Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Day 38 Serengeti Game Drive







People heard lions and hyeanas last night.

Quick snacky breakfast before dawn and then head out as the sun came up. We found a leopard up in a tree at a bit of a distance. While we watched he dragged a gazelle out of the tree to feed on the ground out of site in the bushes.

The first animals were saw were a troop of golden baboons walking down the road. We watched their antics and their babies for a bit. Shortly afterwards we saw a mother cheetah with three almost full grown cubs trying to hunt a gazelle. She stalked it but never got close enough to run after it. The gazelle came back a few times, almost like it was tempting the cheetah or fate. We watched for about 45 minutes but never saw a chase. There were lots of jeeps watching, as there are a lot of safaris going on like GAP, Intrepid and others. They are connected by walkie talkie and tell each other when they find something of interest. So at times it gets busy and other times it's just us.

After that we drove through the park and saw gazelles, giraffes, and warthogs. At the end of the drive we went past the same waterhole as yesterday and saw a herd of elephants and a number of hippos. We also saw a number of birds today.

When we returned to camp, brunch was ready. They served us crepes, fried fish, stir fried veggies and a salad. Very delicious.

Shortly afterwards we set out again. Our guide drove us to the local visitor information centre. Here they have an interpretive walk with lots of good information about the Serengeti and the animals that live there. It is located at a kpojes (pronounced copies). This is a large old bedrock formation that stands on the plain. It usually supports different species of animals and plants and is often it's own little world. Lions sometimes use them for lookout spots.

Later we saw lots of animals, elephants, hippos, gazelles and the like. We saw two large male elephants settling dominance. We also saw lots of different types of birds.

The Serengeti plain is beautiful and vast. It is amazing to be on it and listen to the sounds of the birds and animals, smell the scents that are in the air and see the vast variety of animals that call it home.

The afternoon drive was heading east again to the same entrance that we came in. From there we drove through the Ngorongoro Reserve. We saw several large herds of wildebeest, zebra and giraffe.

As I was taking a photo I felt a bite on my arm. I slapped it and showed it to Vernon. Turns out I got bit by a tse tse fly! It's about the same size and bites about as hard as a deer fly.

As we left the park, there was a loud clunk outside our truck and we could hear we were dragging something. Turns out the left side running board had fallen off at the rear connection and was dragging along. Vernon and the four guides spent a half hour with the quick fix tying it up.

Then we drove up to the rim of the crater to our new campsite. Again the GAP people had set up our tents and prepared our spaghetti dinner. There are lots of jeeps here at the campsite. The cooking building was really hopping and there was a large eating building as well. It's pretty basic camping but very efficiently run.

Tonight is the full moon. As we were sitting around our campfire the moon shown down and lit up the whole area. I took a couple of photos of that.

John met a couple of guys who had just climbed Kilimanjaro and told me to come and talk to them. So I went over there and introduced myself. I tried to talk and or listen to them for about five minutes and then gave up. There English was so poor and my Chinese nonexistent, that it was pointless. From a distance I could see John giggling to himself, turns out he couldn't understand them either.

Again we are camped in an unfenced area and have been warned not to venture out at night except in pairs. Last time Vernon was here there was an elephant in the camp at night. We'll see what happens. It's much cooler here. That's it, tomorrow inside the crater!

1 comment:

  1. Hi Joe!
    This is sounding better all the time!
    So a tse-tse fly bit you! I must tell Ken, he will be thrilled! ( I hope you are taking your anti-malaria pills!)

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