The second major portion of my trip was another set of game drives, this time to the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania. After returning to Nairobi from the Mara, we drove to Arusha, Tanzania for the start of our next three day adventure into the wild. This trip we had 2 land rovers with drivers and an advance team that took our tents and set them up for us in the camps and prepared all our meals.
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| Dinner being served in the Serengeti camp |
The first day of driving took us through the edge of the Ngorongoro Crater and into the Serengeti National Park. The Serengeti is HUGE! It is over 14,763 square kilometers itself but is also part of the wider ecosystem that includes the Masai Mara, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and surrounding private protected areas. The name Serengeti derives from the Maa word
serengit, meaning "Endless Plain" which is what it is composes of. In the 1980s a census of animals in the Park was taken and at the time there were over 1,300,000 wildebeests, 250,000 Thompson's Gazelle, 200,000 Burchell's zebra and 50,000 Topi. Estimates are that today the wildebeests number over 2 million.
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| Wildebeests on migration |
I think the estimated ten thousand we saw migrating near the Park is an indication these estimates might be right!
Along with the Big Five, there is another list of animals to be found in East Africa called the Ugly Five. I think we saw them all in the Serengeti. The wildebeest (above) is one as are:
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| Maribou Stork |
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| Spotted Hyena |
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| Vulture |
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| Warthog (actually taken in the Crater but we saw them everywhere) |
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