Primate Safari 2004

The year continues to be a dry one in spite of warnings of El Nino lurking. Tarangire is always good in the dry years as it becomes the only water sauce available to all of the wildlife for the vast Maasai Steppe and an important refuge from hunters and poachers alike as the hunting season is on.

On my last visit a few weeks ago we saw lion unable to resist a band of banded mongooses that had caught their attention by scuttling through the grass up wind. The lions staked and the mongooses bunched up chattering and fled for the nearest termite mound.

Two lionesses launched an assault and each caught a very indignant and rapidly chattering banded. Now the lionesses considered their actions and options as confusion and embarrassment dawned. As they lifted the offending paw and relaxed their extended claws one of the lionesses then gently pushed the stunned mongoose down the termite vent it had almost reached before.

These were very tame lion as where the elephant and the four leopards we saw in the park. One young bull elephant completely immersed himself into a pull and lulled about floundering. A bit like a very large rotund granny trying to get in and out of one of those hot jet Jacuzzi things.

Katavi too is very dry as thousands of hippos are forced again into several muddy methane bubbling sewers. They hardly have the energy to move and stare with a sinister gleam in their eye daring closer approach.

The lions along the Chada River feed at will on buffalo forced to hang about ranging a day’s walk from the remaining springs. We saw them comically again as seven of the pride ignored hundreds of buffalo to spend time bulling a not entirely defenceless 13ft crocodile. Lions walked the menacing walk rumbling and growling, twitching their tails. The crock lay flat looking menacing, ignoring the threat until it appeared immanent then it would raise its head and hiss as it opened its mouth occasionally roaring after a lunge towards the nearest lion. The encounter ended in stalemate as the crocodile joined others in a damp burrow in the dry riverbank. Further up the riverbed one such den held more than twenty similar sized green grinning cunning slit eyed flat dogs.

It was a pleasure to be back on open clean water on Lake Tanganyika to visit the primates of Mahale Mountains National Park. Rugged mountains covered in evergreen forest, tumbling down to a tropical paradise of golden sand and cool breezes. The chimps mated, hunted and fished for insects with twigs all around us during three visits with them of an hour at a time. The sounds they screeched and hooted were huge and enraged as males displayed breaking thick branches off large trees. Swinging hand over hand from lianas in thick jungle all around us they competed for the attentions of ready females. It was a female that ended up with the lion’s share of the red colobus monkey hunted a few yard from us. She begged it of the alpha male but lost it a short while latter to a lower ranking male. Some of the females participated keenly in the hunt too.

I saw some new sunbirds (Red-chested, Rwenzori Double-collared and may be immature Regal), a Narina Trogon and a red-throated Alethe without the red throat? I even managed to catch a few Kuhe (a large predatory cichlid) for camp on a fly rod. The snorkelling was superb. We must have seen at least twenty different types of colourful fresh water aquarium fish in their natural environment. The rift valley cleaved across three large river systems and the few species of fish found in the rivers diversified in to the hundreds found in Tanganyika today. While admiring the show, I imagining shadows of Nile crocodile, we swam over two Tanganyika water cobras. They are un-aggressive in the water and beautifully marked. Not to admire too closely however.

The camps were all magical and relaxing. It was especially good to be back around water, fish and boats, a rare treat.