We awoke early the morning of our Serengeti game drive. Our travel partners, Nick and Janie, had a rather exciting morning, as they couldn’t leave their room due to an elephant standing on their front porch. I don’t think it gets wilder then that! We made our way through the Serengeti, passing by herds of gazelle and impala (which my dad had a great deal of difficulty telling apart). We then came upon a large flowing river, complete with a (what ever you call a group... maybe a heap) of hippos. My father then did a very typical thing; while the rest of us were marveling in the wonder of the hippos and crocodiles, he wandered off into the tall grass to look at a very thrilling plant. This, of course, made our driver very nervous. No matter how many times our driver told him that things that can eat him hide in the tall grass, he still wandered off every once in a while.
Our driver then got a call on his radio that “something cool” (that’s all he would tell us in case the animal left before we could get there) was up ahead, so we rushed up the road to see what was there. Not too long after, we saw what we had been looking for. Way up in a tree, not far from the road, was a beautiful leopard. We were not the only ones who “got the call” and we were soon joined by about 5 other jeeps. Once the crowds started to gather we decided it was best to continue on our way.
Since most of the animals had yet to migrate to the long grass plains that we were in, we then drove about an hour (past the ranger station with the horrible washrooms) to the short grass plains that we had passed through the day before. Renatus then drove off the normal road where the other jeeps were going, onto a mud path (which could barely be considered a road) in a direction that seemed to be going away from all the herds of animals. Though no one voiced any concern, I know we all were skeptical about his decision to take us out into the middle of nowhere, thinking that it wouldn’t lead us to see any animals (let alone the cool ones). For the next half hour we drove through the plains, seeing only a few distant herds of zebra, and some flocks of storks (which, of course, my dad found absolutely fascinating and made us stop multiple times for him to take thousands of pictures). The lack of animals around us just added to the concern that we had driven hours, only to see nothing. The running joke through the jeep was that we got to see all the cool herbivores, but where were the lions to eat them (I know I sound gross/morbid, but how cool would it be to see a lion jump out of nowhere and pulverize a gazelle, just like in National Geographic!!).In true Renatus style, he delivered us what we had been anxiously searching for, and out of what seemed like endless empty plains, came a pride of lions. The pride of lions, complete with cubs, was about 20 meters from the road (unfortunately, in the Serengeti there are strict rules as to where one can and cannot drive off road, and the lions were on the side of the path where all off-roading was prohibited). As we watched the lions in awe, Renatus explained that he had seen a very distant jeep which he recognized as that of a lion and hyena researcher and he knew where there were researchers, there were lions (which is even more testament to his keen eyes, as I, for the longest time, thought that the specific jeep he spotted in the distance was not even a jeep at all, but an elephant!).
We then continued down the road about 5 minute when Renatus stopped abruptly and popped out his binoculars, peering off into the distance. We then took off toward the direction he was looking, leaving the rest of us confused as to what he saw. Moments later, we finally understood why he had zoomed off so abruptly. Lying in the grass, only a few meters away from the jeep, was a medium sized cheetah with a freshly caught gazelle (she had caught it only moments before). It was, quite possibly, the best thing we saw the entire trip. As we watched the cheetah lay the grass, Renatus explained that when cheetahs chase down prey, they get so tired and hot from running that they require an up to 30 minute rest period before they can start eating. We decided that there was no better place to stop and have lunch. So, as the cheetah, only meters away, was munching on her gazelle, we opened out lunch boxes and dug into our sausage rolls, roast beef sandwiches and lemon muffins (now seriously, how cool is it that we can say we had lunch with a WILD cheetah!!!). As we drove away from the cheetah about half an hour later, I couldn’t help but look back, and marvel one last time at the beauty of one of the most amazing animals doing what comes so naturally.
One of the really cool things about the safari jeep we were in was that its roof lifted, allowing you to stand as we drove. Though seeing all the really cool animals was awesome, there was something unexplainable about just standing and letting the wind blow through you hair as we drove through the Serengeti, admiring the beauty that was around us.
As we drove deeper into the short grass plains, we passed by many cool sights, including vultures picking at the last remains of a carcass, a family of warthogs, and many more enormous herds of zebra and gazelle. We then came upon a fuzzy lump that was lying in a rut in the center of the road. Though it was not obvious what the brown fuzzy thing was, one thing that was obvious was that it wasn’t moving. As we got closer, we realized that it was a hyena, and feared that it was dead. Once we were directly beside the hyena, it emerged from its slumber (we were convinced it was dead) and gave us the most disgusted look for waking it up. We were sure it would then wander off (it was sleeping in the MIDDLE of the road we were driving on!) but it just lay there waiting instead for us to move. We politely obliged, and continued driving.
Only minutes after we had passed the hyena, Renatus spun the car around and headed back in the direction we had just come from (the hyena definitely wasn’t impressed to have us bother him again as we came by). Though we were kind of curious why the abrupt change in direction, by now we had learned to trust Renatus, as these side journeys almost always lead to a cool animal sighting. As usual, we were not disappointed, and he brought us only feet from a large pride of lions. The pride consisted of a male with 5 females and 4 cubs. What a sight it was to watch the cubs pounce all over each other and pester their mother. It was also pretty cool to see how the lions positioned themselves around the cubs as to offer maximum protection. We watched the lions for a while, and then started off on our 2 hour drive back to the lodge. The drive back to the lodge was uneventful (well by uneventful I mean we saw the normal zebra, wildebeest, giraffe etc.. By this point, I’m sad to say, we had all gotten pretty blasé about these animals as we saw so many in passing) and the ride home was quite as the bumping around all day had tuckered everyone out. That night we all slept well, knowing we had seen some of the coolest things Africa has to offer.
