Safari! Day 6 - Sunrise on the Serengeti!

Today was our daybreak safari.  We had to be up at 5:30 to catch the sunrise on the safari.  That’s fun trying to get 3 grumpy people going at that hour I can tell you!  Jen has been affected by the malaria medication we think as she’s not sleeping much (or more correctly I tell her, she’s not getting restful sleep – she says she’s having pretty vivid and disturbing dreams) and the kids don’t do well this early anyway but we’re all excited about getting out early to see what’s out there.

The plan is that we’d get out early, and have breakfast on Safari and then come back for a hot lunch before leaving the Serengeti for Ngorogoro Crater.  We almost no sooner left the grounds of the hotel than the sun started poking up over the horizon bathing everything in that red light…  stunning and well worth the early morning.  Especially with lots of Impala and Zebras lounging around us. 

We can see a couple of hot air balloons getting ready for flight (Jen sat beside a lady on the flight here who’s husband has the exclusive rights in the Serengeti for this).  This was an option we easily discarded as they wanted $400/person for a two hour excursion (most of which is on the ground having breakfast!).  It looked fun but not at that price on our budget!

What's not to love about this place?

LOTS of Giraffes and other animals such as Baboons who we never really got tired of watching.  We also learned a neat trick about Giraffes in how they chew their cud.  You can watch them chewing away and then they swallow and you can watch it go down… then seconds later you can watch a new load come back up their throat.  When I get a chance on a better internet connection I’ll post a short movie.  Its quite entertaining.

We had breakfast at a large hippo pool.  We counted 85 hippos and lost count (and there seems to be every 4^th one under water at any time anyway).  A couple of crocodiles out sunning themselves as well.  We also saw another Hippo wandering in the grass not far from us and a mom and a young hippolet? walking up the rapids to the pool.  Its interesting that they keep the babies on the OUTSIDE of the group as they are more concerned about them getting squashed from other Hippos than attacked by predators. 

Back to the hotel for a quick lunch and then on for the long drive back to the Ngorogoro Crater Rim where our next lodge was.  On the drive back, we saw even more Wildebeest than before if that’s possible.  That migration is nothing less than stunning.  Sam was driving like a maniac between the herds crossing the roads and we were sure he was going to take out a wildebeest or a zebra but they are far too quick to catch and can change direction in a nanosecond.  Great fun to watch.  I have a great video of it I’ll post when I can.

We passed another pride of lions lying at the side of the road – I think they must pay them to be the star attractions!  It is amazing how in such short grass they seem almost invisible from more than 100’ away.  

Back to the park gates and then out the long and dusty road to Ngorogoro.  Out in the middle of the desert, we saw a bunch of Giraffe walking toward Ngorogoro… they must have walked 20 miles without a stick of grass or a mouthful of water and still had another 10 to go.  Can’t imagine what would drive them to do that. 

Then back up the mountain to the top of the rim, where our next lodge (Ngorogoro Wildlife) was located.  We drive in, get the traditional juice and then are transfixed by the view… floor to ceiling (20’) glass panels on an angle looking down directly into the crater.  Wow!  What a view!  It’s a Billion dollar view.

Our rooms are nice but also have stunning views of the crater.  The bar area has one of those attraction binoculars (at no cost) that allows you to pick out individual animal species from all the way up here.  Jen and Rachel spent a good 20 minutes looking at it.  I ended up with the first migraine of the trip so wasn’t really in the mood .  I pop a bunch of Excedrin Migraine and nothing happens… I find that only Advil works so I pop a couple of those and its la-la land for me (although I had a bit of an upset stomach from the ASA a bit later).  Damn migraines are a PITA.  (I was getting them about 1-2 a week at home and have gone almost 6 weeks with only one here… must be stress related or something although this evening, I’m suspecting it’s the lack of sleep and the altitude change.  

Safari! Day 5 - This is the real Africa!

This was our first real day on the Serengeti.  We hadn’t gone far before we drove by a pool and discovered a group of Hippo’s (which by now were popular with the kids).  This group was only metres from the vehicle so we got a very good look at them along with a large crocodile that was sneaking around waiting for unsuspecting animals to take a drink!  We discovered just how big Hippo’s can yawn (up to 150 degrees) and how noisy they can be!  It’s hard to take them seriously, they seem to just wallow and float but once in a while, you’ll see this explosion in the water when two of them decide to go at it and you get a sense of just how dangerous they really are.

Lots more Wildebeest, we found another huge block of them… in fact one large herd was approaching our road so we stopped and they crossed about 100’ in front of us.  Without a word of a lie, the herd continued for at LEAST 15 minutes.  It didn’t occur to me to count them until the herd was nearly gone but at one point, they stretched from one horizon to the next.  At any given time, there would be three of them on the road and they were booking it so there must have been thousands, if not tens of thousands in that one herd… and we saw many that day.  You really have to see it to really get how many there are… and all without seeing a single lion or predator!

By the time I thought to get a picture, the herd was thinning out a bit... but this gives you an idea of the density of the line.  This was quite typical... now imagine this goes for 10 miles in either direction!

We drove about 100kms south of the lodge and found a cheetah not far from the road, lots of wart hogs and other animals but at nothing like the density of Lake Manyara or Tarangira.  We also found a few rock rugs (lions) hanging out on the top of some Kjobes.  When they are sleeping, they really do drape over the rocks like a rug. 

About 1000’ down the road, we pulled over to have a picnic lunch however the flies drove Shawn and me nuts and back into the 4x4 but Jen/Rachel were determined to stick it out.  The flies were sort of like our house flies but much lighter.  They didn’t bite but they liked to land around your eyes and lips which would drive you nuts.  Gladly enough though, we’d only seen about 3 mosquitos on the whole trip and about as many Tse Tse flies (in Tarangira).  After a bit, the flies seemed to lose interest in us so we hung around and just enjoyed being out on the plains in the middle of nowhere without another human within 20 miles.

Soon after that, we turned back north to head back towards the lodge and I made a comment about how good the 4 wheel drive seemed to be on the Land Cruisers.  Sam immediately said, they aren’t great and he’d much rather have a Land Rover but the problem with them is that they break down every two or three safari trips.  He said there were places he just wouldn’t go with the Land Cruiser because he didn’t trust it.  It wasn’t 1 km later that we got stuck right up to the axles in a mud hole! 

Out we jump again, out comes the jack as we tried to get some large rocks under the wheels but we couldn’t lift the thing high enough (or rather our jack would sink into the mud faster than we could lift the vehicle despite putting some large patio stone sized rocks under it).  Just how far down does this mud go? 

Anyway, after about 10 minutes of horsing around with the jack, this ranger comes along in a light Land Rover about half the size of our Land Cruiser.   Our guide brings out this tow rope that looks like one of the ones we get at Princess Auto for $5 (the jack was the exact model of Chinese jack I’d bought at Princess Auto as well) and hooks on.  Unfortunately, our vehicle is just too bogged down… and the Land Rover was just digging a hole for itself.  Just as it was apparent that wasn’t going to work, a large 4x4 dump truck rolls along, pulls up and we hook up the tow rope to it.  The driver didn’t even wait for Sam to get behind the wheel and started pulling.  The cheapo rope of course couldn’t take it so it came apart at the seams (just like the one Dad bought about 2 years ago), so they search around in their truck and come out with a cable (really just a 75’ length of solid wire bent back on itself three times).  Anyway, they hook this up to us, Sam gets in and they drag us out, no muss, no fuss.  They all high five each other and then off they go.  A day in the life in Africa!

Anyway, we head through a bunch of other likely spots and don’t see a lot of activity but a few new animals here and there and after an hour long drive back on the plains had just about given up when we came across this pride of lions lying in the short grass right at the side of the road!  We stopped and admired them, again, lazy darn lions sleeping it off… and then one in another patch we hadn’t seen sticks his head up and its Mufasa again!  This pride was 14 lions…  quite cool.

Then we headed back towards the lodge and past the hippo pool again, and this time there is a lone hippo out wandering around in the grass not 25’ from the road!  She’s HUGE.  You don’t really get a good sense of how big they are until they are right beside your vehicle!  No way are you getting outside with one of them around!  Apparently they spend all day in the pool (pooping) and then come out at night to feed on the grass.  They “only” eat 35 Kgs of grass a day – compared to over 300 Kg’s for an elephant but their digestive system is many times more efficient.  You can see it in the spoor.  Elephant poop is nearly undigested whereas the hippo is the green slop I’m used to cleaning up after pigs. 

It’s getting dark, so we have to be off the roads so race back towards the lodge and come across a strange looking antelope with orange feet – a Topi.   They are quite a bit bigger than most of the antelope but have this strange habit of coating their horns in mud to make them more impressive.  A quite cool end to a very long day.