Animals, Animals, Animals!
That’s why we are here. We loaded into the safari vehicles and set out for an extensive drive through the savannah. There had been rain in recent days and the guides correctly surmised that the zebras and the wildebeests would be migrating. Zebras and wildebeests have no problem mixing together. The zebras like the longer grass and then the wildebeests like the shorter grasses. There were huge herds moving across he savannah. When I say huge herd I mean wide open grassland and zebras and wildebeests as far as the eye could see on both side of the road. I can’t begin to estimate a number but we had to have seen well over 100 thousand. The thought crossed my mind that this is what the Great Plains probably looked like before the buffalos were killed wholesale.
I was keeping track of the number of species of animals and birds that we saw. I came up with 30. We saw thousands of impalas. We saw elephants, giraffes, hippos, two lions mating on the side of the road not 10 feet from us, a leopard lounging in a tree, cape buffalo and hyenas, one of which must have messed with wrong lion and was badly hurt. We stopped for about 20 minutes and watched a whole group of baboons. The social interaction was very interesting to observe.
Back at the hotel there was a show by native dancers and an excellent dinner.
This photo doesn’t really do the scene justice but there were zebras and wildebeests as far as the eye could see. This was just one of the herds we saw.
The lions doing their thing on the road.
Zebra working together. They position themselves so that they have a 360 degree field of vision in case there is a predator stalking them.
Baboons. They one in the foreground is the alpha male. The little guy on the branch is about a week old.
Giraffes.