July 5, 2005

Today there was no fog and it was quite a bit warmer as we headed on a road circumscribing the crater to depart our lodge. Every inch of road today was very dusty and bumpy.

In the Ngorongoro Conservation area we saw many Maasai villages. In one area the perimeters were made of poles instead of the acacia thorns due to the lack of acacia trees in the area.

We were awed by the vastness of the Serengeti plains before us. This is a very flat short grasslands area that extends as far as the eye can see. There were occasional lone trees.

As we approached the gorge we encountered two young Maasai boys along the edge of the road. They were dressed in black instead of the traditional red and had white symbols painted on their faces. We also saw huge herds of cattle being led to watering holes.

At the gorge we were given a lecture about the site and work of Louis and Mary Leaky and their discovery of humanlike footprints made over 1.7 million years ago. We were given time to visit the adjoining museum.

We stopped at the sign signaling the entrance to the Serengeti Park There was a large pyramid built of stones here. Apparently these pyramids are all along the Ngorongoro/Serengeti border so that the Maasai know that they are not to drive their cattle across the boundary. This huge open plain is also the site in February when about 800,000 wildebeest babies are born. In June they leave the area (all 1.5 million of them) and head toward the Masai Mara going through Serengeti. At this time they were all gone from the plains and there was not much wildlife at all only an occasional solitary ostrich.

We arrived at our lunch stop, which was an outcropping of rocks called kopjes. We climbed to the top, which was an observation point for the vast lands below. While up there we saw a pair of Asuma lizards. The male was very colorful with the front half of him being orange and the back half a greenish-blue. These outcrops of rocks would become plentiful as we proceeded down the road. We learned that it is places like these that the cats born their young.

The grass started getting longer and we turned off the main road, went about ½ mile and found a watering hole where there were two female lions lounging. A very short distance away on a grassy knoll was the male keeping a lookout. On the other side of the hole we got our first look at three topi, which are in the antelope family. Apparently the lions are very smart and hang out at the holes knowing that water is in short supply just to scope out their prey.

When we left this area the landscape again changed. The grass got taller and we began seeing many animals. There were streams and clusters of date palms. Our guide stopped our vehicle and pointed out our first (and only) leopard in a tree. We were excited because this was the last animal needed to complete our big 5 sightings. They are: elephant, lion, leopard, black rhino and buffalo.

We saw a school of hippos and a small Nile crocodile. There were vultures on the tops of trees.

We saw a huge her of zebras near a watering hole and I videotaped them making their funny barking sounds. Several of them began to cross the hole. They are rather skittish animals and would spook very easily.

We continued a little further and came across a huge herd of wildebeest. They were stampeding in single file both in front of and in back of our vehicle.

We arrived at our lodge about 4 p.m. and who would have thought that after the day I have just described that one of the great thrills was finding a razor in the gift shop of our lodge so that we could finally shave our legs.

We sat out on our patio to watch what we thought was going to be a gorgeous sunset. The sun looked like a huge red ball but after it sunk there was not much color in the sky.

The evening was topped off with an acrobatic show in the bar.