I have always loved watching sunrise from our safari vehicle, though it was very difficult to get out of bed at 5 am with the sound of rain falling on our tent. It took every ounce of will power to climb out from under the covers of our incredibly comfortable bed at Dancing Duma and freshen up in the bathroom. Thankfully, we had taken showers the night before, so the prospect of getting into the shower and waiting for the hot water wasn’t in the cards. Still, it was a cool morning and required extra layers of clothes which merely meant a very light fleece for me.

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Jill and I made it to the main tent for coffee by around 5:30, while everyone else was up and about by 5:45 which was the official meeting time for a 6 am departure. We were packing both our breakfast and our lunch with us for the day so we wouldn’t have to worry about returning to camp and would have the freedom to explore the park wherever that might take us. Today, we were going to hunt for the migration, those massive herds of both wildebeest and zebra that move in a clockwise fashion from the Maasai Mara in Kenya, moving down to the Southern Serengeti, then up through the Central and Western Serengeti before their famous crossing of the Mara River in the north, with many falling prey to the Nile Crocodiles. The Great Migration is the largest movement of land animals in the world by mass with almost 2 million animals being involved, though the wildebeest makes up the largest number of animals in that migration.

With the overnight rain that continued into the early morning, the trails we were navigating were incredibly muddy and required constant vigilance by Vitalis to avoid becoming hopelessly stuck, though, to be honest, the Land Rover once again demonstrated its amazing prowess on these roads, never once coming even close to bogging down in the muck. That isn’t to say that we weren’t slipping and sliding a great amount in the process and, all the while, mud was flying everywhere and especially over the top of the car. Standing, which I do 99% of the time on a game drive, meant that you had an excellent chance of getting hit with mud, and I was very thankful to have been wearing that fleece. The mud is very slimy, and I was also thankful that I had taken a package of wet wipes out of the tent as they came in very handy in cleaning up.

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Sunrise was gorgeous and the minute the rays of sunshine hit us you could feel the warmth of the coming day. Though many of the roads began to dry, there were still plenty of flooded sections to maintain a constant level of excitement as we continued our morning slip and slide through the Serengeti. As we approached one of the many smaller kopjes scattered across the landscape, we encountered a huge pride of lions, many of whom were laying the road, while an equal number were sitting atop the kopjes, spotting potential prey far in the distance, for the lion’s eyesight, like all big cats, is far greater than mine or yours. After some time, though, most of this group decided to mosey up the road to another rock outcropping, only to have several other lions come down to join them. As the two groups met up, they greeted each other by rubbing faces and bodies, looking just like a house cat brushing up against your leg as a sign of affection, only these cats were slightly larger.

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After watching the lions for some time, it was decided that we needed breakfast and several of our group were also well overdue for a bathroom break. There is a lovely picnic spot that sits atop a hill with 360° views of the surrounding plains. There are legit bathrooms (even with toilet paper) and decent cement tables where we could spread out a shuka. We enjoyed a delightful breakfast from camp along with lots of coffee and tea.

Once ready again for the trail – meaning lots of pre-emptive bathroom visits – we left our breakfast site in search of the Great Migration. We had heard that they were up just north of Seronera (essentially the central Central Serengeti), and, as we head up the road towards Ikoma gate, we found them in massive groups of thousands upon thousands of Wildebeest and Zebra with each having lots of new babies as they were heading up towards the Northern Serengeti and then into the Maasai Mara in Kenya before starting the entire process all over again.

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There were not only the massive herds of the animals grazing as far as the eye could see, but there were also long trains of animals traveling in single file or several abreast again stretching for as far as one could see and seeming like it could possibly go on forever, though could clearly have been measured in miles rather than feet. Vitalis explained to us that the migration is so large and spread out over many kilometers that there was a head, a body, and a tail. The herds we were seeing now were the body of the migration and the largest numbers, while there were smaller herds far in advance making up the head. We would see the stragglers, or the animals that were far behind as we were leaving the park tomorrow.

The largest number of animals making up the migration were the wildebeest, though there were many zebras, and they often seemed to be at the front of the smaller herds, as they were leading. The two different animals have a symbiotics relationship, with the zebra protecting against predators due to their much better eyesight while the wildebeest’s better hearing and smell are what provides the herd safety at night from the predators. Either way, we were seeing hundreds of thousands of animals spread out over miles of territory as we came upon them on the drive north.

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We spent hours watching all aspects of the migration, often leaving the main road to explore each of the smaller herds that made up this incredible biomass of animals that is the lifeblood of the Serengeti, and so much of the essence of this unique land beyond its fantastic landscape. So many creatures depend on the health of this migration for their survival.

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As we continued our drive north, it soon became time for lunch, and the hippo pool, with its services (i.e. bathrooms) was the perfect place for us to stop. Though there are many other hippo pools in the park, this one is set apart by the fact that you can get out of your car and walk up to a crude barrier that sits along the river, and, perhaps just not high enough to make you feel completely safe, you’re able to stand and watch hundreds of hippos as they mingle in their families, or groups, making plenty of noise and, on numerous occasions, decide to make a statement, meaning that they will open their jaws widely, displaying their huge canines in a show of dominance or sometimes for real. There were many smaller babies, who stick very close to their mothers and have the unique feature that they will nurse underwater.

Hippos are responsible for more human fatalities than any other African animal, and I believe than all others put together. Most of these deaths occur alongside the rivers where they are living and are merely a matter of people being to close in contact with them such as women doing their laundry at the waterside. I’ve always found hippos to be incredibly anxious and neurotic, especially when they are out of the water. They will wander miles from their home along narrow paths to graze in the night but must return to the water in the early morning hours as their skin is very sensitive, and they sunburn easily. Standing between a returning hippo and its water as it’s returning home is probably the most dangerous place to be in the Serengeti, though there are certainly many others that could conjure up an equal sense of unease when it comes to being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The remainder of the afternoon we spent searching for a good leopard, though somewhat unsuccessfully. Leopards are solitary creatures best observed sleeping in the trees, with their long tail hanging down below a tree branch and their most recent prey often sitting beside them in the tree. They are most frequently seen in trees by water sources, though can often be found in the kopjes, as well. You can spot them on the ground, moving from place to place, but given the amount of time they spend in the trees, your best bet is to keep your eye on the lower placed, though high enough to keep their prey protected from other predators like lions, branches of several types of trees. They are gorgeous, powerful animals and an incredible sight to see. Unfortunately, the closest we came today was a questionable spotting in the tree of another vehicle that none of could really verify.

We drove back to camp spotting various animals along the way, though one sad individual we spotted was a lone wildebeest calf that had been separated from its mother and would certainly fall prey to some predator by nightfall. Wildebeest mothers do not protect their young, nor do they pay much attention to them as far as keeping up with the herds. Wildebeest remain populated through a numbers game – each wildebeest has a lesser chance of being eaten the greater their numbers are.

Sunset was incredible from camp once again and distant lightning could be seen all evening all across the horizon. It was African night for dinner with all local dishes, though I will have to admit that none of them tasted like anything I’ve had locally before as they were all incredibly delicious. Chicken, beef, ugali, vegetables, soup, salads. All scrumptious. We had decided to leave camp before sunrise once again, so it was early to bed and early to rise. We would be departing tomorrow so would have to make everything ready before hitting the road.