Andre and Wendy: Serengeti to Arusha

This morning we woke up to lots of well needed rain. We headed out to breakfast at about 6:45 and there was a guard waiting outside our tent to walk us to the dining room, this is a first. Turns out there were 2 lion around the other side of the camp earlier this morning, OK we'll take the highly secure guard with the flashlight, thanks. We also decided to have the free champagne that is included at breakfast and made mimosas, cheers to our last morning on safari.

Cheers, champagne with breakfast for our last morning in the Serengeti

Mom and baby again

Watch the steps at night!

Bare Faced Go away Bird

Cliff Chat

After we checked out one of the staff asked us if we would like to go on a walking tour that afternoon. Darn, we were leaving this afternoon, had we known about the walk I am sure we would have done it one of the last 2 days. I think this may be a new thing here as they were asking us if we had done walks at other lodges, and how much we had paid for them.

Felix picked us up at 7:30 and we were off for a couple of hours of game drive before we had to go to the airport. There has not been a lot of wildlife when we first got here outside the camp, but that changed today, maybe the rain? First off within a km there are a few elephants right beside the road, including a very new baby, probably no more that a couple of weeks old. There was one jeep in front of us that left the camp right before us that was stopped, as well as another jeep right in front of them. The one in front of us was kind of blocking the road of the elephants trying to cross the other side, not good. The elephant then moved forward to walk around, not nice stopping where they did. The driver had his reverse lights on which made no sense then he got out of the jeep and came back to talk to Felix. Felix checked his watch, started backing up and said there were lions just a km from the resort.

Tiny tiny baby right by the camp

So back we go towards the resort, go by about another km and see a huge dead cape buffalo with two male lions. Yuck, this was fresh kill, lots of gutts and stuff hanging out. Felix went on to tell us all about the eating order again, they eat this part then this part etc. Then they rest for an hour or so, then eat again, then rest for an hour or so, then they come back and eat the flesh last, then the rest is for the hyenas and vultures last. Two males caught this buffalo, it was huge, Felix says normally it would take 4 or 5 lions to take it down, so they must have worked very hard. After seeing this I am sure this is why we had an escort to breakfast, these must be the 2 lions that were around camp, now I am also kinda glad we did not know about the walk.

Lions taking a break after eating

Felix says they start with the organs, as seen above....yuck

Back on the road again and Felix hit the brakes to let us watch some happy Impalas. Again not sure if it was because of the rain, but we have seen thousands of impalas so far this trip and never seen this behavior. They were running back and forth about 100 yards, going really fast then kicking their back legs in the air, I hope Andre got a good video of this, it was great to watch.

Very happy impala kicking their heals up!

First traffic jam we came to was a line up to watch the buzzards eating off the carcass of the buffalo that we had waited so long to see 2 days ago with the lions. Nothing much left on the carcass.

This big truck was on safari, sure causes a bit of a mess when it decides to stop

This is what was left of the buffalo we saw from 2 days ago!

Next traffic jam was a male lion sitting at the base of a tree. Funny seeing so many jeeps again, it has been a while since we've seen much traffic at all, and this is only 1 hour drive from where we have been staying.

Our drive to the airport and pretty much had a smorgasbord of all the animals and many birds we had seen

Von der Deckens Hornbill snacking on termites

We did have a couple more traffic jams, and our first "mud" on the road today

The last big group of elephants we saw :(

For Joey

Cool picture of a Marabou Stork Landing

Spur Winged Plover

Banded Mongoose

Fischer's Lovebird with the Lilac breasted Roller

Next stop for us was to watch two impalas fighting, again we took a video. One thing I wish is that we had taken more video. I know we have over 5000 pictures (Andre went a little crazy, surprised?), but not too many videos.

Next stop was 2 giraffes that were very frisky. I asked Felix if they were mating as we approached and he said no it was 2 males. Well, they must have been gay, or practicing or something...

Next stop is the airport. We chose to fly back from the Central Serengeti to Arusha rather than do the drive. We had read how rough the drive was and chose to only have to do it one way. The plane lands, the pilot gets off and looks for the passengers. Good-byes to Felix and we are off.

This is where we spent the majority of the last 2 weeks

Good byes to Felix at the airport

We were the only 2 boarding here, there were already 11 others on board, and off we go. Pre flight announcement, pilot turns around, says the flight is 50 minutes and keep your seat belt on.

Buckle in for the 50 minute flight

This is why we packed so lightly!

Flight was a little bumpy, we had hoped to see some of Ngorongoro crater, but either we missed it, or it was the part that was under cloud cover. We did have some pretty views when we first started, but not as nice as I thought it may have been as we went along.