It was a very long day that was primarily driving from the Ngorongoro Crater into Serengeti National Park. It took us maybe three hours or so just to leave the crater conservation area, and another two hours to get to the registration area for the Serengeti. Enroute, we saw a lot of giraffes. While they are herd animals, it’s evidently rare to actually see them in large groups. We counted about twelve hanging out together. 13 if you count me wearing my sweet stylin’ giraffe sunglasses. (See previous blog post for example).
While Salvatori, our driver/guide took care of the paperwork, Nicole and I did a short hike on a nearby path where we saw lots of agama lizards perched on the rocks doing pushups. Some did more reps than others. Not every day can be leg day, as they say.
While our main objective was to get to our tented camp area, we had to pass through a large swath of the Serengeti to get there, so the afternoon became another game drive. We spent most of the day on the eastern side of the park. The Serengeti is quite vast, so unlike Tarangire or even the Ngorongoro Crater, the animal sightings were not as frequent since the animals are not confined to as small an area. While the animals were spread out, so were the safari trucks, which was kind of nice. We rarely encountered them, but if we saw one stopped, it was almost like a guarantee that a lion was nearby. We did see a male lying in the tall grass. We decided to use that spot to eat our packed lunches as we waited to see if he ever stood up. Eventually it did happen, and I scared Nicole because I threw my food down and yelled, “It’s on the move!” Its movement was brief, however, since it was merely getting up to look around and then lay back down for what I can only assume was the rest of the day.
After that, it seemed like we were driving for some time without any major sightings. We eventually found ourselves amongst some rock formations that looked very unique set against the otherwise flat landscape. On the top of one, we saw several lion cubs showing us their butts.
It wasn’t the best angle, but things were about to get real crazy in the next couple kilometers when we chanced upon a smaller rock outcropping with a mother and three cubs lounging on it at our eye level. No other safari trucks in sight, either.
We spent a while just observing them. They weren’t super active, but they would get up, walk around, swat at flies, yawn, lie back down, poke their mother. And after a few of them starting poking the mother, we heard a growl, and the mother got up. It was a bit of a heart racing moment because with the safari top off, she could easily have jumped into the vehicle and done something awful like give us Covid. I’m not sure that we were even six feet away, nor wearing masks at the time, so perhaps we were asking for it.
Fortunately, there was no pouncing, but it did seem like she was sizing us up a bit. Perhaps we didn’t seem too threatening because after a bit, she collapsed back down as her cubs continued to walk over her and prod. It’s tough being a mother. We took a lot of pictures of this family of lions, so here’s a bit of a collection below.
After that, things quieted down for a spell. We saw a lone giraffe up close, and later on saw several safari jeeps parked, and found out there was a leopard in a tree. Leopards are one of the most difficult animals to find on safari, so we felt pretty lucky, even though it was a ways away.
This pretty much concluded our long day. We spent the next thirty minutes driving toward our tented camp. It really is in the middle of the bush, and yes it is a tent. To be fair, it’s a very big, very nice semi-permanent tent that has wifi and a shower with good water pressure, but it is a tent. Bricole would settle for nothing less.
We watched the sun set before going to dinner in the main tent. There are only two staff working here, and only three tents being used currently, so we didn’t have someone staring at us while we ate like we did last night. While the staff at the retreat in Ngorongoro were very friendly and attentive, they were perhaps too attentive. Sometimes, you just want to eat your meal without an extra set of eyes on you while you try your first bite of food. In any event, the food served in the tent was quite good for being served in the middle of the bush. We were escorted back to our tent and prepared for another early start to a big day in the Serengeti tomorrow.
passports & pepto bismol 