Serengeti Safari

Serengeti National Park is an area protected from civilisation and people as much as possible, as big as Belgium. Not even the local natives are allowed to move around there freely. Several hundred thousand animals live there and we're lucky that right now is the migration season, when endless herds of buffalo, wildebeest, zebras and antelopes have set off...

In the morning a big breakfast and surveying the damage after a night in a smelly tent full of mosquitoes. Since it's January, a massive migration awaited us all day long. Even though I've been making a living off migrations for a few years now, this was a completely different kettle of fish. We drove for more than two hours along a dusty road and the whole time on both sides of the road there was an endless, 100% flat plain full of zebras, wildebeest, buffalo, gazelles, antelopes. I've definitely never seen so many animals in my whole life, let alone all in one place. They were happily munching on grass and the cars didn't interest them much. Sometimes we even had to stop and let them cross, because (as Don wittily remarked) the grass is always greener on the other side of the road. It's a shame you can't really photograph it properly, because the landscape is so flat that the tens of thousands of animals only make a horizontal line in the picture.

Late in the afternoon we arrived at a place where the landscape rippled a bit, trees started growing there and around a cluster of smaller rocks somebody had built an absolutely luxurious residence, beautifully fitting into the landscape and seemingly growing together with the rocks. To our great shock this was our refuge for the following 2 days. I've slept all sorts of places, but this was definitely the most beautiful accommodation I've ever experienced. Everything made of dark varnished wood, glass, everything carefully set into the rock or giant boulders, a pool in the hollow between two rocks, a waterfall into the pool, a terrace with a view of the lake and the slightly frosted savannah and, to complete the effect, right below the pool terrace a giraffe was grazing in the light of the setting sun. Gorgeous. Dinner in grand style in a wooden dining room with one wall formed by the rock, with water running down it (and dripping straight onto a power socket), 4 black guys playing the drums and I almost felt like I don't even belong in such luxury 🙂.

Before dinner we also saw a leopard with a cub up in a tree and since it was pretty far away, the telephoto came in very handy, and so did the tripod. Unfortunately you weren't allowed to get out of the car and you'd never believe that a car with the engine off never stops swaying slightly. Even less so when 5 people with cameras are running around in it. Luckily everybody agreed that photos from my gear would be useful to all, so now and then, at my request, they stopped breathing 🙂. Apart from the leopard we also got very close to a herd of hippos, but the lazy buggers didn't come out of the water at all.

The guides here are generally obsessed with sunrises, they probably think tourists are too. So we got up at half past four. We waited until half past five for Abdullah (guide and driver) to bring the car round and then we set off. Because during the day most animals sleep. I was hoping we'd see some action at such an ungodly hour. Ideally a pride of lions taking down a buffalo, or a leopard snatching a gazelle 🙂. Unfortunately we didn't meet a living soul all morning, apart from a few Toyotas with white mugs in them. So at least I shot a few silhouettes of an umbrella tree against the rising sun. The leopard tree was empty and when we came back there after a luxurious breakfast at the lodge, the leopardess and her cub were back in the tree and on a branch next to her she had half a bloodied gazelle hanging like in a butcher's shop. During the day we then saw a few sleeping lionesses and finally a lioness with two cubs in a tree. In the end they woke their mother up and made her climb down, so I finally have photos of lions in motion too.

In the morning I was the only one willing to get up. At six I quickly had breakfast and set off with just Abdullah and the Toyota. Of course I was hoping to bag some action shots for the cover of National Geographic 🙂.

But since we hadn't come across a single animal even after an hour of driving, I found myself other entertainment. Since we'd already gone quite far from the lodge towards the hills where the lions were supposed to be, I asked Abdullah to let me drive. A huge off-road Toyota with a superstructure for white mugs, that was something for me. Since it was just after the rain, the roads were really rough and once we even got completely stuck. Abdullah jumped out and engaged the diff locks, I switched on the all-wheel drive and I was already ramming it through the mud forward, backward, forward, backward until I dug us out of it.

A bit further on I see some kind of cat with tufty ears sitting on the road. It was a very rare predator called a caraco, or something like that. Even though I first had to stop, grab the camera and open the window, I managed to bag a few nice shots.

Abdullah told us that he used to be a cameraman for Discovery Channel and shot nature documentaries about lions and leopards with them. That was also the last time he'd seen a caraco, never with tourists.

Then we drove back for Don and picked up the others 45 min. late. On the way out of the park we also saw a lion – a male – sunning himself on a rock together with a female. Lions have a good life, because the females hunt for them. So exactly the opposite of people 🙂.

The last night we were supposed to spend at the camp again, only Jeff and Mistery in a luxurious 5* lodge, both on the rim of the Ngorongoro crater. Unfortunately Hana got a urinary tract infection and so, because of the cold, she was afraid to sleep at the camp. Abdullah tracked down a doctor and by some miracle he had antibiotics for treating urinary tract infections on him. We were issued 2 extra sleeping bags and after watching a Maasai show in the hotel bar we headed off towards the camp. Even though Hana was peeing blood, we didn't feel like staying in a hotel for $605 a night. Well, mainly I didn't. Just as we were getting into the car, the hotel's general manager came running after us, saying the lady should be comfortable since she's ill and that he'd give us a special price of $440, or $220 just for her. I still didn't feel like it, but once we started haggling with a laugh and bargained it down to $350 including dinner, breakfast and lunch for both of us, we stayed there after all. It's a hefty sum, but what could we do. Illness is illness. So at least we enjoyed a luxurious dinner of about 10 courses, a splendid hot shower big enough for a rhino and the warmth of the fireplace in the bar. Jeff was glad they weren't staying there alone, but Mistery dragged him out of the bar at about ten and I stayed there alone with Abdullah and a bottle of South African red.