Spot of the Week

Three's a crowd

The bawdy, bewildering badinage underwriting the internecine camp rivalry just has to stop. Predator statistics are being bandied about like shallow bingo calls. It would be tempting for Bush Camp to boast of five lion hunts before 07.30 yesterday, but that would be churlish. The following is not affixed to any camp, but it renders the argument obsolete. This was a morning beyond exceptional, yet steeped in Kicheche pageantry.
Well before the false dawn even contemplated raising her maroon head, three vehicles left camp. A wake up call at 04.30 is early in any book, but indicates a massively bold call, but one worth pursuing. Unless you are prepared to take these calls the grail is always elusive. That morning a little after breakfast the leopard showed herself. She then showed her cubs. Very small ones. Very beautiful ones. But critically, three of them. Kicheche guides don’t go much on heresay, they go and find, typically no-one has seen these precious cats since then. Treasure chests like this are not accessed without hard work. The cats even outnumbered the vehicles ! The verbal jousting ends now, the gauntlet rusts smugly in the grass. Two guides with over 20,000 game drives between them had never seen this before. You know what, they weren’t the only ones.

“ I came to Africa eight times and saw no leopards. I came to Kicheche and saw eight.” Matt McKean UK