relatively calm. There were the insomniatic chatterings of the baboons hanging out in nearby the sausage tree groves, the calls of not-to-distant lions, and most excitingly a midnight visit from a herd of elephant quietly creeping through camp.
The next morning, Hamisi prepared everyone one of his signature breakfasts and we were in the Landcruiser by 7am. As Themmy slowly drove down the sand-filled two-track road, the raucous calls of the morning birds were beginning to fill the air. We barely made it over a mile from camp when Themmy quickly stopped the truck. Up ahead in the bend of the road was a site many visitors on safari are never lucky enough to see….a lion kill.
This one was only a few hours old. The pride was still feasting. Females and their young were tearing at what once was a large cape buffalo. One unlucky fellow from the herd that we passed coming into camp the night before, presumably. In the distance, a large male lounged under the shade of a tree. Themmy shut the engine off to the Toyota Landcruiser. The pride was completely apathetic to our presence. The cubs were crawling in and out of the huge carcass, covered in offal and lazily content. Hundreds of pounds of cape buffalo has been consumed in the small amount of time that could have passed from the kill. The scene was perfect.
In these days of cell phones and lattes, there is something refreshingly primal about the having the opportunity to see a family of lions doing what they’ve done for thousands of years. Part of the life cycle of Africa that has changed little over the eons.
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