**Heads up!! There are graphic images in this post**
When I was 16, I read The Serengeti Rules by Dr. Sean B. Carroll. That was five years ago. Today, I got to experience the Serengeti for myself — it was so surreal to be in a place I had only read about on paper. Having officially visited, I have compiled a list of my own “Serengeti rules:”
1. Show up early. We left our campsite at 6:30 am to enter the park by 8:30 am. Although I’m rarely an advocate for an early morning, many animals become less active as the day progresses and it gets hotter.
2. Go with someone who knows where they are. Driving around, I was shocked at just how vast the Serengeti is; at times, all I could see in any direction were endless fields of tall grass. As we drove deeper into the park, few trees began to pop up here and there… but truthfully, I could not orient myself whatsoever.
The Serengeti plains
3. Keep your eyes peeled. We spent the whole day in the park – from 8:30 am until 6:00 pm – and probably saw only a FRACTION of everything the Serengeti has to offer. I documented 16 unique species throughout the day, though I likely missed a few. My 2nd favorite observation (I’ll discuss my 1st in Rule #4) was a male ostrich doing a mating dance. Sitting down with open wings, the ostrich swung himself back and forth to attract a nearby female ostrich. I certainly didn’t see what she must have, but to each their own.
4. Follow the clusters of cars. Safari vehicles will group around anything that is particularly interesting. Knowing this, when we saw a group of cars circled around a stretch of road, we immediately flocked to it. Peering between the cracks of cars, I genuinely could not believe the sight before my eyes: a pride of lions (large felids!!) feeding on a recently killed cape buffalo. I feel bad saying this, but it was METAL. I will spare my readers some of the more gruesome details, but it was truly an experience that engaged all the senses; the carcass’s smell and sound of tearing flesh was difficult to stomach.
Despite the repugnance, it was incredible to observe lions’ social behaviors in real-time. When researching large felids, I read that Panthera Leo feed in a specific order: after the lionesses make a kill, the male lion will eat first, followed by the pride’s cubs, and finally the lionesses feed (in the wise words of Dr. Solomon, humans should not look to lions for help structuring our societies). We encountered the scene as the cubs were feeding, and observed as the female lions followed — just as expected.
Lion Cubs Feeding on Cape Buffalo
5. Protect your loot. We stopped at a known picnic site to have our lunch. Apparently, this picnic site was also “known” to local Kite birds; they would loom above unsuspecting visitors before diving at their lunches. However, if you hunched over your food like Gollum, the Kites would leave you be.
6. Bring a spare tire. Or three. We had to replace our first tire before lunch. Stopped in the middle of the Serengeti plains, Crispin, Mohammed, and January (our drivers) jacked up the car and replaced the tire very efficiently. About two hours later, we were stopped again… for another tire replacement. This time, it was a different vehicle, though. Not more than thirty minutes later, we were stopped again. The first spare tire had gone flat. At this point, we noticed the adjacent tire was also failing; the tire had split, and the tread was partially detached from the inner tube. Having no more spares, we couldn’t replace either tire. So, Mohammed took one of our pocketknives and literally cut tread into the inner tube so we could make it back to the front gate. At the park entrance, rangers assisted us in repairing the vehicles, just enough to make it back to camp.
Today may have been long, but it was certainly worth it. We returned to camp around 8:30 pm for dinner and student presentations. I felt like a little kid fighting sleep after an eventful day at Disney Land. I was so exhausted when I returned to my tent that I fell asleep immediately, narcolepsy-style.
Today was amazing.
