The Serengeti comes from the Masaai word "Sirenget" which means "endless plains." There couldn't be a better description for this amazing place. Saving the best for last, the Serengeti held promises of magical things: Wild Kingdom, Born Free and Donald Sutherland voiceovers about lionesses taking down an unsuspecting wildebeest. By far the biggest park we've been to on our safari, we would be here two and a half days and we were hoping our luck would really kick in here and that we would see a kill in action.
When we entered the park, Philemon let Mike drive the Landrover. Mike took over as guide and driver, leading us past thousands and thousands of wildebeest apparently migrating OUT of the park. The grass here is much longer, and several heavy rainstorms visible in the distance threaten our next few days there. Philemon said the wildebeest were heading to the Ngorongoro Crater, where the grass is short and they can keep an eye on the newborns that they will have once they get there. Well, as luck would have it, it rained quite a lot making the trails extremely muddy and most of the rivers uncrossable. Some trucks were getting stuck in the mud and we'd heard of people being stuck out in the park all night. We spent two whole game days traversing the same few trails and seeing very little.
On the last day, we were determined to end on a high note, so we did an early morning game drive and managed to catch lions in a more active mood. We saw lionesses with their cubs, lions mating and even a cheetah under a tree. So in the end, even though we didn't see an actual kill, we were pretty lucky. That afternoon, we flew back to Arusha from the Serengeti in a tiny 10 seater double prop plane. A little nerve racking at times but we made it alive and in a fraction of the time it would have taken us to drive home. We were looking forward to what was next -- Mahale and our chimpanzee trek.
For photos of our safari, please go to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31967627@N00/sets/72157594423386516/
