Pat Bean's blog

“If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I’ll bet they’d live a bit differently.” – Bill Watterson

Kim in a Maasai robe ready for our nighttime safari -- Photo by Pat bean

African Safari: Beneath the Stars

For our night-time drive, one of our Maasai guides sat on the front fender of the car with a spotlight to provide us an opportunity to see a few animals that are rarely seen during daylight hours.

It was a completely different experience from our earlier wildlife viewing. For one thing, there were 10 of us squeezed into the Land Rover and Kim and I couldn’t hop around from side to side as we were used to doing in our drives with Bilal.

So if an animal wasn’t on your side of the vehicle, given the darkness, you might not see it. Some animals froze when they were spotlighted but others quickly disappeared into the bush. We spotted many more glowing eyes than glimpses of entire animals.

Bat-eared fox -- Wikipedia photo

Even so, I was amazed at what we saw. My list included bat-eared fox, genet, large winged bat, steenbok, dik-dik, white-tailed mongoose, spring hare, bushbaby, kangaroo rat and a few zebra and impala wandering around in the dark.

I might have seen a few more things but the birder guy along for the ride and myself talked birds for much of the trip. We both admitted being frustrated with not being able to identify a lot of what we had seen.

 After awhile, however, I decided enough of that and began watching the sides of the roads intently for what I could see right now and possibly identify.

The warm lights of the Treetops Lodge was a welcome sight.

I truly don’t believe in what ifs, and here I was wallowing in it.

It was cool, with a clear sky painted with brilliant white sparks of light. I decided just being outdoors in an African landscape in the dark, with its sweet, earthy smells and background music of rustling animals and insect chirps, was as rewarding as any animals we happened to see.

After our hour-long drive in the dark, preceded by a very long day of exciting wildlife viewing in a bouncing vehicle, I must admit, however, that the warm lights of our lodge was a welcome sight.

I was eager to go to sleep among our suite’s tree branches.