The Serengeti airstrip is literally a strip. It was certainly the first time I’ve landed on a runway that had gazelle tracks on it. There is a building where our guide, Morgan, went to get our paperwork for being in the park. Also, there are bathrooms. Actual bathrooms with flushing toilets as opposed to the hole in the ground I was expecting. It was certainly not Amsterdam Schipol, but better than I expected.
Once Morgan had our paperwork ready, we were off to our camp. Though he wanted to show us some of the central park on our way, we had to hurry a bit as you’re not supposed to be in the park after 6pm and with our late departure it was already 5. We seemed to hit the animal jackpot the moment we left the airport. First we ran into a troop of baboons. Well, not actually ran into, that would be awful. There were several babies, one being carried on its mother’s back. Soon after the baboons were monkeys. Morgan called them black faced monkeys but after checking my guide book I think they were Vervet Monkeys. Both the baboons and the monkeys just wandered around the side of the road, paying us little attention.
I should take a moment here to thank my husband for letting me borrow his nice Canon EOS 20D. I haven’t told him this yet, but a monkey actually snatched it out of my hand and ran off with it. I kid, I kid! It’s fine honey. A bit dusty but working well. Love you! I will say though, it is a fancy camera and I instantly forgot most of the crash course he gave me. I spent the first 24 hours in the Serengeti convinced that all my photos were blurry and awful because I wasn’t doing something right. It turns out that most of them are blurry and awful but I got a lot of amazing ones too. My goal was to take so many photos that a few just had to come out well. It seems to have worked. Next time though, Rich gets to come along and he can have the nice camera…and use it properly!
Continuing our path southward through the Serengeti we went past a little pool with a few hippos but they were so submerged that even the telephoto lens could only barely make them out. But still…hippos! We found a lone giraffe by the side of the road and then headed through the gates out of the Serengeti. Our camp was technically in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area just south of the Serengeti. There are about five conservation areas, included Serengeti National Park, that make up one of the largest undisturbed and most diverse ecosystems in the world.
Finishing our drive to camp we really got a taste of the great migration, driving through a herd of hundreds, if not thousands, of Wildebeests. Though they were divided into “small” groups, they stretched as far as the eye could see. Zebras were scattered amongst the herd as well as Grants and Thompson’s Gazelles. We also saw a hyena, jackal, and a cheetah. Morgan said that people often go days and don’t see a cheetah so we must be very lucky to see one the first night. The luck continued for most of the game drive as we ended up seeing nine cheetahs.
When we arrived at our camp, there was a huge campfire going and we were once again greeted with fresh juice. After a few minutes by the fire we sat down to a dinner that could have come from a four-star restaurant but instead came from a shed about 30 meters from the dining tent. The starter was a leek soup and mains was spiced lamb, roasted potatoes (a bit different from ours, almost slightly sweet), a sort of stew with vegetables in spices (Mom thinks there were bananas too but I don’t recall them), and a cucumber tomato salad. We had been warned not to eat the salads but Lara reminded us that most good camps, lodges, and restaurants have figured out how to safely clean their fruit and veg as competition is fierce and they can’t afford to have bad reviews. The camp manager said dessert was banana mouse but it was really a pudding. By either name, it was delicious.
After being walked to our tent by flashlight, we settled in quickly. The tent was quite substantial with two twin beds and a dressing table in one room and bathroom in a separate section. The tents used solar power for evening lighting which made it easy to forget you were in a tent and not a hotel room. However, the bumpy floor beneath the tent surface was a fast reminder, especially if you had to wander across it at 2am. It required more dexterity than most midnight potty runs! Wake up call would be 6am so we headed to bed before too long. I had trouble falling asleep and heard some odd noises outside that I assumed were a wildebeest grunting. In the morning our guide said it was actually a lion. It turns out the MGM lion’s roar is quite rare, maybe only for use in fights. Morgan also said that a lion can roar five miles away but sound like it’s just outside the tent. Or he could be lying and lions really were just outside our tent but they tell us the other to keep us calm. I wasn’t about to go out and check.
After the grunting lion I fell pretty quickly to sleep, until about midnight when the thunderstorm moved in. I was awoken by distant thunder, rumbling so low that I thought the nearby wildebeest were stampeding until it stopped too soon. Then the next clap was closer, and again even closer. Soon the light rain became a downpour, pelting our tent. I actually woke up thinking I had left the fan on because of the constant patter of rain, but of course I wasn’t home and we didn’t have a fan. It was a bit disorienting to say the least.
I’ve reached one thousand words so I think I will save day two for another post. Oh, and hey…thanks for reading!
(P.S. Posting from a very slow connection so I'm doing the best I can with photos but not sure exactly how it will turn out!)
No comments:
Post a Comment