Yesterday I was lucky enough to go on a true game safari. Wake up was at 5:00 and boy was it worth it. We hurried to leave the camp around 5:45; a brief breakfast at 5:30 and then on the road. I was in a car with my pals Stan, Jan and Mo, some folks from the U.S. on their 27th, 24th, and 3rd safaris, respectively. The goal of the morning was to see some hippos. We booked it in the dark to reach a watering hole right as the sun was coming up. It reminded me of the early mornings fishing, reaching the put-in right as the light breaks. But these swimmers were a bit bigger.
We stayed at the watering hole for a couple hours, observing the many hippos, had some breakfast then went for the rest of the game drive. I’ve put a some of my favorite pictures (but there are many more).
This was our breakfast location. Right next to the river where we did our hippo viewing, we were lucky enough to have this nice picnic area to ourselves. We started the game drive after breakfast and I was surprised at how abundant the wildlife was.
Seeing these was special. Normally predators of this size are hard to spot in the tall grass of the Serengeti.
These guys are really tiny, but not at all shy, so they wandering along the road and we saw many throughout the day.
These impalas are definitely one of my favorite animals out here. They’re pretty docile and you can get real close to them. The spiral horns are absolutely gorgeous.
Giraffes are surprisingly plentiful. We stopped for the first group of giraffes, took our pictures for the day, and passed up the following 20+ sightings. I was a bit bummed because I really like these guys and I was hoping I could try to get some good pictures with better lighting, but I’m sure I’ll see some again.
These are two different species intermingling here. I know the dark brown one is a tope, I’m drawing a blank on the name of the other one. We saw a lot of these fellas throughout the day. And now get ready for a very special sighting (not the most exciting of the day, but I was very impressed by our guide).
So we’re just driving along, when our guide, Isaiah, stops and says, “I think I saw something.” He points to this kopje and tells us to look for the cat.
I promise you, somewhere on that hill, there was a lion.
It was a lioness with at least two cubs. Although we couldn’t see the lion very well, this feels more impressive than a roadside spotting because of how hard it was to find it. Additionally, we were the only car stopped to see it; whenever there’s an easy sighting, cars pile up and it gets noisy and busy pretty quick.
For all my ornithologists out there, let me give you a little love. Not sure what bird this is, but it was pretty and it flew with wings. The car I was in loved the bird watching—sure they were interested in the land oriented animals, but their eyes were in the sky.
This little fella was wonderfully posed for some pictures. These guys live in the rock structures, and they seem to be fairly photogenic—we ran into a few more later on and they were posed up on the rocks sunning themselves.
The animals were definitely the highlight of this trip, but the landscape came in at a close second. Exploring this beautiful region has been amazing.
We were fortunate enough to stumble upon a congregation of safari vehicles. We saw the 10+ cars from maybe two miles out and knew we had to get ourselves over there. When we arrived all our feline friends were pretty tired. It’s the start of mating season, so these guys get it on pretty frequently (every hour or so)—at peak season they do like bunnies and can be seen mating every 15 minutes. We weren’t patient enough to catch them in action as it was nearing lunch time and everybody was tired.
We headed home and had ourselves a nice meal and rest. After lunch I wandered about with Lucas while he oversaw how progress was coming. I got bored pretty quickly because I didn’t understand a single word being said, so I went to hang out with some of the other safari guests. After 3 hours of being back at camp, people decided it was time to hit the road again. We left camp at 4. Right as we were leaving, our driver got news of a very elusive sighting. He didn’t tell us what we were heading for, but he said it required a “polar bear run”—we weren’t stopping for any animal other than a polar bear. It took about an hour to get to where we wanted to be and boy was this one special.
We got to see a leopard! I didn’t get many pictures of it; it was pretty far and hidden up in some branches. I did, however, get to watch it take a nap like it pays rent for the entire Serengeti. It didn’t move an inch for the longest time, and when it got up (and got everyone excited it might give us some action shots), he just readjusted a couple things and went right back to sleeping. I’m a bit bummed we didn’t stay longer than 30 minutes. The guide was saying that they pretty much always jump down before nightfall (their prime hunting time), but people were getting impatient and bored and wanted to get back before the rain started. Either way, though, I was extremely happy and fortunate to be able to see this. That makes for three of the three big cats in the Serengeti—in three days! Jan, a lady in our car, had been on three safaris (all 10 day long or more) and this was her first time seeing a leopard. So I have been very spoiled!
We hurried home to have some dinner. Everyone was pretty beat, so it was bed time after dinner had finished around 8. I slept like a log. Today I’m heading home with my buddy Ally (who was guiding this trip!) and I hope I get a little bit of a game drive on the way out.