From the Serengeti to Ngorongoro

Today we had to leave the Serengeti and continue on to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. We had time for one last morning game drive, during which we saw a huge bull elephant with one very long tusk. Our guide Estomih told us that this elephant had once attacked a tourist jeep that had approached too close to him during the mating season, and had rolled the vehicle over many times. Fortunately the occupants escaped with minor injuries. We were happy to admire him from a safe distance.

We also saw our good friends the mother cheetah and her cubs once last time, once again surrounded by tourist jeeps…

Our friend the mother cheetah and her cubs

A cub crawls onto to mum and collapses asleep

…before we spotted two other cheetahs in a different area of the park. For this couple of young males, we could relax and observe all for ourselves.

Estomih served lunch on the bonnet of our jeep, and we ate it whilst looking around carefully for any lions that might sneak up on us, but there were none. Indeed, this was the only day in our Serengeti stay when we did not see any.

Finally, after four days of amazing game viewing, it was time to leave the Serengeti National Park, and pass into the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.

Unlike the park, the Masai are allowed to live in this area and we saw many of them tending their herds of cows and goats by the side of the road. We made a pre-arranged stop at one of their villages to learn about Masai life. We were greeted by a welcome dance…..

….before being shown how to make fire (actually a very quick process)…..

…..and then being invited into one of their tiny, simply huts to learn what the Masai ate – milk or cow’s blood in the morning, and meat in the evening, with no fruit or vegetables.

The visit ended with a slightly too insistent request to buy some of the huge number of carvings set out on a massive stall in the centre of the village. The Masai are good at commerce and have become quite expert at milking tourists for money in return for photographs or other services.

We headed onwards and visited a modest display about the attractions of the Ngorongoro area in small museum building just off the main road. There I learnt that the famous archaeological site of Olduvai Gorge was only five kilometres away down a dusty track. This is the place were the earliest fossils of hominid ancestors of man have been found, including the famous “Lucy” Australopithecus skeleton, and so can probably claim to be the birthplace of humanity. I asked Estomih whether we could go and visit the museum there, but he said that this needed to be booked in advance and that in any case it was late in the afternoon and it would close soon. I was a bit disappointed that I had forgotten to ask for this key site to be included in my safari itinerary.

My disappointment was short-lived though, as the road climbed into lush green mountains with beautiful views of lakes, trees and small Masai villages.

We made lots of stops to take photos, including one at the rim of the famous Ngorongoro Crater, our destination for the next day.

We reached our lodge as the sun was setting and the shadows lengthening, which was a shame because it was a really nice place and it would have been good to have enjoyed it for longer.

Our lodge on the edge of the Ngorongoro Crater

When the sun finally set, it became decidedly chilly, and we put on the warm clothes we had last used when changing planes at Amsterdam in Europe. After another nice evening meal we were soon snuggling in bed, delighted that the lodge had provided each of us with a hot water bottle.

Keeping warm ahead of another early start

Previous Post: Floating Above the Serengeti

Next Post: The Ngorongoro Crater

27th January 2026 2

Floating over the Southern Serengeti

Today, even by the standards of our safari, we woke up unusually early for a 5.15 am departure. We drove through the night and arrived at a flat empty plain, where a group of Tanzanians was preparing a large hot air balloon. This was to be a new experience for us, and as the sky slowly got lighter in the east, we watched as the staff inspected the balloon’s fabric, and then started to fill it with hot air from a propane burner. The captain of our flight emerged to give us a safety briefing and assure us that he had been piloting balloons for twenty years without incident.

Just as the sun starting rising, we ready for take-off. Along with landing, this was the only slightly complicated part of the flight and involved us curling up at the bottom of the basket whilst balloon lifted slowly into the air. Soon our captain announced we could stand up and we were greeted by a magical sight of sunrise over the Serengeti plains, with the ground far below.

Our balloon drifted gently with the wind, sweeping over trees, herds of antelopes and giraffes. There was a wonderful silence, broken occasionally by the sound of some more gas been burnt to maintain our altitude, and the soft murmur of my fellow passengers as they admired the amazing sight. Although the Serengeti’s animals and birds are used to jeeps, they seemed scared by our balloon and hurried away as we approached them.

We let our minds float with our balloon over the Serengeti plains, soaking in the experience and filming the animals below us.

I was surprised when our pilot announced that we had been flying for over an hour and it was time to prepare for landing – it seemed that we had only just started. Too soon, we had to crouch back down in our basket and wait for out balloon to hit the ground with a series of bumps. Our successful flight was celebrated with fizzy wine accompanied by songs and dancing by the balloon’s support staff, who had been following us in jeeps as we flew.

We then got back into a jeep and drove for about an hour back to a picnic area close to where we had started, for a copious outdoors breakfast. At around nine a.m. our balloon experience was over and we met up with our guide Estomih again in our own jeep.

Amazingly we still had nearly a full day for a game drive, and to get yet more close up views of big cats, birds and herbivores. We got our closest yet view of a leopard, who started lying in the grass in front of us before climbing up a small tree…..

…..and then reconnected with the two cheetahs we had seen the day before.

We were not alone to admire these cheetahs, whose small shady bush had been surrounded by an array of tourist jeeps. We were travelling in the mid-season (January), and Estomih told us that in high season there would be twice as many vehicles. We don’t like crowds and were glad we had avoided this.

It was soon time for lunch, which we had inside our jeep for a change.

The afternoon’s game drive was quieter, with flamingos, impala, zebra, wildebeest and a few more lions.

As the afternoon progressed, we became a bit tired after several long days and early starts, not to mention our big lunch and glass of Tanzanian wine! So we headed back to our camp to recharge our batteries after another memorable day.

Previous Post: From Central to Southern Serengeti

Next Post: From the Serengeti to Ngorongoro

27th January 2026 1

From Central to Southern Serengeti

Today we were due to move from our camp in the centre of the Serengeti to one in the southern part of the park, enjoying a game drive along the way. Our day started well when we bumped into another superpride of lions. Initially we thought they were hunting some nearby buffalo, but instead they ambled along, inspecting our jeep and moving from one shady tree to the next.

Early morning lions finding shade under a tree……

After this chance encounter we revisited the slain buffalo we had seen the previous day to see if the two lions were still there. It turned out that they had moved on, and been replaced by a couple of hyenas. All that was left of the poor buffalo was its skull – the hyenas have powerful jaws that can crush bones and will eat any part of any animal left over by more powerful predators. A couple of vultures waited patiently for the last hyena to finish, but we were not sure if anything would be left for them. Nearby a nimble jackal seemed to have managed to grab a bone from under the hyenas’ noses and was carrying it away to a safe distance to enjoy it.

After the initial success of the early morning, we had less luck as the day wore on. We did find a group of three male lions hiding in the long grass, and spot a solitary Nile crocodile.

One of a group of three male lions we spotted

But then we spent a lot of time heading towards a reported sighting of a cheetah, only to find lots of jeeps and no signs of any animals. It was time for us to head south to our next camp, and we drove along a long and dusty road that initially appeared rather uninteresting. However we were lucky with two chance sightings of fairly rare animals – first we saw a bat-eared fox, an extremely cute animal that sadly disappeared into its burrow before I could take a picture. Next, we found a serval, a really beautiful smaller relative of leopards and cheetahs, who was much more happy to be filmed.

Further along the road we came across an amazing sight that the Serengeti is famous for – a huge herd of wildebeest and zebra, stretching all the way to the horizon and turning the yellow/green landscape into a mass of black animal bodies. In January most of these animals are found in the south of the park, which is why we had seen relatively few of them so far. In the summer most of them move north in a vast migration and make the hazardous crossing of the crocodile-infested Mara River into Kenya, before returning later in the year.

A huge herd of wildebeest and zebra stretches to the horizon

As we reached the southern part of the Serengeti it was getting late, but our guide Estomih insisted that we should check out two sightings of cheetahs before checking into our camp. We were a bit sceptical after several long days and our unsuccessful search in the morning, but eventually gave in to his enthusiasm. First we found a couple of young males, who had killed a gazelle, and were digesting their meal in the shade of a tree.

A bit further away, we found one of the highlights of our trip – a female cheetah with four cubs. She had caught them a young gazelle and was scanning the horizon for threats as they ate. When they had finished eating they approached her and gave her an affectionate lick.

We finally reached our accommodation after sunset. It was a special mobile camp, which can be disassembled and moved to follow the migrating wildebeest. Despite this, it was remarkably comfortable and well-appointed. On arrival we went straight to dinner and then to bed, aware that the next day we would have to get up even earlier than usual for a very special treat.

Previous Post: The Serengeti – Leopards and Cheetahs

Next Post: Floating over the Southern Serengeti

26th January 2026 2

The Serengeti – Leopards, Cheetahs and yet more lions

After the forty-eight lions we had seen yesterday, today Estomih our guide was determined to find us some different big cats. As usual, with the help of the guides’ exchanging of information over the radio, he delivered. Our first rendezvous was with a young male leopard, which as usual for its species was lazing in a tree.

Having admired the magnificent animal for while, we set off in search of cheetahs…….and duly found three young males making their way through the thick grass of the Serengeti plains.

Over the radio, Estomih heard that our leopard had now been joined by his brother, so we headed back to the see the rather touching sight of the two siblings hanging out together in the branches of a tall tree.

Having seen all of the big cats, we could relax, enjoy the Serengeti scenery, and pay more attention to the park’s less famous animals and birds, like the dik-dik, the smallest antelope…….

…..a big fat hippo, out of its pond…..

……the strange looking topi….

….and the beautiful lilac-breasted roller bird.

Towards the end of the day we bumped into a group of hyenas

A short way further on, we found two lions who had recently killed a buffalo. They sat there with bloodied mouths and fat bellies, digesting their meal.

It had been another great day, but over dinner back in our bush camp I began to wonder if we had already seen everything there was to see in the Serengeti, and whether the next two days here might become a bit repetitive. Fortunately I was wrong, as you will see in the next posts.

Previous Post: From Lake Natron to the Serengeti

Next Post: From Central to Southern Serengeti

25th January 2026 3

From Lake Natron to Serengeti National Park (and 48 lions)

We woke up early and were ready to leave at six as our guide Estomih had suggested. Our first destination of the day was Lake Natron, a large salt lake that stretches across the border between Tanzania and Kenya. We arrived just in time for sunrise. Estomih parked the jeep, leaving us to make the short walk to the water’s edge across a mudflat.

As it got lighter, we saw Lake Natron’s most famous sight – its flamingos, their pink colour enhanced by the early morning sun. From a distance they resembled a long pink band running along the short of the lake.

We were the only visitors there, and the lake had a very peaceful feeling, with the silence only broken by the occasional honking of the birds when we got too close to them. We spent about an hour there soaking up the atmosphere and then headed back to our lodge for breakfast, where we also admired the busy weaver birds who built nests in the nearby trees.

Refreshed and dosed with coffee, we got back into the jeep and made the four-hour drive along the back roads of Tanzania to the Klein’s gate, the northern entrance to the Serengeti National Park. The road was very quiet and quite scenic, and the time passed quickly.

We stopped for lunch just outside the entrance, and then in the early afternoon Estomih bought our pass and with mounting anticipation, we headed into the famous park. Initially, it was an anti-climax. We saw a few antelope and other small animals, but nothing remarkable. Estomih’s jeep had a radio with which he communicated with other guides, usually to share tips about where to see big cats. But this afternoon the guides were all complaining about how quiet things were.

Estomih headed off to an area where some lions had been seen earlier in the day, and suddenly on the horizon I saw the distinctive profile of a large, old male lion with his large bushy mane. We rushed to look and found we had discovered one of the Serengeti’s “superprides” – a social group consisting of about a dominant male lion, many lionesses and even more cubs and young lions.

Each member of the group behaved differently. The old male lounged around. He got up once to sniff our jeep suspiciously before peeing on our spare wheel to mark his territory, and then lay down again right beside us.

The lionesses walked around greeting each other and sometimes would roll around in the grass, with their tummies in the air – reminding me of my own little pet cat back home.

The younger lions on the other hand were very active and always playing.

At first we were one of only two jeeps to have discovered this pride, and had the amazing spectacle almost to ourselves. But as time passed more jeeps arrived, and we decided to move on. A short drive away we discovered yet more lions – a lioness with three young cubs, which Estomih said were part of the same superpride.

Another short drive away we found two more male lions, lounging around in a base used for balloon flights. In total that brought the number of lions we had seen to twenty eight.

It was getting late, and it was time to head on to our camp for the night. In the fading light we caught a quick glimpse of a hippo that had left its river…….

……and then just a bit later, a group of over twenty mostly female lions in a pack hunting zebra, spread out right across the track we were using. We stopped to take pictures, but they largely ignored us, staring intently into the distance in front of them. One of the lionesses got up to sniff the spare wheel which the large male had sprayed earlier, and looked at us suspiciously for a while before rejoining the group.

Sadly, it was now very late, and we could not stay long to admire the lionesses. We finally got to our camp at about seven thirty, after a day which had started at six. We were impressed by Estomih’s stamina and dedication, and remembered that his work was not yet over – he still had to clean the jeep and wash up the plates from our lunch. What an amazing day – after the spectacular flamingos of Lake Natron, we had seen no less than forty-eight lions in the space of a few hours in the Serengeti National Park. Our expectations for the next three days we would spend there were now sky-high.

Previous Post: From Tarangire to Lake Natron

Next Post: The Serengeti – leopards, cheetahs and yet more lions

24th January 2026 5