Serengeti - Full day!!

Alright - loading pictures takes the longest for these posts, but it turns out that the central Serengeti has great cell reception, so I was able to load a bunch at a time - however now as I look back through them I am realizing that I had forgotten all of the amazing things we experienced today. Remember that these are just my phone photos and I can’t zoom in more than 5x and even when I do that the quality isn’t that great - but they are good memories from in the moment. I can’t wait to go through the >1000 photos I have taken on the actual camera - it allows me to zoom in way more!

So giraffes…I never get sick of them. We passed these ones in the driveway of our camp - keep watching for that amazing post - I’ll get to it eventually! 


A vulture



And 3 (about 3 years old) lion brothers…





All before we got out to the road!! We spent from 7:20-9am just looking around before heading to our lecture at the Serengeti Wildlife Research Centre. I was definitely the most excited of our group!



I was in awe of all of these ecology and ethology books! I could have spent an hour just reading the titles, but again, only me - lol!


We learned lots about the past and present Lion projects. They are focussing on the human/lion conflicts. They used to work on stopping the effect  of lions eating farmers' stock. Now they are focusing more on understanding the cause of why lions do this, and working this way forward. 


I took this photo so that I could zoom in and read some titles at home!


I had no idea that individual lions are identified by their whisker spots! so cool!



Can you spot the crocodile? (hint - it's in the middle on the shore)



Brave gazelles risking a drink


Topis


Can you spit the hippo? JK they are ALL hippos!! Crazy!



Just another lion…


Lunch time! The accommodation we stay at the night before makes us a picnic lunch for the day. It’s always huge and so far has always included cold chicken - it is so good!!


Today we sat at a table similar to this for lunch, at the Serengeti Media Centre. I’m quite disappointed that none of these places sell things like magnets or stickers that say “Serengeti” or “Lake Manyara”…I would buy them all!! There is nothing branded here. For the first time today I saw T shirts that said “Tanzania” - but I didn’t want one of those!



Every single other Safari tour stopped here for lunch also. Fun fact - you can never get out of the Land Cruiser in any of these places. It makes sense - animals will eat you - but I had just never thought of it before. So every 100km or so they make special safe picnic areas with bathrooms etc, where you can get out of your vehicle. 





Hmmm…so there’s a leopard in this photo. Leopards are the most elusive of the big 5 so we are very lucky to have found him. I’m only missing rhino now so 🤞 for tomorrow. Anyway, the leopard…follow the trunk of the only tree coming out of the bushes (there’s only one tree in the photo). Immediately a big branch grows straight up coming off of the left, and then bends 90° to the left. Halfway on that horizontal branch is a leopard laying flat with his arms draped on either side of the branch. I have much better photos - this was the best my phone could do. 



Lion cub



More lion cubs - they were all together, but when I loaded them that silly hartebeast got in the middle. There were 8 cubs all together with a mama lion laying in the tree above them. It is actually 3 litters, but the female lions all work together to raise them. One of the other mothers was out hunting, but unfortunately she came back empty handed. 



This is a very pregnant lioness we saw when almost back to our camp for the day. 


And this was a ginormous herd of Cape buffalo right by our camp. 


Dinner! Potato Leek soup


King fish from Lake Victoria and veggies


Chocolate cake with passion fruit and a drizzle of something red - lol. 


Local entertainment! The Maasai did some traditional spear throwing, fire starting and dancing for us. These are the same men who walk us everywhere so that animals don’t eat us. 



And right now I am typing this while sitting in the screened in front porch of my tent, listening to a hyena call. This is the most amazing trip of my life. 



Comments

  1. Jackie1 August 2023 at 18:41

    Thank you for sharing this amazing experience with us! I am in awe of all the animals you're seeing.

    ReplyDelete

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