6 People, 6 Duffels and 30,000 Wildebeests

We started our journey on June 22, flying from Boston to Amsterdam and then on to Kilimanjaro. We arrived there on June 23 at 10 PM, had our temperature taken and then passed through their immigration. With fingers crossed we waited for our luggage and all 6 duffels arrived. Abdul and Abdul, our driver and logistics people were waiting and off we went to the Arusha Coffee Lodge. We checked in and were greeted with fragrant cool towels and delicious cold coffee. Then we had dinner and by 12:30 we were off to bed. Fortunately our transfer time was at 9 AM so we were able to get a somewhat normal nights sleep.

We went to the airport in Arusha, a different one from the one we flew into, and boarded a plane for Seronera Airstrip. We were assisted by the 2 Abduls for this. The flight was on a 20 passenger plane and took about 45 minutes. At the other end we were met by Richard, our guide and driver for the next 10 days.

We did an almost 2 hour game drive as we made our way to our hotel, Four Seasons Serengeti Lodge. We had an amazing experience during this time. We saw baboons with nursing babies and then came across 2 female lions. We admired them for a while and drove on only to find 5 more lions, 2 being juveniles. We saw Thompson gazelles, elephants, zebras, giraffes, Cape buffalo, wildebeest, hippos, ostrich and Topi. This was on the way to the hotel. We arrived, checked in, had lunch and freshened up. Then we were ready for game drive 2.

Our second game drive was scheduled for 3:30. We witnessed an elephant taking down a tree to get to the best young leaves. We saw warthogs, silverback jackals, spotted hyenas, eland, Cokes hartebeast, buffalo, male lions and cervil cat. The most amazing thing we saw was the huge number of wildebeest, which covered the land from the roads we were on to the horizon. Pictures can not show the enormity of the numbers we saw. I don’t think it is an over estimate to say there were 30,000 of them.

We then had to start back because it was getting late and technically we had to be off the park roads by 6:30. However, we found some lions sleeping by the road and when we circled them found 2 resting males. We then continued on but got the best surprise with another 2 large male lions just sitting on the road. It was amazing and a great end to the day. We got back to the hotel a little after 7, cleaned up, had dinner and called it a day.