On Safari

If you close your eyes and think of Africa, what do you see? Flat plains stretching to the horizon...herds of antelope and gazelles frolicking through long dry grass...a lion stalking its prey...a giraffe browsing the upper leaves of an acacia tree? For those of us raised on the Lion King and the Discovery Channel the Serengeti is Africa, and I got to see all of those things and more on our four day safari. As soon as we entered the park on the afternoon of the 26th we stepped into a slice of Africa that has been preserved just the way Livingstone might have found it 150 years ago, with the exception of a few dirt roads and well-hidden lodges. We spent the next several days traversing the park in our safari vehicles searching for "zoo animals" without the cages and keepers, and we found some pretty amazing things. Since words can hardly do justice to an experience like this, I'll let the photos do most of the talking.

Day 1: The Western Corridor

Herds of zebras grazing in the long grass

On our first day in the park was like stepping into a National Geographic nature special. We were treated to all of the regulars; zebras, impala, gazelles, water buffalo, ostrich, baboons, hippos and giraffes, but the big stars of the day were the wildebeests. Every year over a million wildebeests travel a circular migration path through several national parks searching for food and water. About halfway through the drive we turned a corner and stretched out on the plain before us was a giant herd of wildebeest stretching all the way to the horizon. Literally thousands of them, dotting the landscape like grains of sand on a beach. Even more amazing than the sight was the sound...they make kind of a small grunt for such a big animal and it was like being surrounded by a bunch of bullfrogs. For the next 15 minutes there were nothing but crowds of wildebeest all over the bath and as far as the eye can see. We continued driving through the migration and arrived at our lodge, the Mbalageti, just after sunset where we were escorted to our rooms and then to dinner by Maasai guards to protect us from animals that sometimes wandered into the open camp.

A small fraction of the great wildebeest migration

Giraffe giving us the star-down

Day 2: Northern Serengheti

We saw more wildebeest on our second day, but not in the staggering numbers of the day before. We saw a greater variety of animals as we moved North; zebras, baboons, thompsons gazelles, a leopard tortoise, topi, dik diks, ostriches, storks, hyenas, warthogs, a momma and baby giraffe and more hippos, but the day was dominated by the big cats. Shortly before lunch we spotted two leopards in two different trees about 10 meters off the road. They rarely come out of the branches during the day so is pretty rare to see them and we all felt very fortunate. Before we had even gotten over the excitement of seeing our first predator we turned a corner and there was a lioness sunning herself on a fallen tree. Unlike the leopards she was maybe 10 feet from the road and in plain sight. It took a minute for it to sink in that this wasn't some exhibit at a zoo...this was a wild lion in its natural habitat. She sat up briefly when we arrived, but she seemed entirely unconcerned with our presence, and soon laid back down and went to sleep. She knew she was on top of the food chain. Around 2:30 we stopped at an information center for lunch and observed a few humans in their "natural habitat." There were some particularly entertaining asian tourists. One guy in a baby-blue long sleeve, lime green polo shirt and neon pink safari vest really cracked me up...he was clearly a master of the safari camoflage. I also got a kick out of another plump asian tourist feeding orange slices to an even plumper giant rodent, despite the signs forbidding it.

lioness taking stock of her surroundings

After lunch we set out again in the direction of some large rocks and almost immediately spotted another lioness sunning herself high on a boulder. We drove on for nearly an hour after that, and just as the heat and the silence of the Serengeti were lulling me to sleep we pulled alongside another vehicle and learned that there was a momma cheetah and two cubs sitting on a rock under the shade of a bush, just at the edge of binocular range. Our drivers conferred briefly and we turned off the road and set off across the grass. I thought we would stop maybe 20 feet away, but we pulled up literally 5 feet from them. Even though she was with her babies the cheetah didn't give us a second glance and acted as if we didn't exist. She probably knew she could rip us to pieces if she wanted to and didn't feel at all threatened. We stayed for several minutes taking pictures and enjoying her presence, then began making our way to our next lodge. We made two more detours on the way, one for two lionesses napping in a dry stream bed and another for a lone cheetah on a rock. The cheetah got down and actually began running towards our vehicles, but passed between them at the last minute and we got to drive alongside it as it ran through the grass. We finished the day with an extremely pregnant hyena that waddled across the road just before we reached the lodge.

Momma and babies resting in the shade

Jon: "They look full"
Me: "I hope they're full"

lioness standing over a fresh kill

Day 3: Morning and evening game drives

 We left the lodge at 6am for a game drive in the hopes of seeing some more big predators, who do most of their hunting in the dawn hours. Several kilometers down the road we came across a huge herd of buffalo and on the right side of the road was a lioness with a fresh kill, legs still twitching. I couldn't believe how close we were to her...just three feet or so. She had clearly dragged her prize some distance already and she was exhausted and just laying over the carcass. After a while she got up and began trying to move it over the embankment, but didn't get far before she stopped and looked off into the distance. Following her line of sight we saw two enormous male lions moving steadily towards her in the grass. She turned and ran back across the road towards the herd, and all of the sudden the males came after her at full speed, passing just inches from the bumper of our car.

Aslan appears out of the sunrise

The three of them raced off towards the rising sun, and after a few minutes just the males returned; they were from a different family and had stolen her prey. They dragged it into the tall grass, out of sight of the road, and chowed down. We drove around for another two and a half hours and saw a hyena pack devouring a leftover lion kill while vultures waited their turn in line, a juvenile male lion digesting his breakfast on the top of a huge boulder and a glimpse of a cheetah on a high rocky outcrop.

We spent the afternoon relaxing at the lodge and at 4pm we met in the lobby for another game drive. We headed away from the lodge in a direction we hadn't previously taken, through an area much more dense with trees. We stopped at a picnic area next to a partially dried up river that was home to a huge group of hippopotamus. We were able to get out of the car and walk towards the river, although there was a sign warning people not to get too close. More effective than the sign, though, was the smell. When over 30 hippos share a tiny pool that is only flushed seasonally the result is a lake of floating poo and filthy green-brown water. We watched the hippos for as long as our noses could stand, about 30 minutes, then headed back up the road. As we turned the corner there was a huge male elephant in the road that absolutely dwarfed our safari vehicle. Off to the right was a whole family grazing in the bushes and to the left were two smaller males, one of which was missing half its trunk.

Hungry Hungry Hippos

Handicapped Elephant

Day 4: Ngorongoro Crater

Hyena. The reason my family won't let me leave the village
at night

We left our lodge in the Serengeti and drove East into the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, which was formed eons ago when a volcano larger than Mount Kilimanjaro collapsed. We crested the rim of the caldera and were greeted with a sweeping view of the crater floor 620 meters below. There was a big sulfurous lake, white and steaming, and several smaller freshwater lakes and streams. The crater is 19 kilometers from rim to rim and 196 square kilometers in area and is described as an ecological fishbowl. That gave me the impression that we would be seeing animals everywhere, but in reality it seemed more sparsely populated than Serengeti. Maybe it just depends on the time of year. There were still plenty of zebra, topi, wildebeest, gazelles and antelopes, but we only saw two elephants and giraffes don't live in the crater because there isn't enough vegetation to support them. We did see a ton of flamingoes that thrive in the sulfurous lake, and when they took flight they turned the air pink. Another animal unique to the crater is the rhinoceros. I was hoping to see one since they are really rare, but the closest we got was a glimpse of one far off through the binoculars so I didn't get a picture.

Lion playing king of the hill on our way out of Serengeti

There aren't as many roads crossing the crater as there are in the Serengeti so it was tougher to get close to wildlife, but even so we came across a lioness on her back right on the side of the road. She was very still and breathing heavily, and I thought she was a victim of a "traffic accident" (as our guide called it), but our driver insisted she was fine, and a few minutes later she rolled over and went back to sleep. We rounded out the day following a cheetah as she stalked her dinner. We spotted her laying low on the left side of the road staring at a small group of zebras. She wasn't being very stealthy and they clearly knew she was there, but they seemed reluctant to run and stood their ground stamping and snorting. The cheetah paused for a long drink then crossed the road and began prowling about in the grass on the other side. We though we were going to see a chase, but she was just scoping out the buffet and didn't seem too interested in deciding just yet, so we returned to the lodge. The next morning we stayed at the lodge just long enough to watch the sun rise over the crater before packing up and heading off to Arusha.