Amos drove us to the Manyara Airstrip for our 11:10am flight.
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| Yup - this is the airstrip! |
We were told to be there
60 minutes early and we are all rule followers, so of course we got there
early, and spent 90 minutes standing in a parking lot. The Manyara Airstrip is definitely busy – the
usual horde of Land Cruisers and tourists.
The dirt strip had small planes landing every few minutes with people
going in and out. FINALLY, ours showed
up at 12:30. We went through security
(seriously, we did) and then walked out to the plane.
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| Boarding passes |
T
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| Little airplane |
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| Our ride |
The little Cessna Caravan (thank Damon for that detail) held 12 passengers – we had 10. We drove to one end of the dirt strip and took off. To my surprise (I had the window seat), about 5 seconds after we were airborne and about 10’ after the airstrip, i realized we had just flown off a cliff.
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| The cliff |
Glad I didn’t know that ahead of time. We flew over the crater, but it was foggy and then cloudy, so we didn’t see much else on the short 50-minute flight.
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| Damon geeking out over plane's nav. Crater and lake visible |
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| Flying over the crater - the clouds all drop their moisture before hitting the crater |
We landed at Kogatende airstrip in the Serengeti
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| Welcome to Kogatende! |
and were met by our driver and another couple staying at the same
lodge as us. We had a quick glass of
champagne and some fried plantains and off we went.
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| Little bubbly to celebrate our arrival |
The plan was a 40-minute drive back to our lodge for a quick lunch, and then a game drive. What we didn’t expect was that we would see about 10 billion animals in the first 30 minutes of the drive. Listing animals would be insane – but I’ll try – hordes of zebra and wildebeest. The migration is primarily wildebeest. They are everywhere.
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| Lonely giraffe |
We saw giraffe, ostrich,
a bunch of different antelope and then the motherload – we came up on a few
other cruisers following three cheetah that appeared to be stalking zebra. We followed the cheetah, which we learned
were brothers, until they plopped themselves under a tree to sleep off some
prior meal – their bellies were completely distended, so we assumed that the
partially disemboweled antelope we came across earlier was their dinner. Smug in our excellent sighting, we continued
to our new home.
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| Cheetah Bro's |
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| Fat 'n Happy |
For the next two nights, we will be staying in the Nyikani
Migration Camp – it is “glamping” surrounded by things that will eat you. We haven’t learned whether there are any
permanent structures in this area, but we know that ours moves with the animals
migratory patterns a few times per year. First
impression. What did we get ourselves into??? The camp consists of 12 canvas sleeping tents,
a “public toilet”, a dining area and a lounge area (both very cozy). There are also areas we did not see for the
small staff of about 5-10 men likely include sleeping quarters, store and meal
prep. That is it. No fencing, no enclosed structures, no hard
walls. And a hella lot of animals out
there.
Next came the information and rules, which included: no walking to or from tents in the dark. Call ahead to take a shower. Why? Because they use “bucket” showers which require someone to fill them up with water. You pull a string and water falls on you. Will see if we have an opportunity to try it out. Bucket showers are from 7am-7pm only. In case of any emergencies, we have a radio in our tent to call for help. Or anything else we need. The public toilet includes a Maasai Sword that you move in front of the door so no one walks in on you. Then we were escorted to our tent.
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| The public restroom (flush toilet and sink with running water) |
To be fair – the tents are much nicer on the inside than on the outside – king size bed, dresser, full electricity, flushing toilet, double sink with working faucets. If not for the canvas walls, you would think you are in a lodge. We were impressed. The toilet and shower are canvas rooms, but they are nice with wood floors. Video of the 360-degree view from in front of our tent.
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| Bathroom with double sink! |
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| Back of our tent - note the bucket for the shower |
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| Our tent from the front |
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| Inside the tent |
We spent about 10 minutes in our tent and then walked back to the main area, keeping track of the types of animal poop we could identify on the path, to prepare for what may be lurking around. Primary zebra, wildebeest and antelope if our poop identification skills are on point.
We met up with the couple from earlier - Ted and Anita. Anita is French and speaks with a thick accent. Ted is from Pittsburgh, but has been living in France for 30 years. They are a little older than us. They seem okay, but Ted is kind of loud.
We took off with our primary
goal being the wildebeest migration and river crossing. I’m still not entirely sure what makes the
river crossing THE thing to do, but it is.
Thousands of wildebeest cross the Mara river and head into Kenya for
more grass and water before coming back later in the year. But to get there, they have to cross the
crocodile infested river, which apparently makes for a feeding frenzy. People come from all over the world to see this event - I hope we get to see it and it lives up to the hype.
The drive to the river was about 45-minutes, but along the way, we were rewarded with close encounters with two huge elephant herds – maybe 20 in each herd. I just love elephants, especially the babies, and there were a lot of babies.
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| I heart elephants |
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| Herd of elephants |
One was
hanging right behind mom and when mom stopped to eat a tree, baby started
playing with its trunk just flipping it in circles – it was hilarious. Then an older “teen” elephant just sat down
and refused to move while another younger elephant came and jumped on it before
running away. I could watch elephants
all day. We left and passed a herd
of about 20 giraffe, but for some reason, we didn’t even slow down.
We got close to the river and there were hundreds, maybe thousands of wildebeest walking, eating, and sleeping in the area. The herds walk in a straight line, almost single file, and go on forever. And there are multiple lines – everywhere you look, there are lines of wildebeest.
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| Watching the wildebeest |
We drove around and saw crocodiles sunning on a rock, waiting for dinner.
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| Crocodiles, not to be confused with the "rockodile" behind them |
We stopped near the river in the middle of
the grazing wildebeest – along with about 20-30 other Land Cruisers and we just
waited. While it was sunny to light
clouds where we were, there was a constant rumble of thunder and a storm was
visible. But this is the dry season with
almost no rain. Ever. In September.
So we weren’t worried. For
whatever reason, even though the wildebeest gathered, they didn’t seem to be
going anywhere, which may have been a result of the smell of rain.
Eventually, we gave up and our guide, Bennett, told us we could try again in the morning. At first, I was bummed because we seemed to give up significantly sooner than everyone else. However, about 10-15 minutes into our drive, we stopped and Bennett put the front window up (it folds down for better viewing); then he put our plastic windows down, and put on his raincoat. He then suggested that Damon and I move from the front row to the middle row of the car. Interesting. It wasn’t raining. I see Bennett tightening his rain hood so it was snug around his head and figured he knew something we didn't, so I pulled out my raincoat and started putting it on. Still no rain. I had half of my snaps done and BOOM a total onslaught of rain. The sky literally opened up on us and it was windy. So we are driving full throttle in a partially exposed vehicle in a full downpour. Because the ground was so dry, it flooded very quickly and small rivers of water were forming everywhere.
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| The downpour |
I got the brunt of the wind and rain in my face, but thankfully was mostly covered in the raincoat and a spare blanket so I stayed somewhat dry.
We finally got back to the tents and just hung out in the open lounge area waiting for the rain to stop. It did not. We really hoped someone had closed the flaps in our tent since all windows had been open when we left.
The lounge area has surprisingly good wifi, something I was
not expecting in the Serengeti, but there you have it – modern technology. We spent time catching up with texts and
charging our devices before heading next door to the dining tent for dinner. We sat down for dinner, starting with a
fantastic green banana soup. I was two
spoonfuls in when the generator blew. Now
imagine being in a tent camp in the Serengeti with no artificial light and no
moon/star light (because of the rain). I have never been in
total pitch black to that extent – it was strange. Of course, all cell phone flashlights were on
in a few seconds, so we ate half our dinner by iPhone light; eventually the power
came back and the lights went on.
We had a nice dinner and requested an escort to walk us back to our tent because, you know, lions, leopards, cheetah and other things that could eat us. Based on prior experience, I was expecting to be walked with an escort armed with a rifle of some sort, but no, he was armed with a flashlight. A flashlight will reflect in the eyes of any animals out there so they can be easily spotted. So, we can spot a lion in the grass, but then only wait for it to be close enough to beat it with a handheld flashlight. Not really sure why we needed an escort, since we brought our own flashlights.
We got to our
tent, which was thankfully closed up, and realized quickly that the generator
supplying power to the tents was not working.
No light at all in our tents.
None whatsoever other than what we had.
When we asked our escort he said, “no light. Maybe I will fix”. Awesome.
He handed us two hot water bottles and went on his way. We got ready for bed using flashlights, and
now I am laying in bed using only the light of my (thankfully fully charged)
laptop. I have more stories about what
the Serengeti is like, but I will save for tomorrow. It is still raining.
Postscript: Once I
shut down my computer and lost the screen light, the blackness was like nothing
I’ve ever experienced. Because of the
rain, we had no moonlight and no starlight.
There is no town or civilization for miles. The blackness was complete. Needless to say, a fantastic night of sleep!
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| Gratuitous picture of a lilac breasted roller bc they re the coolest colored bird |
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