Early the next morning, I got picked up by my 3rd driver, Ezekiel. Ezekiel was not as talkative as Casmus but was the most experienced guide I had on my trip. He’s been working as a guide for 25 years and does safaris in 5 countries- Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Zambia. He was extremely knowledgeable about all the wildlife and was incredible at spotting things even from crazy far distances.
We started off the day with about a 4 hour drive to the Serengeti, one of the largest parks in East Africa. Upon arrival in the park we immediately started an all day game drive. The park was absolutely massive (about 5700 sq miles). Right before lunch Ezekiel got a tip about a mother and baby cheetah who had just caught their lunch so we had a little off-road adventure to watching the cheetahs feast on an Impala, which was really cool. From there we spent the afternoon driving around and saw pretty much everything, including some lions up close and several leopards off in the distance. The guides’ ability to spot wildlife off in the distance was incredible. They would typically spot something, tell me exactly where it was and even with binoculars it would require additional guidance for me to see it. One thing Ezekiel taught me though was to look for “5 legs” hanging from a tree to find leopards. For the record, these were not 5-legged leopards, the 5th leg is the leopards tail hanging down from the tree.
After driving around the park for about 7 hours, we headed to our camp for the night. This was a true camp situation, located actually within the Serengeti with no fences or anything separating us from the wildlife, which was amazing. Our 2nd night there I was sitting by the campfire and a young wildebeest actually ran right through the middle of camp with a hyena chasing it. The woman sitting next to me about lost her mind, but I thought it was incredible. The tents we stayed in were very nice and they had even had hot water through an interesting contraption known as a bucket shower. Basically the way it worked was when you wanted to take a shower you had a walkie talkie to radio them and they would fill up with big bucket with hot water for you to shower. I’m pretty sure the water was heated over an open fire because it smelled pretty smoky but overall, I was a fan of the bucket shower system. We were also supposed to walkie talkie them every time we left the tent once the sun went down for an escort to the main camp, due all the wildlife roaming around camp. I was not very good at following this rule (honestly it just seemed unnecessary, the main camp wasn’t that far away and I think I’ve walked through more sketchy neighborhoods in New Orleans at far worse times 😂). I got scolded a couple times for that, but survived, so all is well.
The staff at the camp was incredibly friendly and somehow they all knew my name and really enjoyed talking to me about how I was enjoying Africa as well as learning things about America and hearing about my upcoming travel plans. The main guy at the camp got my number and still texts me every week to get an update on where I’m at haha. They also greeted us on arrival with this very catchy song that I very quickly learned so I could sing along with them.
The next morning we got up early for another full day game drive in the park and had the best day of the entire safari. We started off the morning by pulling out of camp and immediately seeing a leopard up close in a tree by the road, with it’s meal from last night (a dead gazelle)hanging next to it. After hanging out for a few minutes the leopard then woke up and climbed down from the tree, which was incredible to see. The day was off to an amazing start and only got better from there. We saw just about every animal that lives in the Serengeti and so many big cats. I think we saw 12 lions and 6 leopards. This included some lions really close to the jeep and a few lions hanging out and climbing in the trees, which was unique. We also ate lunch right below a massive male lion taking a nap. Overall, I think we saw the best assortment of wildlife during our 2 days in the Serengeti and saw so many big cats up close, which was incredible.
