Serengeti National Park

Wow! Serengeti was simply AMAZING! We left on the approximately six hour journey on July 1 bright and early so we could get there while it was still light out. On the way, we stopped at Olduvi Gorge, which is known as the cradle of mankind. Four different types of human ancestor remains were found at the gorge. There was also a cast of the footprints left by one of the early humans at the visitor center. They also had bones from several animal ancestors, such as the giraffe and elephant. After we had a quick lecture from one of the guides at the gorge, we got back in the vans and continued on to the Serengeti. At the gate to Serengeti we stopped and ate our lunch. There was a hike up to the top of one of the rock outcroppings and at the top you could see all of the Serengeti. It was beautiful! We had a two hour game drive through Serengeti on the way to our campsite, since our campsite was almost directly in the middle of the park. We saw lots of zebra and wildebeest and three female lions sleeping on top of a rock. At about 5 pm we made it to our campsite and started to set up our tents. Our tents are the old canvas kind and setting them made me miss my easy American tents quite a bit. One of our poles broke and I had to hold up the middle pole for about five minutes, but the tent weighed probably about 40 pounds and it was really hot inside them. I could only keep thinking about how I can set up my tent alone in about ten minutes. The campsite was pretty nice. It had an enclosed kitchen and a flush toilet and two showers. The showers were cold but it was nice to at least rinse all the dust out of your hair after a couple days. During the first night, we had a couple hyenas come through camp, but we had two guards so I felt pretty safe. The hyenas are mostly just curious about people anyways. The next day was devoted to game driving all day. In the morning we got to see part of the great migration. There were zebra and wildebeest everywhere you looked. It was insanely amazing! We also stopped at one rock outcropping that the Maasai used to use as a communication device by hitting rocks against another rock. It sounded pretty similar to a gong. We also saw several Maasai drawing at another rock we stopped at. Later in the afternoon, we saw a leopard so I officially completed the Big Five! The next day we got up bright and early so we could go bird watching for two hours in the morning. We had to perform transects for two hours of all the bird species we found. We didn't find two many birds at first, but we saw a couple interesting ones including a small owl. We got a break for a couple hours after we had breakfast and then visited the Serengeti visitor's center for a lecture. There's really cute rock hyrax and dwarf mongooses that live all around the visitor's center. The rock hyrax remind me of a cuter version of the rat monster thing from the Princess Bride. After the lecture, we had a game drive for the rest of the day. We had another birthday and we celebrated by making s'mores at the campfire. I had an extra chocolate bar so we taught two staff members how to make s'mores since they had never had them before. It was really funny to watch them figure out how to eat it but they both enjoyed them! That night a pride of lions killed a buffalo pretty close to our camp. Some people said they could hear it, but I slept through the whole thing! The next day was the fourth of July and we celebrated by taking a game drive all day. In the morning we saw fifteen lions! We got to see two mating a few times, which was a very noisy affair and highly entertaining. We also got to see four cubs with their mother who had a radio collar. Not too far from the cubs we found a dead cheetah. It was pretty sad to see but it was interesting to see one so close up. Our driver said the lions most likely killed the cheetah so it wouldn't kill any of the cubs. Before lunch we stopped at the hippo pool and there were hippos everywhere! We even got to see a couple fighting. We had lunch at the Serena Lodge, which was really good. Other people got to have two or three desserts, but our waiter would only let us have one, which we were pretty disappointed about. I swam for a little bit just so I could feel a little cleaner and then we had a game drive for the rest of the afternoon. After dinner we sang God Bless America and the national anthem as a way to celebrate the fourth. The next morning we had to break down our tents and pack our truck so we could start our journey back to Moyo Hill. We had a game drive on the way out of the park and we saw a lion try and attack a hyena! She didn't catch him but we finally got to see a lion run/hunt. The road back was really dusty so everyone thoroughly enjoyed their hot showers when we got back to camp. Serengeti was an amazing experience and I am so grateful I got to visit!