Oh my God! Day 1 - Left Arusha at 6am
in a safari land cruiser outfitted with a rifle, shovel, convertible
roof, six seats in three rows (room for the driver, cook and 4
passengers), tents and food and drove 370 km (about half on dirt tracks)
to the Serengeti via the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater. We stopped on
the rim and with binoculars looked down into the Crater. We watched
Cape Buffalo, elephants and rhino. Then made our way to the Serengeti
where that afternoon we saw lions laying in the grass, giraffes up very
close, zebras, leopard, cheetahs, wildebeest, warthogs, elephants,
hippos, two crocodiles, baboons, monkeys, gazelles, elands, and other
things that I can't think of now. What could be left for tomorrow;
will we be totally bored? That night our camp was visited by Cape
Buffalo; I heard snorting outside of my tent and then the sound of
hooves walking away...I didn't look b/c I didn't want to know what was
out there.
Day II - Up at 5:30am
for coffee and cookies and on our game drive by 6. The animals were on
the move...elephants roaming, monkeys swinging in the trees, cape
buffalo gathering...then we came across a pride of 13 lions feasting on a
Wildebeest; the fed lions would walk away with huge bellies and blood
all over their faces and paws. Later we saw another pride ripping apart
a zebra. The male with the full mane ate first and went into the shade
to rest, then the females and younger males (manes, just beginning) ate
while the two cubs tackled the zebra head biting on its ears and nose.
Meanwhile, other zebras would come by to watch (standing about 100'
away), apparently once an animal has been taken down the others relax
and stop running b/c they know the threat is gone.
We watched hippos wading in the water under the watchful eye of a
crocodile while a stampede of wildebeest and zebra came down to the
watering hole to get a drink. The crocodile would submerge itself
occasionally and we would hold our breathes waiting for some action,
which never came.
We watched two herds of elephants..one had a very, very large male (much
bigger than the rest) but there is no scale in the photo to prove it.
You could see how destructive they could be; they striped a tree of
bark and pulled large branches off another tree in the 40 min that we
were watching them.
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