The Serengeti

Of course we woke up in the middle of the night needing to use the bathroom... remembering the warning Kassim gave us a couple of hour earlier ("don't walk to the bathrooms... an animal might be hiding in the grass"), it took a while to build up the motivation. We managed to climb outside in the cool night air and walked a couple of steps away from our tent next to the "animal may attack human being" sign. Keeping an eye toward the edge of the campsite for lions, we couldn't help but look up and take in one of the best views of the stars we have ever seen!



Later that morning we woke up to a fresh bowl of warm water and soap sitting outside our tent. We washed our faces, which felt so good, and then enjoyed a breakfast of fruit, toast, eggs and sausage (tastes like hot dogs). As we were walking back to our tent we saw two cape buffalo walking just outside the campground. Considering how territorial they are, we decided not to chase after them with our cameras.

We gathered our things and jumped into the Land Cruiser for our first official game drive. We'd only been driving a couple of minutes when we came upon a field of baboons picking and eating white flowers in the field. Along with the baboons, there were fields of Thompson gazelle and topis.

It was a blast standing up through the pop-top scanning the beautiful landscape for animals. The first highlight came when we spotted the rare serval cat, which is small with big ears and marked kind of like a cheetah. It was extremely skittish and does a great job of blending into the tall grass.

Kassim then asked us if we wanted to see lions (he heard the location over the radio the guides use). Once we arrived, two lionesses with two trailing cubs walked right by the truck. Wow! To add to the experience, in the background were a herd of elephant. The lions made their way to the shade and met up with a male that was snoozing.

Kassim started the car and informed us he had a surprise. We drove for a while and came across three cheetahs relaxing under a tree just off the road. They were beautiful, powerful, sleek, and stunning creatures. At one point, the mom got up and started to stalk a herd of reedbuck deer and the two grown brothers followed. You could feel the tension across the plain! The cheetah is the fastest animal, but they can only maintain speed for short spurts, so they need to be very close to their prey. Only 25% of their attacks result in a kill.




We made our way back to the elephants and enjoyed another amazing experience observing these creatures. I think we got a little too close at one point and a large female started to flap her ears, make some noise, and took a couple of trots toward us. When you are getting stared down by a huge elephant who breaks into a mini charge, suddenly the truck we are standing in doesn't feel all that safe. Kassim politely moved out of the way and the elephants proceeded to walk within 15 feet of the truck!




On the way back to the campsite, we saw more Thompson and grand gazelles, topis, impalas, giraffe, warthogs, zebra, more baboon, and ostrich. We relaxed and had a lunch of fish, fried potatoes, fruits, and veggies. During the afternoon game drive we watched a giraffe 20 yards away snack on a bush, lots of zebra, more elephants (with a tiny baby (~3 months old) being helped along by mama's trunk), and hippos lounging in a big pool of dirty water.

We enjoyed pumpkin soup and beef stew for dinner. What a great day!