The Serengeti

Yesterday we drove around the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater and on to the Serengeti with a stop at Olduvai Gorge where the Leakeys spent their entire careers discovering the skeletons of several early hominids as well as animals and other archeological treasures.  A docent gave us an excellent lecture, but first told us that the correct name is Oldupai, no Olduvai.  He asked us to correct this long time misspelling by telling everyone we knew that Oldupai is correct, so I am doing so.

We arrived at the Serengeti shortly after lunchtime but still had a several hour drive to our hotel.  It turns out that the Serengeti is the size of Connecticut and contains many different landscapes and terrains.  I had pictured going to a water source and seeing lots of animals but I had pictured wrong.  There were often giraffes, elephants, and zebras grazing nearby, but sometimes we drove for several minutes without seeing any animals.  When we did, however, it was spectacular.  The highlight of the day was watching a lioness nursing her three cubs.  Eventually, they all walked away, played with each other for a few minutes, and then lay down to go to sleep.

The second highlight was a large group of hippos.  Half were in the water doing … not much.  The other half were walking around on the bank ten feet or so above the water.  Eventually, the second half all walked over to a path and walked or slid down into the water.

The landscape in the Serengeti includes upthrust rock formations called kopjes (pronounced kopi).



 These are not single rocks, but piles of rocks, often with a larger one on top of a smaller one, and are very impressive.  Our driver, Bernard, likes to ask us questions that at first we thought were serious but we have learned are the kinds of riddles that my three year old grandson, Bobby, tells.  What do you call a lion sitting on a kopje?  A kopje cat.

Today we set out on a looong drive in the Serengeti.  We were scheduled to do a morning game drive and a late afternoon game drive, but the forecast was for rain in the late afternoon, so my group chose to just go out all day.  Imagine wandering around the state of Connecticut on dirt tracks; they are not even roads half the time.  We saw a lot of giraffes early in the drive, including two giraffes that had climbed up on a kopje.  The giraffes graze very close to the road, oblivious to us.

Early on, we saw another leopard in a tree.  And of course there were lots of elephants and zebra.  I never knew that there were ostriches in Africa.  I’m not sure where I thought ostriches are from, but they seem so incongruous here.  The male has a large black body with a pink neck and legs, while the female is gray.  A couple stays in the same area, but not too close together usually, even as far as half a mile apart.

It is hard to describe the scenery in the Serengeti.  Like the Ngorongoro Crater, if feels serene and peaceful here.  The kopjes are striking while the land is flat and goes on forever.  With our binoculars, we can literally see for miles.  Often when we are looking at an animal through binoculars, we see others “nearby,” and then look up to see that they are not close at all.

The only disappointment in the morning was that we did not see any rhinos.  They were not hanging out at the place where the guide thought they would be.  So we stopped for a delightful picnic lunch packed by the chef, and hopefully set out for the afternoon drive.  Within minutes, we came upon two cheetahs sitting under a tree.  They are beautiful.

It has rained a lot here so there are large areas of mud.  We saw warthogs and hyenas taking mud baths at the local spa.

A hyena lying under a tree 

A hyena mud bath

We did not see any wildebeests today, but we did see the great migration of zebras.  For as far as you could see zebras were marching in single file. And look how far you can see.

We were starting to get disappointed in the afternoon drive when we saw a lioness slowly walking in our direction.  Five gazelles who were in front of her all turned to watch her warily.  But a lioness cannot catch a gazelle and she did not even try.  She took off running parallel to the road, and we followed her in the jeep as she ran half a mile or more.  She slowed down and looked around again.  A warthog obliviously strolled in front of her.  Suddenly, the lioness took off after the warthog who ran away.  It turns out that even a warthog is too fast for a lioness, as long as he remembers to keep running.  The lioness gave up and went to rest under a tree.

It was getting late and we started heading back to the hotel, tired and sorry that we had not seen a rhino.  Then we saw a lot of jeeps pulled over with everyone looking in one direction.  Our guide said that that black spot far away was a rhino, but none of us were sure that we saw it, so we couldn’t count that.  We went on just a little further and there we saw it:  a black rhino.  It was at least a half mile away, so it appeared small even with our binoculars, but it was definitely a rhino.  So our group hit for the cycle today, seeing all of the Big Five in one day:  lion, cape buffalo, leopard, elephant, and rhino.

Near the rhino we saw something even more spectacular:  three lions in a tree.  A lion certainly looks majestic and he may be the king of the jungle, but lions are not the most feared animal here.  That is the huge and ugly cape buffalo.  With a herd of buffalo grazing nearby, the lions had taken refuge in the tree.  Lionesses frequently climb trees, but lions are too big to and rarely do.  But in this case, a lion and two lionesses were all sitting or standing on the lower limbs of the tree.

So we had crisscrossed an area the state of Connecticut for hours, and got to see absolutely incredible things.  A leopard in a tree, cheetahs under a tree, giraffes climbing rocks and standing right next to us, gazelles gracefully running, hyenas taking mud baths, a lioness stalking prey.  And that does not even count the gorgeous colorful birds that we saw all day.  My favorites were the superb starling and Fisher’s lovebirds.







We got used to our driver/guide's Bobby-level jokes. Why are a giraffe's head and body so far apart? Because it has a long neck. Cheryl in our group wracked her brain all day long to come up with a question for Bernard and finally came up with a winner. Why did the warthog cross the road? He forgot.

I won't forget today for a long time.