TANZANIA
& KENYA Cheeseman Safari continued
Seronera & Ngorogoro
Crater July 31 - Aug 2
On July 31 we left Lobo Lodge on
our way to Seronera Lodge, also designed by Paricia Hipple in
the style of Frank Lloyd Wright. This place was even more awesome
than the Lobo Lodge. There were waterfalls inside the hotel and
huge boulders everywhere.
When we left Lobo, we saw a lion resting on Kopje in the sun, perfect picture! Along the way to the hotel we saw our first two lions copulating, very very interesting. Steven ,our driver, said that when Italians come to Africa they like sex and violence, they only want to see lions copulating and kills. I took a video but it didn't turn out well, no pornography jokes please! We also saw our first Lepoard hanging in a tree. Only Doug and those with extremely long lenses could take pictures but it was exciting all the same. And there were great kopjes all over the place, very beautiful.
On 1 Aug we left for the Ngorogoro Crater, the 8th wonder of the world! This would turn out to be a day we all would never forget. About 10:30 were were in the area of Simba Kopjes north of Noly hill and one driver saw some cheetahs hunting and one took off. He followed it and that group saw the cheetah actually catch the Tompson's Gazelle. He radioed the other drivers and we quickly caught up with him. We came upon a mother cheetah with her four cubs eating the dead gazelle as quickly as they could right along side the road (how nice of them!). Soon there were about 10 vans there all watching them chow this down, and our four cars had the best spots. Poor Richard dropped his lense cap he was so excited, so Gail's van was the first to arrive at the kill and the last to leave. Doug quickly snapped about 35 rolls of film and while we watched them eat from start to finish. Each would take a turn to look up while the others ate to make sure there were no lions or hyenas coming up to steal their kill from them. Time just flew by so it was hard to tell, but about 20 minutes into their feasting both White-backed Vultures and Lapid-faced Vultures turned up later. The vultures tried to crowd out the cheetahs, so every now and again one would chase they away, got a great picture of that! Eventually the cheetahs had eaten all they could and once they moved on to hunt again, the vultures moved in. We watched them fight amongst each other and eat, all really fantastic. We were very lucky to see such a kill so close up.
We had our picnic lunch under an acacia tree at Nobby Hill and we shared our lunch with many sneaky birds: Red-billed Buffalo Weavers, Ruffes-tailed Weavers & Superb Starlings. In the afternoon went to Olduvai Gorge within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Here is where the Leakeys found the hominid remains "Zinjanthropus", Homo habilis and Homo erectus. We drove down to Bed I where Mary Leaky found the Australopithecine "Zinjanthropus". Very exciting to have been in the exact spot where all our ancestors originated! The museum was fantastic and we also saw the cast of the three sets of footprints Mary found in the late 1970's. Also saw Red-knobbed Coot that day. Once we arrived at the awesome Ngorongoro Serena Lodge we checked into our room and were greether with an amazing view of the crater from our hotel room.
On 2 Aug we woke up early to spend our
whole (and only) day inside the crater. We ended up seeing all
big five this day! We had breakfast at 6am to have max time in
crater (turns out we were the first tourist group in that day),
but we couldn't see anything on the drive down due to the thick
fog. Once in crater, we saw a Black Rhino crossing the road -
first Rhino on this safari. Saw old Floppy Ear elephant with
the very very long tusks, he was quite old but still going strong.
Saw hyena mother with cubs as they fought over a wildabeast kill
in the water. In the crater live very dark mained lions and we
saw some of those. As for birds, saw both Chestnut-banded Plovers
and Black-tailed Gotwit.
Saw a glipse of a leopard, but there were lots of tourists standing
around & watching so he was hard to see. Once he jumped down
Chris, Irene, Aaron and I as well as all the other tourists went
back to car. Then Gail came running to the car for us to come
back. The Black-faced Vervit Monkeys were making their 'go away
lepoard' call which she had only heard three times before. Only
the Cheeseman's would find something interesting and exciting
when everyone else thinks the action is over!
At lunch, Howard took nice picture of us all bundled up for the African winter. We had to park the vans in a square to protect our lunch from the Black Kites swooping in and taking our food right from our hands. Our van got back to the lodge two hours early so we could enjoy the great hotel. I sat in the amazing lounge with the view of the crater. I had watched a great Masai dance previous night at the hotel, and this night we watched the great acrobatics show.
The restaurant at the Seronera Lodge, note the waterfall and paintings on the rocks
Some giraffe sitting in the grass and chewing their cud
Sorry, but forgot the name of this colorful water bird
Sneaky birds at lunch. These are Superb Starlings, much more striking than ours at home
Can you believe these cute Hyraxes are related to elephants!
Creme de la creme! This is the cheetah
kill we saw as it unfolded:
Cheetah mother with four cubs eating, note their faces red with
blood.
Two cheetah
cubs wrestling over the remains of the gazelle
A cub chasing
away some of the gathering vultures
The cheetahs
have eaten all they can of the kill, now the vultures fight over
the rest
Clean up
time
Us tourists
watching the whole scene
Aaron and Laura enjoying their picnic lunch during an African winter in the Crater
Aaron standing on our room's balcony which overlooked the crater
Floppy, the very old male elephant
A mother Spotted Hyena with one of her four cubs. They're eating a wildebeast carcus
Zebra drinking at a lake in the crater
Some of the many wildebeast in the crater
View of the crater, a very spectacular place
