Arrival in Serengeti - 19.sept

Early wake up call at 5, breakfast was supposed to be served at 5:30 and departure to happen at 6am. We were quite unhappy to find the guides only starting to load the car at 6:30 :( Could have had another hour of sleep instead of waiting around by the kitchen. Finally hit the road, picked up another person to be fit into our already cramped car. Plan was to get to Serengeti National Park by the afternoon. For this we needed to drive all the way through Ngorongoro National Park. Fist the guide informed us that it will be about 3h ride, well, it ended up being 6+ hours. With a long stop at the border of two parks getting out of one and into another. We all tried to laugh it off and use the phrase 'african time' :) Little did we know of how right we were :D

Drive was long and bumpy AND so incredibly dusty! No more of good roads (at leas in the park areas which was most of the time for us today) - I'm not sure how my liver is going to handle all this beating. It felt like driving on a railroad tracks with a car and going 90 km/h :D I have no clue how those cars keep going after months of driving on those roads. And the dust!! Oh incredible. I kept my sunglasses on to protect my eyes from all the dust and I basically had to wipe them once in a while to be able to see out. There will be some photos of my beautiful face covered with dust as well ;)

Due to our delay in the morning we headed for the game drive immediately at entering Serengeti National Park without stopping at the camp located at the center of the park in between as originally planned.

Here comes a quick overview of the park from our guide book again:
Serengeti National Park is Tanzania's oldest and largest national park covering 14 762 square km. It is one of the world's best known wildlife sanctuaries. Serengeti lies in the center of the world's largest and most impressive wildlife migration areas. Serengeti also contains the highest concentration of mammals on earth.

Now about the migration. It is annual 800km migration of over 2.5 million animals, the largest mammalian migration on earth. This movement of animals is prompted by a seasonal search for fresh water and pasture dictated by the rain. It literally means millions of animals of different sorts walking across the planes in herds. Migration takes them to Kenia's part of the park via easternmost route and back to Tanzania from the other side, western side. Animals would reach Kenia in August, stay there till middle of October or beginning of November and then start moving back from the other side. Currently most of the animals would be gone with the migration, but since there are so many of them it should not make a huge difference.

When I talk about national parks then here it means that an area has been defined to preserve the animals (probably that is the whole point everywhere). But basically this is where the animals are protected from locals setting traps or strangers killing wild animals. It does happen that animals wonder off the park area though since there are no fences or anything. As I have understood though the parks are big enough (for an example the size of Estonia) for most of them to be safe and not have the need to wonder off at all.

We got truly truly lucky on our game drive today :) As one of the first things while driving towards our camp we saw bunch of hyenas. Usually they can't be spotted during the day as they move around mostly in the dark. Well, for us they were right next to the road and once we stopped they came across by our car and checked us out :) We got a nice close look at them. After a bit we drove on. Here at the parks tour guides chat to each other when cars pass, of course they speak in Kishwahili so we can't understand a thing. At some point after another chat our guide just hit the gas and was quite determined to get on. For our question of what is out there he just said with a smile on his face: "something special" :) He took us to a leopard! Seeing leopard is nearly impossible as I've heard so we got super lucky. And what a show she put on:

At first it was just laying on the rocks, was a bit difficult to see it. Usually we were quite patient in observing the animals, same this time, we simply waited and once more it paid off very well as the kitty went for a walk after about 10 minutes. By this time there were hoards of cars all piled up to have a look at this beautiful spotted elegant creature. For the walk trajectory the kitty chose first the field with high grass so all we could see was her back, at some point it turned towards the road and headed straight to our car :) out of about 15 cars the kitty passed right by ours and then followed on by the road all the cars moving along at the same speed and trying to get the best spot to view the animal. To all our surprise the leopard didn't even seem to notice all the cars. After a bit it headed up to another set of rocks, had some salad in form of green grass and was walking up and down for a bit before taking a seat on top of a large rock. She placed herself to the center of it and sat down elegantly. Next thing we know is that she is making weird movements like wants to let something out of her mouth - surely after few gags the kitty vomited :) I got proof in form of photos. It has been a strange strange experience here seeing animals doing all sorts of unusual things right in front of our eyes like vomiting and mating.

Seeing a leopard was definitely the highlight of the day. It is not allowed here to drive in the dark as this is when all the animals are on a move and driving gets dangerous. Sun sets around 6:30 so usually this is when our day at a safari ends and we arrive at the camp. Next is the usual routine of setting up the tents, getting settled in the tent, eating and going to sleep. This time the camp is situated in the middle of the national park and there are no fences around it :) I guess this night will be spent next to lions, hyenas and elephants, how about that? Fancy going to the toilet in the middle of the night, in the dark, all by yourself :) ?

Right in the middle of the dinner it started raining, raining heavily :( Luckily our tent leaked only a little, two guys from Netherlands were not that lucky and they had soaked mattresses and bags. Took them few hours to resettle and secure the tent so that water was not pouring in. It rained half way through the night but everything was very damp and cold in the morning nonetheless. I truly hope this is the last time I see rain here, it is not even a rainy season yet!