Serengeti Day 2

Today, Tuesday, July 6th, we spent our second full day in the
Serengeti. We left early and brought a box lunch so that we could make
it far to the southwest to see the wildebeest migration.

As we traveled southwest, the seemingly endless plains ("serengeti"
actually means endless plains) gave way to rocky terrain with more
trees and bushes and w eventually came to the Grameti River.

By late morning we caught the tail end of the migration. We came
across several smaller groups (meaning in the hundreds) and enjoyed
warching their haphazard progress. The rains ended early this year
causing the wildebeest to move north into Kenya earlier than usual.

We also saw crocodiles fir the first time and some large groupings of
hippos. Twice we came across groups of vultures and hyenas eating the
remains of kills made by larger animals. Again, we saw many lions,
including a large older male (Moses guessed 10 years old) who walked
right down the road within 3 feet of our jeep.

On the long drive back, while the other four of us were having trouble
keeping our eyes open, Monica spotted a zebra with three deep,
bleeding gashes in it's side, presumably from a fresh run in with a
lion. There are between 2 and 3 thousand lions living in the Serengeti.

We spent the rest of the afternoon looking for the elusive leopard,
the one big animal that we haven't yet seen. This has become somewhat
of a running joke as three times today we learned from another gide
that we had just missed a leopard by minutes.

We are looking forward to tomorrow, our last full day on safari.