Serengeti, Tanzania

After an amazing tour through Tarangire National Park and a restful night at the tented lodge just outside of the park gates, we set off for the Serengeti. It was a long drive through a lot of nothingness. I can't image the people's lives who know only this existence. The region is dominated by the Maasai tribe, who are cattle rangers (I guess that would be an appropriate term). They mainly eat meat and drink blood (true) so they have little need for settling and growing crops. They just move with their cattle to and from watering holes.

Just love the selfies :)

Jen exploring a rock outcropping while our guide registered us for entrance to the park. A perfect spot to stretch our legs and look back over the expanse of desert we just came through.

The road we drove in on... I wasn't kidding about a whole lot of nothingness!

Maasai with a herd of cattle.

A Maasai village.

Ostrich in the desert, what crazy looking birds! We also saw giraffe and camels out there, but too far away to photograph. We were told the camels are exotic to this region. They were brought in by NGOs for projects and then left behind when the projects ended. As with the introduction of all exotic species, there are mixed reviews about the benefits and the potential hazards of these animals to the region's ecology.

Found a cool looking lizard as we were exploring the rocks.

Lunch with a Marabou Stork. These birds are huge.. and ugly!!!

Baboon by the roadside. Baboons are beggars and scavengers so they are often seen by the roads looking for handouts from the tourists. You have to be careful to keep the windows rolled up because they are not timid or shy in the slightest bit. All baby animals are cute... right?!

Yeah, made it to the Serengeti!

Heehee... complete coincidence that mom and baby baboon picture ended up beside mom and baby people picture. When reviewing the post it made me laugh, so I left it.

We spent two days in the park, where all of the following pictures were taken. It was amazing to be so close to the animals. The park is huge though, hours and hour spent driving along very bumpy dirt roads. By the end of each day we were covered in dust and exhausted. All worth it though, man did we see the wildlife!

Lilac-breasted Roller

Cheetah. I was funny how she was perched on this rock completely ignoring the people in trucks gawking at her. 

Elephants enjoys a cool-down. They walked in cautiously, flinging water onto themselves, and toward the end, they were rolling in water.

The zebra followed the elephants into the pool, but stayed near the edge because the elephants would charge them if they got too close. Zebras spook and flee easily, then slowly creep back in.

Just like the cheetah, the lions completely ignored us...

and we were seriously close!

Those are gazelle in the distance, hyenas in front.

The hyenas hung with the lions. They are clean up crew; the lions would kill and eat until they were satisfied, then the hyenas would make off with all the left overs. We had a pack of six lions kill a zebra not 10 feet from one of the tents in our camp at 4am (seen and reported by the security guard, all the tourist stayed inside their tents and cringed at the sounds of the kill taking place... except me, I slept through it, ugh!). The hyenas carted off the remains so in the morning all we saw was a bloody patch in the grass.

All of the hippos we saw were dozing in the water, blowing bubbles.

Ah, the hyenas get a bad rap, they are kinda cute, at least when they sleep.

Another leopard, just lounging in a tree. We were told they only hunt as night and sleep all day, whereas the lions and cheetah hunt at all hours.

Another satisfied lion.

This one, our driver actually saw the chase and catch. Jen and I were looking the other direction, so by the time we were clued in to the excitement, we only saw a bunch of dust flying, then we saw the happy lion walking away with her prize.

Mongoose

Topi

Water Buffalo