CONTINUING DAY 7 (FRIDAY, MARCH 23) Exploring the Serengeti:

Suddenly Carol saw a shape on a rock a few hundred yards ahead and said, "What's that?!" It was our first cheetah, standing just as Mrosso had told us, above the grass keeping watch.

 
Such beautiful creatures! When we first saw her, she was sitting up. A bit later she lay down on the hot rock.

By now it was well after noon and we hadn't had lunch yet. As we headed for a spot (preferably with some shade) to eat, we noticed a rocky outcropping with a tawny shape on it. As we neared the rocks, the shapes became identifiable as lions. There were two females, again just lounging in the direct sun on what had to be a very hot surface.

Totally disinterested in us!

We drove about a mile away to another kopje with an enormous acacia tree beside it for shade. After driving all the way around the hill to make sure there were no lions lurking nearby, we parked in the shade and got out of the vehicle to "stretch our legs" (find a bush!) and have our box lunches. The entire time we ate our lunches we saw only one other vehicle. It was as if we had the entire Serengeti plains to ourselves and the animals.

After eating we scanned the horizon with binoculars just to see what was out there. The kopjies were scattered about, separated by open grassland with almost no trees in sight. Les noticed a shape on a rock outcropping nearly a mile away (in the other direction from where the cheetahs had been) and soon decided that it was one or more lions lying on these rocks. As this was only our 7^th day in Africa, we were still in a "GO" mode, so we picked up all evidence of our picnic, hopped back in the land cruiser, and headed toward the lions.

There are two more behind the rock in the shade. Which ones have the higher IQ?

There turned out to be 5 of them, lounging in the sun on the rocks. They were panting in the direct sunlight, and I remember thinking that those rocks had to be hot! But they just lay there, panting. I guess that's what lions do - just keep "lion" around! (Couldn't resist. Sorry.)

Leo seems to be thinking, "If I wanted you, I could get you!" Mama is thinking, "Zzzzzzz."

Driving along the vehicle tracks through the grasslands we saw several hyenas, usually alone or possibly as a pair. There were also numerous warthogs, some with babies or juveniles. When a warthog runs, it holds its skinny little tail straight up in the air and looks like it is up on its toes. Again, if you remember the warthog in "The Lion King," it was shown running with its tail up, and that's just what they look like! It was the cutest sight to watch a family of these critters heading off onto the grass on their tiptoes with tails erect. We almost giggled as we watched them, and Carol just fell in love with them. Yes, they are ugly! But cute!

Another typical kopje in the late afternoon, with showers around. I love the trees.

As we headed back West toward the main North-South road, we came upon a huge herd (hundreds) of zebras off to our right, perhaps 200-300 yards off the road. At this point the grass was at least three feet high and very thick – all you could see of the zebras was their bodies; the legs were invisible. This made it impossible to see any smaller animals or anything lying down more than about 20 feet off the road, because the grass just covered them up. It also would have made it very hard for the zebras to see and avoid any predators hiding in the grass.

A good picture to show how tall and thick the grass was in places.

Again Mrosso hit the brakes fairly hard and backed up. There in the grass, right beside the road, was a male lion beside a recently killed zebra. The lion had already eaten its fill and was relaxing beside the carcass, which still had its head and legs attached but had been torn open and the body cavity cleaned out. As we watched and took pictures, a second lion, probably a female but we couldn't see enough to be sure, raised its head out of the grass to look at us, about 15 yards farther off the road. She looked for just a few seconds, then put her head back down and completely disappeared. We commented that if this kill had happened just a few yards farther off the road, we never would have seen it.

This was only a short distance from the large herd of zebras seen above. This lion's
belly is bulging, and he was panting. Looked like he needed a Rolaids.

We drove on from this kill spot towards the West, gaining the main North-South road in about a quarter mile. The zebra herd was still there, and stretched across the main road just to the North of us. We drove right through them on our way back towards Camp Michelle.

The zebras just seem to go on and on. We wondered, with so much food, what kept the lions in check?

It took us a while to make it back to camp. For one thing, we were quite a long way from it, and for another we had to go out of our way and stop off at a Seronera Lodge to confirm our hot-air balloon ride for the next morning. Near sunset we came across a mother topi wih her young, and the low angle of sunlight gave us a really nice shot of them. Their "blue jeans" are clearly visible.