What an experience Africa has been! Every day is full of rich adventure and no two days are the same. We meet Salim between 7:00 and 8:00 a.m. and feast on the beauty and wonder that is Tanzania until 6:00 or 7:00 p.m.
Big day today – we saw all the BIG 5 in a single day – elephants, lions, leopard, buffalo and rhinos! Fantastic!
Began our day with the sighting of a pride of lions enjoying their fresh kill – a water buffalo (this is not the buffalo we’re counting for the Big 5 – we saw lots of live ones, too!). Driving through the Serengeti we saw acres and acres of elephants, zebras, water buffalo, antelope, wildebeest, baboons…. all grazing together in perfect harmony. Hakuna matata! We saw thousands of zebras and wildebeests moving towards their migration points, marching single file with a singular purpose. Saw several new animals today and did some major 4-wheeling, climbing steep and rocky hills, crossing gullies with huge ruts, and wading through river beds with waterrising up to the hood of the Land Cruiser. There is an abundance of quartz here and the shimmering stone provides a beautiful accent to the surrounding area.
Late in the day we approached a possible crossing point for the zebras and wildebeests. While we were waiting for them to decide if this would be the moment of crossing, Salim spotted a leopard lounging on the opposite side of the river. While repositioning the Land Cruiser to give us a better look we came upon a mama lion laying on a sandbar in the middle of the river with three young cubs playing nearby.
We waited as long as we could for the wildebeests to cross (It is hilarious to watch their indecisiveness – hundreds of them crowd a bluff overlooking the riverbed a short distance below. They take turns going to the edge of the bluff, first one, then another. The wildebeest will look down at the river below, start to head down the path, think better of it and turn back. Then another tries, does the exact same thing. Then another, and another…it is pretty funny.), but had to move on to make it to our next camp before nightfall.
As we headed towards the camp, we noticed a group of safari vehicles pulled off to the side of the road, watching movement in some bushes. We joined them and discovered that there was a mama hippo and her baby hiding in those bushes. We waited and waited and quietly coaxed and prayed until at long last the baby rhino emerged into the clearing. Yay! We waited and coaxed and prayed some more and before long, here came mama to join him. It was soooo cool! And apparently a very rare thing. Hippos have been hunted to near extinction and are rarely seen in the Serengeti these days. The guides were as thrilled as the tourist to see this beautiful site!
We waited to leave until the rhinos retreated to the bushes. As Salim pulled away from the rhinos we noticed a huge rainbow emerging to the right of the bushes providing cover for the rhinos. Perfect!
JodockWorldTravel 