We got up early this morning for our big game drive
in the Serengeti. We had a big impromptu night drive in so we had high hopes for the day. It got off to a slow start but didn’t let us down. We drove and saw lots of animals from the get go – hippos, giraffes, zebras, wildebeests, buffalo and tones of gazelles. We were constantly on the lookout for 
more lions but they proved fairly elusive.
We finally caught a glimpse of some skulking through the high grass but we can’t off road and they were too far off. One thing about the Serengeti is that it is awesome and
gorgeous. The name comes from Ma – the Maasai language – and roughly means endless plain, which it definitely feels like. We proceeded to probe various areas where our driver thought the 
lions would be. This involved mainly driving around more simbakopjes and looking for lions on the rocks. We did finally find some high on the rocks, ostentatiously keeping an eye on the plains for easy game. I think there were three up there but they were hard to see and partially obscured.
We soon took off and kept looking to see what 
we could find.Much to our surprise we stumbled directly on to three lionesses out in the grass. Two of them were almost completely hidden while the third was perched on a low dirt mound looking out towards the migrating herds of zebras and wildebeests. It was crazy how close we got and how much they didn’t care about us.
Soon it was time to head back to the camp for lunch and to pack up to move to the Crater. On the way out of the Serengeti we ran right into the middle of the beginning of the migration… thousands and thousands of zebras and wildebeests!!
It was amazing and astounding. We eventually made it through and went past the gates and ou cheetahs were still lazing about by the road. Our next stop was at the Oldupai (not Olduvai as the Germans originally misnamed it a long time ago) Gorge.
Oldupai is commonly known as the Cradle of Mankind and is the source of many of the most important archaeological discoveries pertaining to human evolution. The Leakeys found several of the most important remains of hominids in this area, including Lucy (the oldest known) and footprints of various hominids. Considering this was a large part of what I studied at UNC, I was extremely interested and dumbfounded. There are actually digs still going on too…..Off from Oldupai we went back up the Crater rim round to the campsite. We had a nice lush area but it was also very chilly. We saw a beautiful sunset and had a nice dinner and some wine. As we sat near the fire, one of the girls noted to that everyone should be careful as there were buffalo at the bottom of the campsite. Well as the night wore on, they grazed their way up to and amongst the tents. It was awe inspiring to see these huge animals so close and so docile. Maybe it was the wine but it was cool and potentially a little frightening. Anyways it was off to bed.
That is until the calm of the night was broken by a horrible, blood curdling scream… apparently some Dutch or Norwegian girls in a different tour had not been told or chose to ignore the advice not to put any food in their tent… This led to a large bush pig ripping into their tent and laying waste to the place. They were even going to just try and go back to sleep. Finally one of the girls from my trip prevailed upon them the benefits of putting any remaining food in their truck and going to share tents with someone else form their trip and not remaining in a ripped tent that has food still in it, especially since there were wild animals around…
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