Saturday - Ruaha

Saturday was a full day safari in Ruaha National Park. We started the day watching the sunrise and full or almost full moon set. After a quick breakfast we hoped into our land rovers and were off to Ruaha. We took a different route in Ruaha today. We started out in a dry river bed and saw a family of elephants soon after we entered the park. As we continued down the dry river, we saw a dead giraffe. One of our guides thinks it was killed by natural causes, because it still was fully intact. Just past the dead giraffe was a female lion resting in the shade. As we watched, she left her shaded perch and headed over to the dead giraffe. Apparently, when a predator takes down an animal, it (or they) begin eating right away and guard it very well - they want to enjoy the spoils of their work. According to our guide, in this case, since it died of natural causes, the female lion saw the dead giraffe, but was very cautious in approaching it, because she didn't want to anger whomever had killed it. When she got to the giraffe, she went to the head first and smelled and listened (too make sure it was dead?) and the proceeded out of our view to the rump and the belly our guide guesses to start eating... It was a really amazing this to witness - even better that we couldn't see the blood once the eating began.

We spent the entire day traveling through Ruaha and saw many different animals, including the lesser kudu. It looks a lot like a slightly larger impala, except the horns are twisted differently. Apparently it is very rare as well. According to our guide, Ruaha Park is where it is because it is at the southern end of the range of the lesser kudu and at the norther edge of the range of the greater kudu, thereby capturing both within the park. Our guide said there are over 8 types of antelopes (impalas, kudus, etc.) within the park.

It was an incredible day. As we were leaving the park, we came across a family of elephants very near the park headquarters buildings. The family seemed to be lead by a huge male elephant with only one tusk. I like to think he lost it in a fight, but our guide though it more likely that he lost it in a tree while he was trying to knock it down for food. Below is a picture of the giant elephant.

We left the park and made it back to the camp in time to watch the sunset at Sunset Mountain resort - definitely a worthwhile experience.