I know you are all on the edge of your seats waiting to hear what animals we heard last night, and you’d be right we did have a restless sleep, but it wasn’t animals keeping us up; the Serengeti winds!
The winds hitting against a canvas tent and poles had us opening our eyes every hour or so – I’d have preferred the noise of animals!
You guessed it, same routine as the past couple of days for breakfast, up at the same time, breakfast at the same time – Michael branched out today though he had an odd combination of crepes and sausages?
We headed back to the tent, packed our final few things and got into the jeep ready for another fun filled day..?
Freddy asked how we slept, as he always does, but there was a sly smile as he asked it – we said the wind had kept us up but nothing else. Disappointingly he goes “so the hyenas didn’t keep you up?” How on earth did we get kept up by wind and not hyenas!?!?!
Off we went, we had spotted giraffes within 10 minutes of driving, 2 of them, then another 3 which turned out to be a family of 5 and then a family of 6 on our right. What a start! Freddy was telling us they grow as tall a they need to to survive and depending on the area they live in to be able to reach the vegetation at the top of the trees, some in the Serengeti grow to be 5.5 metres tall!
And then nothing.
The Serengeti gave us hope of an incredible day and then took it away again. That’s the beauty of nature, it’s not a guarantee.
It could be hours before you see anything again, we came across some ostrich, we often dipped off the track to see if there was anything lurking around further away, but to no avail – the plains were living up to their name.
It was going to take all the patience we could muster today.
I spotted a cat!!! Finally I had been useful at spotting something – a Caracal! Could this be the start of more?
We went from grass plains to what could be compared to woodlands – woodland meant more giraffes and warthog, with giraffes slowly becoming Michael’s favourite!
And then back in to the vast of the plains, we stopped at a nest of mongoose and started to notice a lot of elephant poo, just no elephants.
Then we happened upon the moment that was going to turn our day on its head – 2 female lions sunbathing, then 2 more came and joined them! They were so close to the van, it took everything I had to not go “here kitty kitty kitty”!
Freddy thought all 4 of them could be pregnant!
We sat with them for a short while, then drove further up in the direction where the second 2 had emerged from, and found the rest of the pride! 6 more female lions!!
We were so taken aback by the lions on our left, we hadn’t looked in front of us – all that elephant poo and we had found the herd! 27 elephants in total, all female and some with young! The littlest one was really young!
Again we stayed with the herd for a while, taking them all in, Freddy pointed out the matriarch and also the matriarch’s sister, who would be second in command! One of them had a broken tusk, we asked how that might have happened, if it was an accident or not. He said likely either fighting or against a tree, rather than anything more sinister.
We carried on with our drive, we saw a few jeeps huddled around a tree so went to check it out and to our amazement, 2 male lions! Freddy said they likely belonged to the pride of females we had seen but they only stay together when mating or feeding. He also said they would likely be brothers and that you wouldn’t see more than 4.
And then there seemed to be an even bigger change of pace, Freddy put his foot down and we stayed silent watching eagerly out of the window to try and catch a glimpse of where we were going and what we were going to see!
When we stopped and Freddy said one word: cheetah.
We could tell he was excited, it was the first time he had opened his hatch to stand up and have a closer look! Although we thought he had gone mad, we couldn’t see anything except Serengeti plains! We eventually found him, some 200 metres in the distance, too far for us to take a photo. Well that’s when Freddy decided he could find a better spot and we started going right towards him!
There he was, in all his glory, sat looking for his next meal, all we could do was sit in awe. (And argue about who took the better photo!)
The adrenaline hadn’t yet worn off from the Cheetah when we found more lions! 7 of them including 2 young males and one female trying to sleep in a tree!
What a rollercoaster of a morning, time for a late lunch. Yesterday we ate with hippos, today we found a spot under a tree with some giraffe and tucked in to our pack up.
Who knows what would happen after lunch, it had been a full on morning, with ups and downs, but maybe the Serengeti had a couple more tricks up its sleeve!
Freddy had his foot down and we caught up to two jeeps parked round the back of some rocks staring at absolutely nothing, or so we thought…
A leopard, hidden in the bushes below a tree – god knows how they found him but we were pleased they did! He completed our big 5 sightings!
Wow wow wow. Or in Freddy’s words “oh my goodness” which we’ve learnt he says when he is very excited!
We carried on, because Freddy wasn’t done yet! Like London buses, no leopard for 3 days and then 2 at once, this one posing up a tree!
We agreed that our time on the drive was over, we had been out for over 6 hours and still needed to get to our next lodge for the evening, ahead of our night game drive tonight!
We passed some Olive Baboons on our way out, but of course the Serengeti had one last parting gift for today; one final leopard, this time stalking a gazelle!
What a day it had been, this was only part 1 of our day, this evening we go for night game drive – stalking eyes in the dark in an open jeep!
As adrenaline fuelling as it sounds, it didn’t end up being that way – and no, not a hook to entice you in! We didn’t really find many animals! The coolest we saw were probably a hyena eating an old carcass, a dead young zebra hanging from a tree presumably put there by a leopard and then a small group of female lions who were sleeping!
We were clearly missing the expertise and good luck charm of Freddy!
As we were being escorted back to our lodge, it was a very good thing we were being escorted, because just outside was a buffalo – one of the big 5 came to tuck us in! This could be an interesting nights sleep!
