Philmont Staff Association and Friends Kilimanjaro Climb and Safari Dispatch
June 26, 2011 – In the Serengeti
“I hear the rains down in Africa,” goes the song, and this evening we are being treated to a thunderstorm that has rolled across the Serengeti Plain for more than an hour. It’s been a fitting conclusion to another remarkable day with the Philmont Staff Association and Friends journey to see the best of Tanzania.
After our 6 a.m. departure yesterday for the floor of Ngorongoro Crater, this morning’s 7:30 checkout seemed downright leisurely. There was time to linger over the buffet breakfast in the Sopa Lodge restaurant, then to stroll out to the edge of the lawn and look down into the crater. In the forest just below we could make out an elephant and a zebra beneath the trees.
The five boys in our group piled into the Land Cruiser with David as their guide while the rest of the group joined Godwin in his vehicle. We motored around the rim of the crater and then down to a stop at Olduvai Gorge where Mary and Louis Leakey found fossils of our ancient ancestors. From there we drove out onto the Serengeti Plain. It’s the dry season, and at first we were concerned we would not see many animals.
But then David and Godwin used their sharp eyes to find some really remarkable wildlife. We saw lions sunning on rocks and making their way through tall grass. We watched a leopard resting on the high branch of a tree, and then saw three more leopards in a tree with the carcass of an impala that the mother leopard had dragged up into the branches. Nearby we saw a cheetah sitting atop a termite mound, the elevated perch giving it a greater view of the surrounding plains.
We reached the Serengeti Sopa Lodge just as the rainstorm unleashed, and are nicely tucked into wonderful rooms with big sliding glass doors that almost let the rain in, but not quite. It’s an excellent end to a fine day of African adventure and discovery.