Day 15: We the North (Bound)

Today was a bit of a transition day.  As part of most visits to the Serengeti National Park, one of the "must" things to see is the Great Migration, a mass movement of mostly wildebeests and some zebras (and their corresponding entourages and predators) from South Serengeti to Kenya (May to July) and then back again (August or September to November).  The animals are essentially following the water and the fresh growth of tall grasses that are good to eat.  The predators are following the wildebeests and zebras which are also.... good to eat!

Our goal today was to drive the 100 or so kilometers to our North Serengeti camp.  The drive was pretty uneventful, though I found the change in terrain and fauna pretty cool.  Gradually, the terrain got hiller, and the number of trees exploded - never getting into a density that you would call "forest" but certainly much more than the relative sparseness of the central Serengeti.  

One thing that caught us off guard was when we passed an overturned, regular sized Safari Land Rover.  It was pretty beat up and apparently one of the tourists in the car had suffered a broken arm.  Shitty thing to happen on a Safari for sure.  

When we passed one of the midpoints of the park, we crossed a small river bridge and turned into a viewing area for hippos and crocs.  Sure enough there were about thirty hippos three quarters submerged in the still water of the semi-dry river, and a half dozen crocodiles catching rays at the side of the river.

The kids were mostly reading or napping the day away today, and that was cool with us (though what choice did we have really?).

At around one, we stopped to eat our boxed lunches at one of the camp sites.  These sites were for do-it-yourselfers (though they still mostly travelled with a guide and chef) who really wanted to rough it (or save money, or both).  Grayson said that that campsite was one of the rougher ones, since it was in the more remote Northeast section of the park, but the adults all gave themselves a pat on the back for their relatively luxurious choice of accommodations.

After lunch, we took a route running up and down in the foothills of the Lobo mountains, which ended up being a very bumpy and fairly uninteresting road, though we did see a bunch of cattle that some Masai shepherds had illegally snuck into the park to graze.

As we rejoined the main north road, we began to see small packs of zebra and wildebeest.  Before long, they were large herds of both animals grazing all over the place.

We arrived at our North Serengeti tented camp.  The staff were excellent, but the overall feel was that Kati Kati was far better.  Still, we had a nice welcome drink, a very awkward briefing from a middle aged, newbie assistant manager, and a quick tour of the facilities and how to use everything, which was nice.

In the late afternoon, the kids were playing cards in their massive family tent, while the adults sat around in the lounge, sending some updates home on the limited wifi (the first since Tarangire) and mocking ourselves as we invented a few first world problems.... (easier to mock when spoken with a teenaged valley girl accent)

• The wifi sucks (when we don't have wifi, we are great, when we have wifi, we whine that it's not Netflix quality streaming!)
• The double vodka and mango passion fruit drinks that Alex, Kim and Beth got were a tad sweet and the ice melted a little faster than they would prefer
• The tented camp rooms were a little warm (until we opened the back windows as well)
• The sound of ten thousand wildebeests mooing nearby was sometimes drowning out our conversation
• A couple of flies were pecking away at a lampshade and it was slightly irritating
• Beth didn't have slippers and a bath robe in our room like Alex and Kim had (turns out they were in the blanket box)
• The charging station only had 40 outlets available...

Dinner with Tom and Grayson was fun, though the food was mediocre to be honest.  We had Robin give her imitation of Tom's daily briefing which was pretty hilarious,  even more so when Grayson pointed to her and said "she has a lot of confidence!".

Well, Tom gave us the REAL briefing.  We have a big day tomorrow for our last day on Safari.  We are hoping to catch some migration action, so it should be fun.