Well talk about a crazy morning, so many cats! But to start with last night was special, in a very Serengeti kind of way. At about midnight the Cape Buffalo visited our “tent”(it’s hard to call something that glorious and luxurious a tent) and were mooing, alarming, and rubbing along our tent. It was loud!!!! Then the predator must have moved off until about two when the Buffalo lost their minds again. Very in the bush. After checking out in the morning we got a short game drive to the airport and wow was it incredible! We started out with 3 female lions relaxing in the shade right off the bat, and a cute little Rock Hyrax hanging out on a giant boulder. Then we drive a little way and our Ranger spotted some cheetahs. As we got close we saw what an amazing find it was, five cheetah, one mom and four almost full grown cubs. They were all hanging out in the shade, the mom scanning the savannah for predators and prey. After that, a short drive later we saw a leopard lounging in a tree. It was such a large cat, gorgeous coat, happily waiting for some prey. Again, a short ride later, a true rarity, we saw a Serval cat. It looked like a cross between a cheetah and a bobcat, weighing maybe 20lbs. Normally they only hunt at night and wouldn’t be seen on Safari. I forgot to mention in earlier posts that in the Serengeti they only do game drives in the day where as in our lodge in South Africa they only do them at dawn and dusk. It had to do with the regulations in the different parks and public versus private land. Finally on our airport drop off/ game drive we saw a giant pack of mongoose, acting like mere cats and being truly adorable! Our estimated animal totals for the Serengeti:
24 lions
2 leopards
7 cheetah
100 Elephants and giraffe
0 Rhino 😥
200 hippos
2000 zebra
3-4000 wildebeest
And many many more!