Safari

On Tuesday evening Kristle, my lovely friend in Mwanza, called me up and asked me what I was up to on the weekend. 

Nothing yet. Long sigh. 

Would you like to come on a 24 hour safari this weekend? 

?!?!?!?!!!!! 

We would leave on Saturday at noon and be back by Sunday evening. We're doing it super cheap and casual. Are you interested?

Hyperventilating.

Yes?

YES!!! 

Turns out Serengeti National Park is only a few hours north of my home base Mwanza. Kristle's friends Karin and Hemal managed to organize a spur of the moment overnight camping safari in this park for a really good price. One last touristy fling before Kristle goes home to California after living here in Mwanza for the past 2.5 years. 

Saturday dawned and I was dancing around the house all morning waiting to get going. The group, consisting of six of us, gathered at a grocery store in town, packed up on enough snacks to keep ourselves fed for at least a week. One last pee break and off we went!

Well... sort of. 

We arrived at the gates of the park a full 3 hours later than planned. As my manager at work likes to say, Welcome to Tanzania! 

Getting into the park took another 45 minutes. Nothing happens quickly here, except accidents and drinking a beer. 

But, once we got in the park none of that mattered! 

Happy campers!

 The serengeti was partly on fire all along the roads we were taking through the park. The grassland has evolved with fire like the prairies and boreal forests in Alberta. I'm not sure if the fires here were controlled burns or natural.

Elephants and the scorched ground. Notice how they are moving away in a line following the matriarch

Twiga! With smoke in the background. See the birds along its back?

We started seeing animals immediately. I think it was the tail end of the wildebeest migration while we were there. So many wildebeest. They're pretty dumb too. Strength in numbers though. 

So many wildebeests! This one couldn't decide if he wanted to be headbutting the vehicle or dashing across the road in a zig zag in front of us.

So many striped bums. Zebras seem to like hanging out with the wildebeest herds.

Because we arrived at the park so late we had to rush to get to the campsite before dark. We had to beg and plead with the driver to stop along the road to let us pee. He was not happy. I guess tourists can get eaten if you're outside the vehicle after dark!

So elegant.

We made it to camp after dark. The guides didn't know how to set up the tents, so I got to put on my bossy boots and show them how it's done. :-D

Fantastic crew (plus Hemal taking the picture); I'm so happy we went together :)

 As we settled into our tents for a brief sleep (waking up at 5:30 am for a sunrise drive), we heard rock dassies screeching outside along with the hyenas sniffing through camp looking for food. I didn't go out to see for myself.

Baboon and her baby.

We woke up bright and early. I was terribly excited to see a Serengeti sunrise and check out the watering hole for creatures. 

The smoke was thick in the air, obscuring the rising sun but making for an eerie, beautiful landscape. 

Serene morning.

The first creatures we happened upon were a pair of female lionesses! They were relaxing in the long grass by the road, lucky for us. We snapped a bajillion pictures and then one of the lions started to give a loud grunt. She repeated the grunts, and as they got louder they turned into roars. I have never heard anything like it. The sounds seems too big to come from a creature like that! We didn't know why she was roaring, until we looked behind us. A male lion was trotting up the road in a hurry towards the females! He trotted right up the females and they stood up to greet him, and head butted and nuzzled him. I guess the ladies were calling their man to come keep them company!

Roar! It's too early in the morning for me too buddy.

 We saw so many animals in the morning. I'm just going to dump the pictures here and let them speak for themselves.

So happy! A huge herd of elephants playing by the watering hole.

  

Close encounters. We motored out of there shortly after this close elephant started flapping its ears at us (a sign of stress/warning).

Look but don't touch!!

Treeful of baboons. Gorgeous morning sunrise with the smoke settling across the Serengeti.

Hippo time

King of the grassland

Life in the wilderness

The pecking order

A vulture is watching over the grassland.

I love this place. Nevermind that tourists were killed by a leopard in this exact spot a few weeks ago when it jumped down out of a tree into their safari vehicle.

Tired after the long day and early morning! Aww