Last night I had way better sleep than the week before and I took medicine so I no longer have traveler’s sickness. We woke up for breakfast at 6 am and went to the Serengeti. The Serengeti is a Masai word for endless plants, which is very accurate as the plains went on and on and on. There were a couple patches of trees where the water was located and a couple patches that had groupings rocks. We first saw a bunch of hippos which was really cute. There were around 40 of them and I saw one do a barrel roll to cool off and we were able to see its toes which was funny to me. We also saw a pride of lions feasting on a cape buffalo. It was insane because they were eating it right in the middle of the road. We observed the practice of the cubs eating first and then the lionesses. They first tore into the neck, the butt, and the underbelly. The tearing was so loud that we were able to hear the damage from the car. It was really cool to see the lions so successful in killing such a dangerous cape buffalo.
We also saw a bunch of hyenas that were solitary, a lot of different birds including the secretary birds, more lions, a rock hyrax, baboons, lizards, around 60 elephants, giraffes, impalas, wildebeests, jackals, and gazelles. We also were able to a wild cat which was really cool to see as they are supposed to be one of the rarest things to see. It looked just like a black house cat.
We stopped for lunch and I picked up a ginger beer. In the Serengeti, our car broke down and the driver had to go to a mechanic during our lunch. I did not realize there are mechanics in a national park, but it makes sense because speaking of broken down cars, one of our other cars got a flat tire twice and our car also got a flat tire. We finally got back after 14 hours and had dinner at 8:30.
Now we are listening to two presentations about reptiles and small felids before we head to bed. Until tomorrow!
Isabella-2024-Bovini
(Lions eating their most recent kill, a male Cape Buffalo)
(Hippos!)
