Serengeti Day 3




On to another mobile tented camp in the northern Serengeti. We left camp and did a game drive for a couple of hours, seeing the family of lions that we saw yesterday. There are about 8 -10 of them and today they were at the watering hole and the babies were all lapping it up from the bridge that had a stream flowing over it. They were so cute! By the time we left, the best viewing was over as they were snoozing under a nearby tree. But there were about 14 vehicles who had gathered to watch them. We moved on as Omari had heard there was a leopard nearby! My oh my, I will never ever spot a leopard by myself. It takes me so long to even find it after they spot one. This one was low on a tree and he blended so well that I don’t see how anyone could have spotted it. He must have lifted his head for someone to spot it. His head was hidden from us but his body was beautiful spread out on the tree limb. I can’t believe we did not have one leopard sighting before and this trip we have seen 4!!! I love it. We later spotted a mother and baby giraffe. The baby was only a few hours old and still had her umbilical cord dangling on her! She was still wobbly and following along behind her mother. It was so sweet! We saw more hyenas and jackals today-it was the silver backed jackal this time. We also spotted the small antelope that is found up here that we had not seen before okapi. We saw lots of Topi as well. We left the Serengeti national park and went through an area that is inhabited by a tribe that kill game to eat. They were given land just outside the Serengeti and they are trying to move them farther away and get them to stop the slaughtering which they are making progress with. We stopped in the town of Mowomo? To get a Coke and for Carolyn to use the internet. She was not successful so we moved on but it was fun to sit and watch the the people go about their business. We took a small dirt road back east across the land to the park again. Then we went on to our camp. It is better than the last one for sure. The tent has 4 separate areas. It has where the bed is, then you go through a curtain and there is a dressing room where we have our bags. Then you go through another curtain and you are in the toilet and sink area. The shower is right outside and you unzip to go out there. We have to take our showers in the afternoon as this camp has lots of lions around it and the workers can’t fill up the tanks after dark. We can both take a nice hot shower on the one tank of water. I have to say, I don’t think we have ever roughed it quite this much but we are doing fine. The dining hall is a tent and the meals are cooked over a fire. The last camp was poorly managed and there was only one man, Martin, who seemed to do much work-besides the chef. So I was ready to move on. Omari says this camp is much better run. So far it seems like it is. They both have taken care of us well in terms of supplying us with a battery to run Jim’s CPAP machine. What a difference this makes. We sent a shirt and pair of pants to the laundry at the last camp-thinking they were $1 each as that is what the other camps had been. Nope, there is a basket and the basket is $10. That is fine if they had told us but they didn’t. So it was a bit of a shock to pay that for the two items. Omari talked to the camp director and told him that he did not tell us that and we had no reason to expect it to cost that much so he reduced it for us. But for future OAT tented campers, beware that the mobile camps are $10 a basket if Legacy Safari is running the camp. This has been the most fantastic trip but I have to say I am getting tired. We have one more day of game drives and then we will fly back to Arusha and drive back to Nairobi from there. The rains have come early and this part of Tanzania is already pretty green. The wildebeest are coming back from the Masi Mari and we are seeing them in large groups. We are to the point that whatever we see if just gravy-we could not ask for more!!