The English Department: Tanzania Safari: Serengeti

After spending a night in Arusha resting our tired legs, we left the next morning for our safari. We used the same company we’d used for the hike, Duma Explorers, and once again we were impressed by their guides, cooks, and organization. Our safari was four days and three nights, and we began by driving from Arusha, past the Ngorongoro Crater, and into the Serengeti, where we stayed for the first two nights. Then we backtracked through Ngorongoro for the last day/night on our return to the city.

Instead of the huge crew we needed to go up the mountain, for the safari we just had a guide/driver (Seaniel) and a cook (Remy), and we all rode together in a big land rover. About an hour into our drive, Remy had Seaniel stop at a Maasai market to buy some fresh meat. It turned out to be a little fresher than I’d bargained for. If you enlarge the picture you can see the goat hanging up that they’d slaughtered only moments before. Brian and Nic thought it was cool, but I had to look the other way.

Our next stop was much more to my liking, an overlook of the beautiful Lake Manyara National Park. Longer safaris include a visit to this park, but we didn’t have time. We did see some elephants and giraffes through our binoculars, though—a little preview of things to come.

For lunch we pulled over to a picnic area along the upper rim of the Ngorongoro Crater and were greeted by some marabou storks—every bit as awkward-looking as the ones we saw in Uganda last year.

This picnic area is known for its black kites, like this one perched in the tree.

What we didn’t understand is what the kites are known FOR…dive-bombing unsuspecting tourists and snatching their lunches! While we unfortunately didn’t get any pictures of this happening to us, we did get some photos of this other random couple. Just imagine us with pretty much identical expressions of panic and terror, and you’ll have a good idea of what we looked like. (Seaniel and Remy were duly entertained.)

Safely back in the car, we made our way along the outer rim of the crater. Even though we wouldn’t be descending for another two days, we saw lots of wildlife during the drive, including our first ostrich…

…and our first giraffes.

We also saw a golden jackal…

…and a spotted hyena (although at more of a distance).

When we got to the visitors’ site for the Serengeti, we waited by the car while Seaniel took care of entrance fees. There were several little birds in the parking lot, and they seemed to have almost every color you could imagine on them in one place or another.

We called them the amazing-technicolor-dream birds and thought they were really special—turns out they’re like the sparrow of the Serengeti and not a big deal at all. Still, their real name in our official bird book is the superb starling, so someone else clearly thought they were pretty neat, too.

It was early evening by the time we entered the Serengeti, and since we still had to set up camp, we didn’t drive around very long; however, we did see our first glimpses of lions.

We were ecstatic, but Seaniel told us we’d see many more—we had no idea how right he would be.

This isn’t our car, but it’s similar enough that you can at least get a sense of what we were riding in. There’s reason they all have snorkels on the sides!

Brian and Nic laughed at me for sitting down every time we drove through water like this. I know it didn’t make any difference, but at least I could pretend I was a little safer. J

Our gear for the safari was totally different from our Kili hike since we didn’t have to pack it up a mountain. Gone were the ultra-light North Face models; instead we used heavy-duty canvas tents that were much roomier. Neither option made us feel real secure when we learned all kinds of animals, including lions, roamed through the campsite every night. No one was allowed outside after about 10:00 for that very reason. We asked Seaniel what to do if we had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and he said under no circumstances should we leave the tent—he suggested we bring some empty bottles to bed with us just in case. Lovely.

He wasn’t kidding about the wildlife—you can see a cape buffalo in the background of this photo, just beyond our tents.

Here’s a slightly better shot—we didn’t venture any closer after seeing his expression.

(The next morning there were footprints right outside Nic’s tent, and Nic said that at one point during the night the buffalo was so close he could smell him!)

Also as a precaution against the animals, the food was cooked and eaten inside these covered areas that were basically people-cages surrounded by thick wire.

Remy was such a good cook that we would have eaten his food anywhere, though. He was a seasoned veteran and had worked for almost 20 years for luxury hunting safaris before switching to Duma. Even though we were on a budget camping safari, we certainly felt luxurious eating meals like stuffed guinea fowl. Santos had specifically recommended Remy, and we can see why!

(Brian was happier about dinner than he looks in this photo.)

We spent most of the next day—our only full day in the Serengeti—going on game drives. Here are several impala (females and babies)…

…and here is the bachelor herd.

Zebras in the Serengeti are as common as cows in the rural Midwest.

While this was exciting for us, it also makes them somewhat easy pickings for lions. Here is part of a pride devouring a fresh zebra kill.

Lions can go for days without eating, and then when they finally do, they just gorge themselves. One lion even fell asleep with his face IN the carcass after he’d had his fill! I was content to watch all of this from a distance, but the guys wanted to get as close a view as possible of the carnage.

We didn’t need binoculars when we came across this pair of cheetahs lounging in the grass.

This one is with the zoom, so you can see how pretty they are. One way to tell cheetahs from leopards is that cheetahs have these markings that look like teardrops under their eyes.

Here’s one last shot to give you a sense of how close we were.

You’ll need to enlarge this picture of hartebeests to get a better view, but I liked the clouds in this photo too much to use the close-up version.

Like I said before, Seaniel was right when he promised we’d see more lions. Here are a male and female soaking up some sun.

Later in the day, we saw this female lion walking all by herself from a long distance away.

She walked straight towards some large rocks, and Seaniel said she had probably hid her cubs there when she went out hunting. Sure enough, as she got closer and called out in what sounded like a sort-of elongated bark, two little cubs popped up near the top of the rocks. We took a video of them coming down and greeting their mother, and it’s absolutely adorable. (I apologize in advance for all of my cooing in the background—it’s even louder than Nic’s fancy camera shutter.) We took one more short video when the three lions walked past our car, so you could see how close they got. It seemed like we should close our windows or something, but Seaniel said they’re used to the safari cars…still, it was definitely unnerving.

It rained off and on during the day, and at one point when we were all in the car with the top closed, we passed a big group of baboons. There was a banana on the dashboard, and when one of the males spotted it, he came bounding up onto the hood of the car. When he reached for the banana, though, he grabbed the windshield wiper instead and was thoroughly bewildered.

One of the more unique sights we witnessed was a leopard that had been treed by a lioness. Apparently she thought the leopard was getting a little too close to her three cubs, who were romping around down below. She perched herself on the first limb of the tree, and the leopard stayed perfectly still up at the top.

Here’s a closer shot of the leopard. Our guide said the lioness had reason to be wary, since leopards are known to quickly climb down a tree, snatch a cub, and race back up the tree too high for the mother to reach it.

Usually our group was all alone, but this time word had spread among the drivers. At some point it stopped being clear who was more of a wildlife study—what a mess!

Our last big spotting of the day was a river full of hippos. They look docile in the water, but they’re actually some of the most aggressive animals in the world.

That particular day was December 29th—Brian’s and my 3rd anniversary—so we went out for celebratory drinks with the rest of the gang at a nearby lodge.

Safaris where you stay in these lodges are way more expensive than our camping option, and we could see why. The lobby was gorgeous! The lighting was horrible for pictures, but you can at least see the neat old lanterns and the way the lodge is built right into the rocks; the walls with animal paintings on them are all enormous boulders.

We woke up very early the next morning to go on a sunrise game drive before leaving the Serengeti. The lighting was beautiful, as you can see from this photo of a silhouetted marabou stork.

The initial rosy light eventually developed a stark, yellow quality that made everything feel almost two-dimensional because of the lack of shadows. This tree full of marabous looked like a diorama rather than real life; it was just so still.

Here is a herd of cape buffalo in that same light, this time with a little rainbow in the background.

The gold and green tones made these giraffes look like a scene from a vintage postcard—especially with the hot-air balloon behind them.

We returned to the campsite for lunch and then headed back out of the Serengeti towards Ngorongoro again. Along the way we saw a secretarybird (these things are over a meter tall!)…

…and another leopard. This one seemed to be stalking something, but it gave up before we could see it make a kill, much to the disappointment of the males in our party.

Just as we were about to leave the Serengeti, we drove smack into the middle of the famed wildebeest migration. We knew there was a chance we’d get to see this, but since they move all over the plains, there was no guarantee.

There was obviously no way to capture what it’s like to see wildebeests—and I know it’s a cliché, but it was true—stretching as far as the eye could see. We kept looking through the binoculars and saying, “Ok, but those things way back there are trees, right?” Nope—all wildebeests. In this photo you can see the dots blanketing the horizon in the distance…