ngorogoro crater

Well thanks to some late night relocating, Meg and I woke up nice and dry on our last morning in the Serengeti. Having moved our tent under the eating shelter after hearing the initial claps of thunder following the lightening. I wasn't prepared to roll the dice again and knew Meg wasn't keen on wet everything so recruited Victor to help move the tent. It was a day of driving leaving the Serengeti to get to the Crater's rim. The day of driving is made longer with our current vehicle. The Landcruiser just plain struggles to do anything fast, except for maybe breakdown, coupled with its shot suspension, that is a constant reminder through these crater ridden roads. It got me thinking, why are people always talking about old cars and and them possessing character? The irony in it is what gets me. Why can't a new car have good character and personality? Aren't the attributes of running strong and reliability desirable? Bald tires regardless of how much character aren't your first choice on deeply rutted, muddy roads and at water crossings. Needless to say, that was what we were working with, and Juma would get a nice run at anything that looked like it might swallow up the tires.

vibrant male hanging out

Going out the official exit of the Serengeti we saw zebra, wildabeest, thompson and grand gazelle scattered like sand across the plains. There are an estimated 200,000 zebra that migrate with the 1.5 million wildebest every year, and we got a snapshot of that.

wildabeest going crazy

young zebra are light brown

It looked straight to be out of a National Geographic film except we were taking it in with our own eyes. Meg is pretty convinced that zebras are her favorite. She is partial to the way they stand which is one looking each way with their head close to resting on the others back almost like they are doing a zebra hug . This is really their way of watching each others backs.

We also were driving through Maasai territory who are an indigenous people group that culturally live off of meat provided from their cows and goats along with their milk and blood. Pretty well rounded diet. Needless to say, they are lean. Lean to the point of from afar you have them pegged for 7 feet tall.  The men (Maasai Warriors) wear long African-printed cloth wrapped almost like a dress and carry around huge spears as they herd cattle. They are clothed in jewelry made by their tribe, from head to toe. Meg and I were observing their little villages and kids along the road or out with their herds as we drove along. We both came away wondering aloud about their culture. Though they seem to cling to their primitive culture and lifestyle, as well as living separate from society in their little villages, they also seem to accept or at least desire what they are separating themselves from. Each one we went by, from our age on down to 3 or 4, waved at us to stop and asked for money or in one case a pen. Our guide told us they know asking for money isn't as probable so they ask for a pen for school. It seems a little counter intuitive for an intentionally separated society living as their ancestors have before them to also be wanting handouts. Meg and I wrestled with this thought for a while and even talked with our guides about it. Poverty is clearly a driving force for the requests for money, but what good is it doing if it only gets them by for a day and does not provide anything sustainable to them. Sadly you can see poverty any way you look here, and its heartbreaking. It makes you sincerely thankful for what you do have and perspective on how blessed our lives are. Two Massai below:

BIG giraffe along the way to the crater rim

male bull elephant right at our campsite

We arrived at the rim of the crater and set up camp. It was quite cold by Africa's standards. I would guess about 45 degrees give or take, but when you're rocking board shorts you can feel the cold.

our guide, bird expert and chef - victor 

sunrise

Meg and I woke up in the morning about 5:15 and packed all our stuff up and wolfed down a quick breakfast. Nothing was going to get in the way of our main goal for the day, which was to see a pride of lions. We heard other groups planning to leave around 6:30 so then planned to go at 5:45. We wanted to alot for a potentially disastrous morning if the Landcruiser had issues. Thankfully we had no issues and were the second SUV into the crater (nobody is allowed in the crater for more than 6 hours). From their it was like being in a zoo. Wildabeest here, zebra over there, every other animal represented in the Lion King except giraffe (not enough tree for them to graze on). We started off strong with seeing 2 black rhinos that are supposed to be the most difficult because they apparently are a little people shy, plus they are only about 20 of them in the crater, which is practically the only place to see black rhino. O.k. cool Meg and I thought now lets get on to the main event. We want to see the lions... that is what we came for. Driving around our eyes peeled for anything possibly resembling a lion. In the process we happened by another couple rhino this time in a bit of a face off. Unfortunately, niether of them had the balls to charge the other and make contact while we watched this little dance of macho-ism in the wild. Bummer, the best action shot I got was one rhino relieving himself.

Sorry to anyone who is offended...

the rare black rhino!

wildabeest are hairy

the face-off (kinda)

tons of flamingos in the distance

Then we got what we were there for, a lioness casually sauntering around the SUV. Then we noticed another and another it was awesome. They had apparently brought down a water buffalo that morning. A male lion will eat 25 kilos of meat after a kill like that. The ones that had already stuffed themselves were lying in the sun in what I imagine is a pretty impressive food coma. There were 3 males that we could count and 9 females. One of the females plopped down in the road in the shade of another rig. Apparently they are friendly and drawn to people.

lady lion

serious food coma in the road

has the entire crater to pick a nap spot, but chooses here...

there were many lions lying around digesting their water buffalo

Male lion eating

the male lions = the most impressive

another female

this guy below is a teenager male - you can see his mane starting to come in

these water buffalo just lost one of their men 

kind of cute little buggers

sorry zebra, we have to get by

last shot before heading out of the crater

With our lion fix complete after spending around 3 hours watching we started our journey out. This wasn't without another car event though. I had to push start the Landcruiser after stopping for a bathroom break. At the crater's rim we took the opportunity to use the restroom. It is amazing what you get excited about after being here for a few short weeks. I got back to the car with a look of accomplishment and pretty much simultaneously said with Meg "I scored us some more toilet paper!" Then we headed for Arusha.

serengeti

Meg and I headed straight to Mwanza from Gorilla trekking. If Mwanza whose nickname is Rock City was in the US it would be a climbing mecca much like Joshua Tree. There were such awesome standalone spires,  amazing cracks and boulders everywhere you looked. Here I was stuck on another bus watching them zip by on the horizon en route to the Serengeti stopover camp. Turns out we had the place to ourselves which was pretty awesome. We stayed in the Simba Suite and were waited on the minute we walked into the restaurant.

The staff even went so far as to catch us before meals to see what we wanted and when we would like to eat. Talk about service! For those unaware this is very rare. Normally when you sit down and order fish for dinner as we did with our awesome guide Geoffrey in Masaka he said "they still have to go fishing and catch the fish" which may have been fairly accurate based on how long we sat there.

Serengeti day 1
Meg and I woke up to a thunderstorm with lightening touching down around our little oasis the morning we were supposed to head into the Serengeti. Serengeti is derived from the Maasai word siringet that means "endless plains". With pools forming around our little hut and the restaurant I was thinking it might also become the endless flooding plains.

As it turns out our little place dried out pretty fast, but unfortunately this was at the expense of Meg's clothes catching all the rain that leaked into our little abode. Secretly thankful it wasn't my clothes I helped Meg wring her clothes out and set them before the fan after the power finally turned back on 20 minutes before our scheduled departure time. We had a few moments of prayer for a dry day after envisioning a wet safari after traveling halfway around the world. Thankfully prayers were answered  and we were off and heading into the Serengeti with our new guide Victor and driver/mechanic Juma.

Juma was a last minute addition of which we were thankful for later. We started cruising in with Meg and I standing up through the removable roof admiring the Zebra, giraffe, baboons, thompson's gazelle and keeping our eyes peeled on the horizon for whatever amazing animal might show up next.

I am in the middle of trying to spot some mystery animal when Meg all of a sudden starts tugging my arm. I look at her and see a look of mild panic on her face as she is looking up at the dash. It is about this time that my nose tells me she is seeing an electrical fire from the front of the car. Glancing forward to take in the situation unfolding in our Landcruiser, I just about get ran over by Meg who is trying to run out the door by me because there is no door on her side. 

Then I do what any good husband would and distract his wife while Victor and Juma take care of the issue at hand after I see its not spreading further. "Babe let me take some pics of you with that cool tree."

Well that only worked for about 5 minutes and then I couldn't get Meg away from the car. Yes there may be smoke and flames coming from the front of the car where the radio used to be, but it will be fine don't worry babe. Juma was disassembling the dash as fast as he could and ripping wires out left and right that were still on fire. What seemed to happen was a short that was sparking set the rest off and a fuse blew in the process. Trying to assure Meg while she was attentively watching was not happening. She kept looking at me and asking if it was fine, what would we do if we were stuck there for the night. I told her that it was electrical and the engine still was running fine, but worse case scenario we would be camping and would have a good story. Based off her expression I could tell Meg clearly wanted nothing to with that kind of a story. Alas the fire was out electrical wires were patched or ripped out and discarded and we started up our not so trusty ride and cruised to our campsite after about an hour delay. Upside is that Victor is a chef as well as a guide so our dinner was awesome and highlights for Meg and I included our daily soup serving. 

I would like to say that the rest of night went smoothly, but the thunderstorms and lightening returned which would be impressive to watch except for the fact that our tent seemed to want Meg and I experience it first hand and dripped on us on the wind driven side until it stopped. All in all that day we saw from what we can remember: the above listed animals, impala, water buffalo, wildebeest and calves, waterbuck, vervet monkey, dik dik, crocodile, hippo, wild dog, secretary bird and tons of others that I can't name and some elephant.

Serengeti day 2

The plus side to rain in the Serengeti is less dust, which is nice when you spend 8 hours standing up out of a Landcruiser. We also had sunny days the whole time and just experienced the lightening/thunderstorms at night. In the morning we got an early start and saw a female lion sunning herself on a rock. Leopard lazily lying in a tree. I have decided they have the easiest life because all they do is sleep in a tree all day until an animal unknowingly walks to get water below the tree and the leopard drops on them for the kill.

We saw some hippos trying to outdo each other on how wide they could open their mouths. 

2 were outside the water and that is just a funny sight when you see them nowhere near water lumbering through the bush. 

Some gazelle also in a little man-squabble.

We counted a giraffe family of 20 as well. 

Jackal - pretty small fox

helping a brother out

We really liked the vervet monkeys.

One of the prettiest Serengeti birds: lilac breasted roller

Pumba!

Hyena... these are some dirty dogs

The highlight of the day was watching a cheetah mother and her 3 cubs who were about 18 months from what we were told on the hunt. Those suckers are patient. They were hunting impala who had one male and about 50 females.

The male was clueless as he continually chased a female in efforts to get after it even though a few females seemed aware of being hunted.  The hunt from where we saw them initially to the finish only traveled about 200 yards. We had sat there for 3.5 hours waiting and decided to do a quick little loop in the area because the cheetahs were still sitting still.

Bad decision. When we returned we had just missed the kill by about 2 minutes. They had just started eating the impala when a hyena who apparently have a nose for blood swooped in grabbed it and trotted off with their hard earned dinner. It was actually a sad sight because the mother was now limping apparently getting a little hurt during the chase, which creates an unknown future for her 3 little ones. The below shot is right after the hyena swooped in.

Looking in the distance at their meal that got taken from them...

Bummed out cheetahs.

sweet shots of little cheetah

We then returned to camp for dinner and with us returned the thunder and lightening. We were super hungry and excited for dinner!We played cards for what seemed like hours waiting for dinner and were still hungry.I thought to myself that there was nothing fast food about Africa. Then dinner and the amazing soup finally came. The other interesting part about camping in the Serengeti is that when the sun goes down the light turns off! Pitch. Black. Oh wait, except for that set of glowing eyes over there, there and yep that pair as well. A little unnerving when nature calls in the middle of the night and apparently lions are known to lie down right next to your tent because they can feel your body heat. I told Meg she was on her own if she had to pee to which she said I was a horrible husband. I assured her I was joking...mostly.

Thankfully Meg never hit code red on the pee scale because she never drank water after 3 pm so she would not have to see all the glowing eyes. This allowed me to not have to show her how much of a wuss I am and make her go out there by herself. The guides said not to worry because your flashlight is your weapon and they would take off when they saw it. Well to clear up any curiosity for you all any eyes that I spotted in the night with my flashlight remained there unwavering so that light bit was a bunch of crap!