Safari on the Serengeti!

Visiting the Serengeti is something I always dreamed of doing but never knew if I would actually do – much less spend the night there! I was told when I came to Africa to come with no expectations, but I have to admit that I had pretty big expectations in my head surrounding the Serengeti – and every expectation was met!

We had literally not been in the park for more than a minute when we saw a cheetah feasting on a recent kill. We spent our days driving through the park peering out the roof of our Land Cruiser looking at lion cubs, crocodiles, wildebeests, leopards dragging their recent kill into a tree, elephants nursing their young, giraffes, zebras, baboons, gazelle, dik diks, and bustards (yes, those last two are actually the names of real animals we saw).

We spent our nights eating dinner in a large tent by candlelight. We had game meat for several of our meals (Thompson‘s gazelle, impala, and some unknown creature called a wildecow – all are actually very tasty, tender, and taste like beef). We slept in what I would call luxury tents. We each had a queen sized bed with a mosquito net and an attached private bathroom. The staff was so quick to boil you water for a warm shower, and the toilets were the most sophisticated outhouses I have ever seen!

Probably a tie with the animals for the most amazing sight I saw on that trip was the stars. I don’t know that I have ever seen so many stars at once – a sea of glittering diamonds across the sky. There is something so serene and peaceful about sleeping outside. The cool night breeze mingled with the calming harmony of insects singing their good nights made for the best nights’ sleep I had had since I arrived in Africa. Even the occasional hyena cry rght outside our tent couldn’t keep me up for long.

Could anyone ask for a better birthday present? It was the most memorable birthday in my 29 years 🙂

On the way back from the Serengeti we made two really interesting stops. First stop was the Shifting Sands, which are aptly named. The Shifting Sands is a large black volcanic ash sand dune that they have been recording movement of since 1956. The whole dune is moving! Erosion and deposition has caused the dune over to move 2 to 5 meters a year. Another strange fact about the dune is that the sand is magnetic!

Oldupai Gorge (often incorrectly called Olduvai Gorge) is called the cradle of life. This is where the first discovered specimens of Homo habilis have been found. Besides the bones there is also stone tools, marks, and a building site. The Museum of Oldupai Gorge contained some interesting paleontology exhibits. One is a photo and cast of the footprints discovered by Mary Leakey at Latoli that evolutionists think might establish a link between humans and primates.