Nicki:
We got so lucky yesterday! I can't believe how many animals we saw on the plains of the Serengeti. We got started at about 8am, and were out on our game drive until about 3:30pm. As we crossed the river to leave the hotel area, we saw a crocodile across from the hippos.
The hippos were mating as we passed, and then the males started getting pretty frisky with each other.
After moving on from the hippo pool, we ran across some giraffes chomping down on some trees, and one of them had a little visitor trying to catch a ride.
Just a little bit further down the road, my mom and I saw the most unexpectedly cute things I think we will ever see: baby warthogs! I know... Warthogs are weird and ugly, but they are so much so that they are actually kind of cute. And the baby versions are even cuter. There were six of them running in a line following their mom, their tails sticking straight up in the air. Willy informed us that they run with their tails in the air so they can keep track of their leader in tall grass. Take a look at these cute little suckers:
I think they are my new favorite/spirit animal.
When we finally got to the plains area of the park, we saw elephants, which I thought was really weird because they usually hang out in wooded areas. Willy and Omari explained to is that they were migrating to another wooded area. It made sense, because they looked like they were marching in a straight line and they were on a mission.
They are cute in kind of a strange way. I'm kind of fascinated by them.
You guys. This next part is so exciting. I feel like such a five year old. We saw the real Pride Rock. Like, from the Lion King. It was no big deal.
I might have squealed a little, like all my childhood dreams had come true.
Then Omari booked it off into what seemed like the most remote corner of the Serengeti plains, and there was absolutely nothing around us. We hadn't seen much wildlife for quite a while, and I was wondering why the hell we were out that far. But then we saw a group of safari vehicles, and when we joined them, we came upon a portion of a pride of lions, consisting of the adolescents. They were napping, obviously having already had their breakfast. There were eight lions in total: 3 males, and 5 females. We could tell they were young because some of them still had spots on their legs, and the males hadn't fully grown their manes.
When we decided that the lions weren't going to be moving for a long time, we decided to move along down the road, and some of us had to "check the tire pressure," if you know what I mean. Once everyone had been relieved (that the tires were full and still working, of course), we found another group of safari vehicles gathered around one of the very random rock formations on the Serengeti plains. Then, we finally saw our first leopard!
So now we only have the rhinoceros left to see of the "Big Five" animals. I know, we technically saw one in the crater two days ago, but it was so far away that it was more just a shadow of a rhino. I have photographic evidence of it, but it is so blurry that you can't even make out the horns. So that's our back-up rhino.
We moved back to what seems to be the main safari area of the park, and saw an array of different animals. Including baby elephants!
Next, we found yet another group of lions, presumably from a different pride since they were so far away from the other group. This time, it was two lionesses with eight babies between the two of them. The story goes that one of the mom as had just killed an impala or some sort of gazelle, and had gone to get the babies so that they could eat, and while she was gone, another member of the pride had stolen the meat off of her kill. So everyone seemed to be very hungry and antsy.
Then one of the mommas spotted some zebra coming in close, and so they started stalking them. The babies caught on, however, and ended up ruining the kill for their moms. It was kind of adorable, though. The babies crouched down and looked like they were going to attempt to pounce on the zebras themselves. The zebra noticed the babies and went running off in the direction from wence they came.
After that, we were on our way to the lunch area, and ended up having our second leopard sighting of the day! Willy assured us that we were very lucky to have spotted two in one day. I would have to agree with him!
We had a nice packed lunch at a designated picnic spot. And then went and visited with some more elephants.
And then we saw even more elephants!
And some giraffes...
Not only did we see a lot of animals yesterday, but we were even luckier to see all the baby animals that we saw. From warthogs, to lions, to elephants, to giraffes, we saw the cutest of the cute. I can't wait to see what tomorrow has in store for us.
The end. (Get it?)
Cindy:
Monday:
Today was amazing! We left the hotel at 7:30 for a full day game drive. Nicki's doing much better, thank goodness. We are on a mission to see lion, leopard and rhino today. The weather is beautiful and the day should be just as beautiful. No animals at the watering hole this morning, but we heard a lion's roar before we left. We think that's a good omen.
So our first stop was back at the hippo pond where Nicki got some great shots while I captured the crocodile.
Then we were off to find lions and leopards.......we saw giraffes, elephants, warthogs, birds, water buck, baboons, monkeys........and, then, there was a cluster of Toyotas, so we joined the cluster.......we watched a pride of lions for approximately 30 mins. There were 8 lions in this group. They were resting after their morning meal.... We were one of 10 vehicles watching these magnificent lions - in the wild - we were literally 15 feet away from them, maybe, 20 feet. I can't tell you how absolutely incredible it was to stand in our vehicle and watch these beautiful animals with Nicki, and Willy and Omari. We knew we were safe, but we were so close.......I will never forget this experience.
The Serengeti is so vast....so flat, except for random rock formations. Most of the herds have started their move north. Hopefully, we will see them tomorrow either from the air flying in or by jeep. All of the predators stay in their homeland, they don't follow the herds which I thought was interesting. Our real challenge for today is to find a leopard.....and we did, he was up in a rock formation and he was beautiful, again, thanks to Nicki and her camera, we got some really good shots of him.
Today was amazing! We left the hotel at 7:30 for a full day game drive. Nicki's doing much better, thank goodness. We are on a mission to see lion, leopard and rhino today. The weather is beautiful and the day should be just as beautiful. No animals at the watering hole this morning, but we heard a lion's roar before we left. We think that's a good omen.
So our first stop was back at the hippo pond where Nicki got some great shots while I captured the crocodile.
Then we were off to find lions and leopards.......we saw giraffes, elephants, warthogs, birds, water buck, baboons, monkeys........and, then, there was a cluster of Toyotas, so we joined the cluster.......we watched a pride of lions for approximately 30 mins. There were 8 lions in this group. They were resting after their morning meal.... We were one of 10 vehicles watching these magnificent lions - in the wild - we were literally 15 feet away from them, maybe, 20 feet. I can't tell you how absolutely incredible it was to stand in our vehicle and watch these beautiful animals with Nicki, and Willy and Omari. We knew we were safe, but we were so close.......I will never forget this experience.
The Serengeti is so vast....so flat, except for random rock formations. Most of the herds have started their move north. Hopefully, we will see them tomorrow either from the air flying in or by jeep. All of the predators stay in their homeland, they don't follow the herds which I thought was interesting. Our real challenge for today is to find a leopard.....and we did, he was up in a rock formation and he was beautiful, again, thanks to Nicki and her camera, we got some really good shots of him.
We then headed to the picnic area for lunch and on the way we spotted two momma lions and their cubs- each of them had 4 cubs. It was so cute to watch them playing, and then both mommas started staring off in the distance-then they both crouched down - we followed their line of sight and 4 unsuspecting zebra were wandering our way.
The lions started their approach.....I was a little worried that things were going to get ugly....and I, frankly, didn't know how the two of us were going to handle it.....thank god that the little ones tried to prove themselves by stalking the prey and they gave the whole thing away......the zebra dashed for freedom after giving the babies a look that said "really!" They knew that momma wasn't far away so they ran for the hills.
Honestly, those babies were so cute.....reminded us of Winnie and Zoey.
We had another surprise on our way to lunch, a beautiful male leopard fast asleep up in a tree. I couldn't believe that he could be a comfortable as he appeared to be.
Leopard are solitaire creatures. When they kill they drag their kill up into a tree to protect it from the other predators and they can munch on it for several days that way.
After our lunch break we cruised back towards the hotel. We stopped by the sleeping leopard and he hadn't moved an inch. Then we drove on to see more elephant babies with their mommas and herds. Very cute!
We got back to the 4 Seasons about 3:30 and decided to get caught up on the blog. We had dinner in a new section of the lodge and we were entertained by Maasai dancers performing a dance depicting the lion hunt - which they use to do, but don't anymore. The dance was very interesting, they do a lot of jumping in their dances- up and down while they are chanting. Fun....then we walked through the discovery center at the hotel which showed us the entire area with tons of information and artifacts. Glad we got to do that as it was closed earlier in the afternoon.
So, tomorrow we are off for the last stop in Africa. We are traveling to the Maasai Mara on three small planes- probably taking off and landing on dirt runways......I'll be a seasoned traveler after this trip!!!!!
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