Adventures of MonkeyHouse: Serengeti and Nyikani Migration Camp, Tanzania

Full video walkthrough of our Nyikani Tent

Another unbelievable day. We went to sleep in total darkness and we woke up at 5:30am in total darkness - still no electricity :( We got ready by flashlight and called on the radio for our escort, armed with a flashlight. To double our chances of survival if we were attacked, I, too, carried a flashlight. We made it to breakfast without incident. After a quick breakfast, we were off for a full day game drive - 10 hours, to be exact. As we were heading out of Nyikani, we caught an amazing sunrise. It was raining slightly, but not enough to close up the windows of the cruiser.

Sunrise!

Before describing our day, I want to share more detail about the area. Whereas South Africa (from our visit six years ago) was heavy brush, the Serengeti is a lot of grasses, spotty acacia trees, and some scrub. What that means is that it is possible to see vast areas in all directions, which dramatically increases the ability to see animals, and other things. For example – the landscape is dotted with termite mounds – piles of dirt and grass everywhere. Also, there are bleached white bone fragments, skeletons, and partially desiccated corpses everywhere.

Dem bones

Bones and skulls everywhere

One of hundreds of desicated animals

You can’t drive more than a minute without seeing some sign of a kill. Most are old, but there are plenty that are more recent in all stages of decay.

The primary reason to come to Northern Serengeti this time of year is for the wildebeest migration. 1.5 million wildebeest and 500,000 zebra migrate from Tanzania (south) into Kenya (north) to find better grass for grazing. Sometimes they go back and forth across the river a few times before continuing their migration. The big viewing “get” is to see a crossing – meaning, a herd of wildebeest gather on the banks of the Mara river, and at some point, they cross over en route to Kenya (or from Kenya back into Tanzania).

Wildebeest everywhere!

It was about a 30-40 minute drive to the river, and like yesterday, there were thousands of wildebeest – everywhere you looked they were gathering. There are signs that indicate they may be getting ready to cross, but it can happen in an instant, or it can take hours of waiting. We waited and waited, staring at the banks of the river and at wildebeest, and eventually, three things happened at once that are an instant notification that we were about to see something good.

First, radio chatter picks up. Second, we take off like a bat out of hell – in this particular instance, I was launched a good six inches off my seat, hats went flying and we all held on. And third, all cruisers within visible distance are all heading at breakneck speed to the same spot. Sure enough, we caught a crossing – thousands of wildebeest in almost a single line funneling from the grassy plains, down a slope to the river (infested with hungry crocodiles), across the river running and swimming, and then up the banks of the other side and then they carry on in a continuous line. It went on for a few minutes as we watched in awe, and then it abruptly stopped. We could see the heads of crocodiles down river from the crossing.

Video of first river crossing. With volume, you can hear us discussing the crocs down river.

We were thrilled to have caught our first crossing before 8am – woo hoo! We hung out for a few minutes to see if they would continue, and then someone noticed a baby wildebeest still in the river, alone. The baby was on the opposite bank of the river trying to get back to the original spot, we don't know why - maybe it's mom didn't make it across? It started to cross back, but the current was strong enough to make it difficult. We were all cheering, "swim, swim, you can do it". The little guy got about halfway across, the whole time getting pushed farther and farther down the river by the current.

We had seen the crocs about 50 feet from the crossing, waiting. The baby had almost made it out of the current when a croc came and grabbed it. The little guy tried a few times to break free but then a second croc came and CHOMP it was gone. We understand the circle of life, but it was heartbreaking to watch. You sort of knew what was coming but we all wanted him to make it back. We did not film or take pictures.

After the first river crossing, we waited around to see if we could catch a second, but after some stops and starts with another herd that was coming back across the river toward us, we decided to go do other things. We saw a bunch of action with another huge herd of wildebeest and went to investigate. There was a single hyena in a group of several hundred wildebeest trying to make a kill. It was interesting to watch – the hyena would run toward a group and they would all disperse and then stop; then it would go to another group and they would disperse – it almost looked like the hyena was a drop of oil and the wildebeest were water - the way the group moved when the hyena came close. Eventually, the group decided they had enough and with no warning, the herd ran down the bank to cross the river. Once again, 50 cruisers took off to watch. It was a small group of wildebeest, but we did catch our second crossing. No fatalities. They hyena left without dinner. All pix are on my digital camera, which I cannot download until we get home :(

In addition to the crossings, the animal sightings were fast and furious. I’m sure I’ll forget some, but you can’t go more than a minute without seeing something – warthogs, giraffe, elephants, ostrich, all different kinds of antelope, elephants, wildebeest, zebra, cheetah and more. Animals can be spotted almost everywhere you look.

Ostriches

The Kogatende airport, where we landed, is a central point for going off in different directions looking for new things - and it has a flush toilet. We hit the airport around 9 or 10am for a bathroom break and then carried on. Our next destination was to follow the migrating wildebeest North toward the Kenya border about 15km away. The terrain changed to Savannah - almost pure grassland with the occasional acacia. And with grass comes lots of wildebeest. If I thought we had seen a lot of wildebeest by the river, this was on a whole different level. As far as the eye could see, and that is pretty far, there were wildebeest grazing – thousands upon thousands upon thousands that had made it across the river on their way to Kenya, alongside a smattering of their good friends the zebra.

Wildebeest everywhere - hard to capture the scope on a wide lense

We found a shady spot under a tree amidst the wildebeest and had snack of coffee and cashews (cashews are plentiful), stretched our legs, and admired the pure beauty of the savannah.

Coffee Break

Coffee!

We all had the opportunity to “check the tire pressure” – code for going behind the cruiser for a potty break – and continued to the border. The boarder is marked with white concrete posts spaced a few hundred feet apart with KE on oneside and TZ on the other. The road likes to zig-zag on the border, so we played a nice game of “I’m in Kenya” “no, I’m in Tanzania”. We know how to have fun.

We are in Tanzania; photographerin Kenya!

We started our 2-hour journey back to the lodge when the telltale signs of something interesting started – radio chatter, increase in speed, pile-up of cruisers. We located lions resting in the shade of some trees. I’m pretty sure there was a young one in the middle, but we had to keep some distance.

Little lion!

We angled to get a better look and, not gonna lie, a big lion seemed to lock eyes with me and then get into a crouch position making me change positions into the back seat while Anita freaked out and kept saying “I don’t like this… I don’t like this… I want to leave... we are too close...” We were bummed because we wanted to be as close as possible and hypothesized that Bennett would not put us in any immediate danger, but, when a lion is staring you in the eye in a crouch position, you are not going to make a big fuss.

Mama lion before shifting into crouch position

Around this time, we started to notice that we were getting hit in the face on a somewhat frequent basis by what we quickly identified as TseTse flies (non-biting, non-dangerous, but annoying as hell). When we stopped to see the lions, we noticed swarms of them, but again, not a big deal. The more we drove, the more we got hit with these little flying pellets. It got so bad that I covered myself up to my sunglasses in a blanket to avoid them. Damon just took it like a man.

Trying to protect from the onslaught of flies

Radio chatter, pedal to the metal, cruisers converging. We found another group of lions – this time, a pride of eight females lounging under a tree - stuffed and panting after feasting on a zebra, which thankfully was mostly hidden behind a tree.

More lions - zebra can be seen behind tree

Lion close up

Lazy lions

At some point, we found our way back to the airport for another bio-break and lunch, since it is a protected area with tables, chairs and shade. Not to mention, an opportunity to stretch our legs. But then, we were off again.

Cool lizard at the airport

Continuing on our way, we crossed a river absolutely loaded with hippos – a bunch swimming and a bunch lounging on a rock. It is typical when we are driving and pass another vehicle, the drivers stop and speak in Swahili. Our best guess is that they are exchanging information about what is where. We stopped a few times and the conversations seemed much longer from the other driver.

We saw a group of four cruisers parked about 15 yard from the road, side by side, but we did not head directly toward them. Instead, we stopped in the road and were approached by a man on foot who had jumped out of his un-logo'd cruiser. Conversation ensued in swahili and then he left. Bennett turned to the group and apologetically said, and this is a summary, that guy was a wildlife ranger. There are two black rhinos “over there” (black rhinos are very rare to find) and it is not allowed for us to go off the road (NOTE: we went off road 100 times – just when no one was around – as did everyone else). The ranger will let us see the rhinos if you pay him $50. As a group, we agreed not to do it. The ranger comes back and drops to $20. We said we would do it IF the rhinos were close enough to see without binoculars. More negotiation ensued and we were told binoculars were not nesessary. We grudgingly agreed to the $20 bribe.

We drove to the small group of cruisers and saw two black blobs in the very, very far distance. bincoluars defnitely needed, no big surprise. Thankfully, Damon has an amazing camera with an incredible zoom and we were able to see them on his camera – a mama and a baby rhino.

Significant zoom - rhinos

We waited a few minutes and the rhinos started walking and we were able to capture a few more distant photos. Finally, we decided to continue our journey and were the first to leave. Not two minutes later, we spotted the two rhino running next to us, still at a distance, but in the same direction we were driving. As far as we could tell, we were the only ones who knew they were there. We drove along side them for a while, got a bit ahead of them, and stopped to take some photos – for free – now that they were much more visible.

Running rhinos

Then the horde came – a slew of cruisers on the road and the ranger and one or two cruisers off-road, and everyone started in hot pursuit. We were roughly third in lineon the road at this point. No one got too close, but the mama rhino had enough of being chased. Mama turned toward the front two cruisers and charged them. A rhino can easily flip a car. It all happened so fast – the two cruisers took off in the opposite direction to avoid the rhino horn, the rhino stopped abruptly did a big head/horn raise and turned around back to the baby. Unfortunately, Anita was not happy with this animal interaction either and kept yelling “I don’t like I don’t like” (she is French). We all held back and left them alone and eventually they crossed the road in front of us to trot into the distance.

With enough excitement to last awhile, and having been in the car for about 9 hours at this point, we started the hour plus journey back to our camp.

Cruiser river crossing

Back through the airport (and bathroom) again and it started to rain. Our companions were not up to getting wet and insisted on rolling down the plastic “windows”. In our opinion, not enough rain to warrant cutting off our view for the remainder of the drive, but so be it, you are stuck with who you are stuck with in the cruiser. We had an unbelievable day. When Bennett asked if we wanted to take another run at a river crossing, we all agreed that ten hours in the cruiser was enough and we were all ready to go back.

We got back to a lot of wind, some thunder, and a definite threat of rain. Good news – our electricity is working again, so we have light! One of our hosts said that if we wanted to take showers, we had a small window of time to do it. The African bucket shower requires someone to carry a 5-gallon bucket of hot water to our room, fill another bucket hanging above and behind our tent, and then we jump in the shower as quickly as possible using a little rope system to release water from the bucket through a shower head. All while huge gusts of wind were blowing through the tent compressing your 3’ wide shower space into a 1’ shower space. I thought it was hilarious, I took a nice, albeit very quick, hot shower. Damon was not impressed, and I had to put my full body weight into holding one side of the tent out against the wind, so he didn’t get squished. I’m still laughing about it. He is not.

After shower and organizing the room under threat of further loss of light, we headed to the lounge tent where we are currently having a drink (and cashews) while waiting for dinner.