Expedition to Serengeti pt. 2

Simba!

The expedition to Serengeti might have been the most incredibly 4 days of my life to date. Each day seemed to top the last, as we discovered a hyena den, watched leopards nap in trees, hippos fight (and mate) and a pride of lions devour a wildebeest. The sunsets every night were incredible, but the real excitement started after dark. Every night we’d have all types of animal visitors. Hyenas were there every night to poke around the camp site, and there was even a cheetah and a leopard that came through. On the last night, an elephant had come very close to browse, and as a couple of us were led to the bathroom by an askari (Swahili word for guard) he shone his light on a tree only 150 meters away and whispered “Tembo”. I expected to see a leg or head in the stand of trees, but instead, there was a gigantic elephant munching on an acacia at the fringe of our campsite. You could literally hear it cracking branches and munching on leaves! It could have destroyed our whole camp in a matter of minutes if it had wanted to, so luckily it was content with just eating.

Just your classic Serengeti sunset from our campsite

Heyena eating an old wildebeest carcass

One of my favorite parts of the trip was seeing the wildebeest migration. Their entire lives are one giant movement towards the next water source. The cycle starts in the Ngorogoro crater in January through march. During the dry season, they begin their way up through Serengeti and across the Kenyan border, and as the rains start in Tanzania in November, they begin migrating back down through the Serengeti and to Ngorogoro. We saw them in massive herds, mostly running in long lines that stretched for at least a mile as thousands of them moved south through the plains.  To witness this tradition that has been going on for thousands of years was very special and something that I will never forget. As a result, the Wildebeest has made it into my top 5 favorite African mammals list, along with warthogs, giraffes, elephants and leopards. However, if I were to ever be so lucky as to see a cheetah reach its top speed of 70 mph while taking down prey it would immediately shoot to the very top of every unofficial list of animals I’ve ever made in my head. Nuff said. 

One of the long trains of wildebeest migrating through the park

                               

Leopard! I took this through my binoculars

                                 

Expedition to Serengeti pt. 1

Early Saturday morning the land cruisers pulled out of Moyo Hill camp, packed with 30 wanafunzi whose cups of joy were overflowing with excitement. We were on our way to Serengeti National Park, home to cheetahs, leopards, lions and the great migration of the wildebeest. Could life get any better? I think not.

Along the way we stopped at Olduvai Gorge. For those that don’t know, the Olduvai Gorge is the sight of multiple findings by the Leakys of our ancient ancestors and the oldest fossils of humans ever to be found. It is the birthplace of the human species and was a really fascinating place archeologically.

Around 2, we finally arrived at Serengeti. The game drive into the park and to our campsite was epic, with the famous grass plains unfolding us in a vast expanse that stretched uninterrupted to the horizon. Puffy, tall clouds hung low and flat in the pure blue sky and thousands of wildebeest and zebra grazed on the tender green shoots starting to sprout after the first of the short rains. My mind raced as I tried to find a song worthy of this incredible scene. I would have to go with a lyric I have found myself using a lot on this trip.

-And at once I knew, I was not magnificent” – Bon Iver, Holocene