Serengeti...Wildlife...Finally!!

Mwanza is less than two hours from the western gate of the Serengeti. Since I had only seen African wildlife from the train and bus on the Ifakara trip and George hadn’t ever been to the Serengeti even though he’s lived in Tanzania for 5 years, Cathryn, George and I anted up $200 each (!!) for a day trip into the famous park. The best time for wildlife viewing is early morning and early evening so to make sure we got the most out of our $600, the driver picked us up at George’s at 5am. We saw a beautiful sunrise over the plain on our way and by 7am were through the park gate. The roof of the land cruiser pops up so we can stand up inside and look around in all directions. We saw wildlife almost immediately- a few wildebeest that didn’t bother migrating to Kenya with the bulk of the herd mingling with zebra and gazelle on the right and a pair of ostrich on the left. We were cruising along slowly taking it all in when a cheetah strolled across the road about 25 yards in front of the truck and into the tall grass on the other side. He sat watching us with just his head peaking out for awhile and then stood up looked back at us and continued on his way. Cheetahs are endangered and not all that easy to see so our day was off to a good start.

A little ways up we say a huge giraffe that was almost completely black- a sign that he was old and looking for a mate. The day went on with barely a dull moment- warthogs trotting off with their tails pointing straight in the air, baboons with babies on their backs, monkeys, mongoose families, a jackal, and more types of herbivorous than I could ever remember. Cathryn was an incredible spotter- there’s this, look at that…she was on fire! Shortly before lunch, we pulled up to the Grumeti River to find hippos floating in a pool on the upstream side of a bend and huge crocs on the other side. After lunch besides the river, we found tree eating twigas (Swahili for giraffe), a lone elephant drinking and spraying water from his trunk out on the plain, and more zebras, antelope, wildebeest, Cape buffalo, storkes, etc. The wildlife was plentiful and because we entered through the less used western gate and it was the middle of the rainy season, the people were not. We passed a few other cars on the road but all our we had all our wildlife viewing experiences to ourselves. From what I’ve heard, this is not the norm in the Serengeti and other popular parks on the Tanzania safari circuit. However, there was one safari gem that was eluding us. We hadn’t seen any lions. I had been on the As the day went on, the only thing that was eluding us was lion. I had been on the lookout for lions all day but all I was managing to spot was dead logs and rocks. The driver headed towards some circling vultures and we found a heard of zebra with a hyena in front with a zebra leg hanging out of his mouth. The vultures, who were just as tall as the hyena when sitting up, were inching their way for a piece of the action.

As we were watching, the driver says, I think there are lions in that tree and he points to this bushy tree a ways off. I looked with my camera lens, George did the same with his even bigger lens and we both saw nothing but a bushy tree. He said he was pretty sure there’s a lioness with 6 cubs in the tree. Cathryn took the binoculars and also saw nothing. We thought he’s out of his mind. To prove his point, he turned the truck and drove towards the bush. Sure enough, out popped a lioness and two subadults (teenagers) and four cubs. We couldn’t believe it. The subadults led the cubs to a nearby bush with the mother kept an eye on us, grunting her dissatisfaction with our arrival. It was awesome to see (even though we probably shouldn’t have been disturbing them). After her family was relocated to another bush, she just sat looking out over the Serengeti in an idyllic safari scene.

On our way out of the park, Cathryn and George assured me that game viewing really doesn’t get much better than the day we had. But it wasn’t over yet, we came across a pack of bull elephants (George could tell they weren’t females somehow). Usually packs are all female and males are solitary but occasionally they form batchelor herds…yet another unique sight. They were tramping along right besides the road. Although we had seen a couple of elephants throughout the day, they had all been loners and at a distance. This pack was basically in a line marching down the side of the road. They were so big and surprisingly graceful for their size. It was a beautiful sight. The perfect end to a great day! It makes it all worth it.