Serengeti National Park (East Side)

We woke up to a beautiful African sunrise across the endless plain. Red, orange, and yellow on the horizon.

Being in the tent was awesome. The sounds of the winds blowing over the Serengeti as well as zebras barking and hyenas making odd sounds made the night exciting. We may hear lions tonight! We cannot leave the tent without an escort before 6:30 a.m. and after 7:30 p.m. as this place doesn’t have a fence around it and animals could be anywhere.

Our game drive today took us to the east side of the park. This park is huge ( 14,763 square kilometers) and you could spend days exploring it. We have three full days, more than most people spend here.

Today was supposed to be a ‘leisure day’, Norton informed us. We started the game drive at 8 a.m., after breakfast, and ended at 3:30 pm. A short day but so full of exciting moments.

Some of the highlights included seeing up close:
- 3 lion cubs with no mother in sight
- a crocodile in the river
- a leopard lying in the rocks
- 2 beautiful cheetahs
- a very large group of 3 types of vultures feeding on a carcass
- elephants, giraffes, warthogs, all different types of deer-like
animals

The Great Migration of wildebeasts and zebras is in full swing. Hundreds of animals in single file travelling to greener pastures. The animals often passed by us across the road and we had to wait, like waiting for a long freight train to go by. We couldn’t see the end or the beginning of the line.

Our list of animals and birds just keeps getting longer and longer!

There are at least 4 million wildebeasts that can travel 1,000 unimpeded km in their annual migration.

Much of the Serengeti is flat grassland plains with fertile volcanic soil. There are little pockets with rivers and palm trees. Birds and animals, especially hippos, like to come to these spots to cool down or get a drink.

There are numerous clusters of rocky hills known as koppies. This is where we have seen a small deerlike animals called a klipspringer, dassies, leopards, and various raptors.

We have seen 4/5 of the Big Five animals - elephants, lions, leopards, cape buffaloes. We haven’t seen a rhino here yet.

We are so fortunate that we chose to do this trip in November, low season. The weather has been great and we have been able to drive around without the huge crowds of tourists. Yes, we see other Land Rovers carrying visitors looking for animals, but it hasn’t been annoying.

In the camp we are in now, there was only one other group of Dutch psychiatrists for a night. Now we are here by ourselves. Quiet and peaceful at this stage of the trip.

When we returned from a day of game driving, I happened to glance up while outside of our tent and 30’ away from me was a very big elephant looking at me. Chris was closing the tent door because of the bugs (there aren’t any) and I was out on the porch looking at this big animal and wanting to hide. Yikes!

Note: we really haven’t had to have many bush pees as Norton has good timing and knows where all the rest areas are. Washrooms for women usually have 2 kinds of toilets - sit down and stand up.Read more