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- world travels
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- about us
- 🇸🇪 swedish
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Jackal blues, hyena joy
Safari part four, Ngoro Ngoro
In Safari lore they speak about the big five, and by now we have seen three of those. Lion, elephant and buffalo. We’re still missing leopard and rhino*) so when we now move into the Ngoro Ngoro crater our expectancies are at 120.
*) Although we actually saw a leopard far far away up in a tree in Serengeti:
Ngoro Ngoro is an enormous caldera, the remains of a huge collapsed mountain. It’s 20 kilometers across. Gigantic herds of wildebeest wander here searching for food, and predators like lion and leopard follow their tracks. There is also a slim chance that one may spot a rhino there, but Daniel doesn’t bet on it. Rhinos are killed at an alarming rate and the few who are left, if there are any, are extremely elusive.
But we get to see a pair of golden jackals in a touching scene. We first encounter one of them (a female?) that stands alone wailing in a clearing by the roadside. Then suddenly the second (the male?) emerges from the high grass, and the pair starts to circle and jump around each other. It’s a picture of sheer joy.
We also experience a situation with hyenas that’s a bit of a surprise to us. We’ve always heard the stories of this evil animal, from the Jungle Book to the Lion King. But here a bunch of hyena cubs play in a little pool, chasing each other, running and splashing just for the fun of it.
Here are some more animal pictures from our safari:
On our last day of this safari we have a shocking encounter that could have had catastrophic consequences.