This is going to be a long post, but trust me it’s worth it to read the entire thing because the Serengeti was amazing!!! We left early on Sunday morning and began the long drive to our camp. We had to travel through Ngorongoro so we went past the crater again and it is amazing what a little rain can do to the place because it was 10 times greener than the first time we were there. We made our first stop at Olduvai which is where we think the human race began, we had a speaker and he was quite hilarious and gave us a lot of great information.
Once in the Serengeti we were able to see the wildebeests on the Great Migration!! There were 5,000 wildebeests grazing, and I wish this was an exaggeration but there were at least 5,000 of them it was incredible. When we got to camp it was raining so we had to set up our tents in the rain which was kind of a bummer, but that was the only time it rained besides in the middle of the night and all the professors were saying that it rains every year multiple times so we got lucky.
The next morning we went on a game drive at 7 and watched giraffes. It was a pretty calm morning and we saw lions and some other animals. Then after lunch we went to a lecture were we talked to two people, one who is a graduate student from minnesota, about their lion research. They live in the Serengeti and go look at lion prides all day, I’m completely jealous. After lecture we went on another game drive and we saw LEOPARDS!!!! Which means I have finished the Big 5 and I have seen all of them (leopards, elephants, lions, rhinos, and buffalo). The leopards were defiantly the highlight of the day. At night we sit and play cards and talk to the staff then we are always dead tired. The staff likes to play “Last Card” which is like uno but with normal cards and they get a kick out of it. I lost so many times Yohana kept telling me I had to buy all his candy bars.
Tuesday morning we woke up and went birding at 7 again and then we did another game drive. We had the old car and we weren’t able to turn off the engine because it was break down and then people had to get out and push. We were sitting and watching lions at one point, and then all of the sudden we heard a hissing noise... we randomly got a flat tire. So Ninah and Yohana had to get out of the car and fix it with the lions about 50 meters away. Then we went to the visitors center for another lecture and to just take a look around for a little break. Then another game drive! We were on the hunt for cheetahs but we ended up driving around forever and seeing no animals at all. We found some lions sitting about 10 meters from our car and we watched them for a while, it was a male and a female. We were getting ready to leave and we say something running towards us, when it got closer we realized it was a baby wildebeests who must have gotten separated from its mother, and it ran right to where the lions were. Everyone began to freak out and then the female lion attacked it. Honestly watching this happen was awesome. So we saw a lion hunt, kind of... more like home delivery. That night there were about 4 buffalo hanging out by the bathroom, slightly alarming.
Yesterday we went on another morning game drive and we went to the hippo pool and we got to see hippos fight! We also so giraffes fighting, which is a very slow process. We went to the lodge and had the buffet, I finally got to eat a salad! And then we went swimming for a bit. After swimming we went on yet another game drive! Yesterday all before 9 A.M. we saw a leopard and a cheetah and two hyaenas , one of which was sitting in a mud puddle and looked like a little bear. Then last night we had an SFS first, a male lion came to camp. Everyone was sitting by the fire and all of the sudden we heard a roar and all the professors got real tense and Whitney told us to go to our tents. Other tour guides with the other people who were at our site hopped into their cars and chased it away and we all saw it leave. All the students thought it was awesome.
This morning we packed everything up and headed home. We all finally got to shower and I washed the layer of dust off me. I’m sure I missed a bunch of stuff that occurred but I hit the main points. The trip was awesome and I can’t wait for our expedition in Kenya!
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