Tanzania Serengeti (Day 1)

     Today was a travel day.  A drive to the airstrip, a flight to the Kenya/Tanzania border (where our guide Aaron took very good care of us to get us through all of the lines), a handoff to our Tanzania guide and driver, a drive through the Tanzania countryside and villages, and a drive through the park to our tented cabin.  A long day.  Travel started at 7AM and ended at our lodge near just before 4PM for a late lunch.

     If you think that if you've seen one zebra/wildebeest, you've seen them all, come here and you will see them all.  Zebras and wildebeest as far as you can see.  In a couple of months, 2+ million wildebeest and almost half-a-million zebras will depart from here for the Great Migration to the Maasai Mara (the place we just left).

     The landscape around our lodge is surrounded by large rock outcrops (kopjes - small rocky hills or mounds of volcanic rock that protrude through the flat soil; the animals love them). Some pictures below - as I learn more, I will post.  After lunch at the lodge, we went on an abbreviated game-drive (Tanzania closes their parks at 6PM - 30 minutes earlier than Kenya).  During the drive, we spotted 3 of the Big-5 game animals (elephant, buffalo, lion - we have not yet spotted a leopard or rhino in Tanzania).  The last two will be a challenge. 

     The park is burning a lot of grass to make room for new growth (I am guessing that nesting animals [like ostriches with clutches of eggs] and slower animals [like reptiles] don't appreciate the effort so much).  That is sometimes making for some smoky conditions, even at the camp.  A little bit like Portland at the end of last Summer.

Back to the airfield at Maasai Mara

The border of the Mara Valley (left - we are traveling to the right)

After the drive to the Serengeti, this was the first creature I spotted (a mouse in the parking lot)

Yellow buffalo weaver bird

Zebras, zebras, zebras.  So, so many zebras.

Elephants near our camp (#1 of big 5 at Tanzania)

Many of our prior camps had a lot of monkeys running about.  This one has so many Rock Hyraxes (relatives to the elephant).  So, so many hyraxes.

Our camp is at the base of this rock kopje.

A klipspringer at the top of a kopje.

 Same image, zoomed out.

Zebras fighting for dominance

Cape buffalo (#2 of big 5)

I spotted this pair of lions lazing in the shade of a tree on a rocky outcrop (#3 of big 5) near the end of our drive today.  The sun was not in the most favorable position for pictures (close to sunset, and the lions were in the shade in the direction of the sun), but it was exciting to see. 

 Same image, zoomed out, with the silhouette of the tree providing shade to the lions on the rock below.

 Serengeti landscape

Zebras with the controlled burn behind.  The zebras don't seem to care too much.

Returning back to camp, an African Hoopoe.  A pretty, but strange-looking bird.