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After a good night's sleep in the tent we set off for the Serengeti. The previous night a couple from Chile joined our safari - Andreas and Coti so that made 5. The original 3 of us were worried about the space in the land rover but that turned out not to be a problem.
We arrived at the entrance to Serengeti NP at lunchtime and after a pack lunch we went for a wander up a trail for a view of the park. The view from the top affords a view of the savannah that makes up most of the Serengeti and gives you an idea of how big it is - 14,763 sq km. On my way down from the top an elephant was wandering round and a number of tourists were wandering round but keeping a respectful distance. Obviously I wanted to get a closer view to get a good picture so I edged a bit closer. Just as I got to within 2 metres of it it looked up and stared straight at me for about 2 seconds. During these two seconds several things happened:
First of all I realised it was a bull elephant
(these were very aggressive) as it had a metre long protuberance waving at me.
Secondly I worked out that if it decided to charge me I wouldn't have a chance.
And thirdly never wanting to miss out on a good picture I managed to get off a good shot (see below which is not using zoom).
Throughout the safari we weren't bothered by mosquitos at all, however during the drives, the occasional tetse fly came to visit, these buggers give an ecruciating bite, fortunately for me I only got bit once and theyu seems to enjoy the Chilians much more than my English blood. Every so often there was a scream coming from the back seat as the tetse flys chowed down for lunch. Tetse flies can give you sleeping sickness but I wasn't sure whether it was that or them having to listen to my stories that sent them to sleep.
Thankfully after these agonizingly long two seconds it turned round and walked off into the scrub. But this would not be my only close encounter with elephants during the safari.
Once we got into the park proper we saw our first of several very
rare sights - a pride of around 20 lions including cubs were basking on a rock with an ever watchful male nearby. Andrew our guide said that it was very rare to see this many lions together.
Further on we saw a large herd of elephants but the highlight of the day was yet to come, on our way to the campsite we spotted a number of stationery trucks - this was always a sign that there was something interesting in sight and we were not let down. In a tree not far from the road was a leopard, Andrew said this was extremely rare - at this stage we started joking that whenever Andrew said seeing a certain animal was rare we ended up spotting it shortly afterwards.
Leopards are one of the big 5 including buffaloes, elephants, lions and rhinos. All along Andrew said that we would probably see 3 of the big 5 but probably not the leopards and rhinos.
The leopard stayed in the tree for a good 15 mins but as the sun was setting it then made it's way down to start it's night time hunt.
We arrived late at
the camp-site and set up the tents before having dinner - throughout my entire safari I had veg in a simple curry sauce - just like being at home.
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