Today, our goal is to get out of the Serengeti and back to the Ngorongoro Crater so we are not taking a leisurely drive, the top is not opened on the Land Cruiser, we are not stopping unless we something cool.

Look! Mongooses! (Mongeese?) A whole lot of them perched up on top of a termite mound. We had only seen the odd one running past us up until now; of course we had to stop and take some pictures. One by one though, the mongoose disappeared into the brush surrounding them. Still, pretty cool.

Look! A big, fat, just been fed lioness lounging in the tree. Well, of course we have to stop and look at her for a minute or two…wait, there’s two of them in the tree! Yep, we have to look at both of them now for another minute or two. This is not the world’s quickest getaway. LOL. Neither Paul nor us mind one bit, when there is something happening you just have to make the most of the opportunity given to you.

We knew there was an airstrip somewhere in the park and today we happened to be able to drive right by it – quickly though, before Jason could get any ideas about living here permanently!

Passing over the bridge of one of the hippo ponds and we don’t even stop to observe them and get all kinds of pictures. In what world does seeing hippos in their natural habitat become mundane and normal and not worthy of an extra 5 minutes of your time. Crazy, eh?

Off in the distance of the Serengeti Plains, we spot a huge parade of elephants. Now, yes, we’ve seen countless elephants and most of them within spitting distance of us, so what made this parade so special it warranted a stop? Well, we’d never seen so many of them together and we’d never seen them in this type of landscape. It was truly majestic to see them roaming around the vast open plains. Worth a few minutes, for sure.

It wasn’t long after this that we started to see hyenas roaming the fields. We stopped to take a few pictures because they were so close. As soon as we opened the window – whoooeee – was there a stench in the air. Something died, that’s for sure. It would also explain the abnormally large number of hyenas we were seeing.

We don’t drive more than a minute when we found the source. An elephant had died and the hyenas were having the best feast. There were dozens of hyenas around digging in. I’m glad it was far enough away that we didn’t see the actual carnage, but it was close enough that we totally knew what was going on. There were lots of hyenas who were finished feasting that were covered in blood and they just looked so happy and content. I wonder just how many hyenas a whole elephant will feed, and for how long?

Vultures were also around, circling the area waiting for their turn to dive into the mass of flesh. The circle of life is amazing.

Time to get moving! Who knew we were going to witness so many cool things…wait…what is that? We come upon another migrating group of wildebeests and zebras but they were all taking a bit of a rest so we went a bit closer to them so we could just watch. There was this one baby wildebeest that kept running away towards the road and his mom had to keep chasing after him to pull him back into the group. It wasn’t working, he wanted to GO! What was very interesting was that bit by bit, the whole group started to follow him. Paul told us that usually the group will wait for one to make a move when it comes to a difficult part of the path and then the rest will follow. It doesn’t matter who takes the lead, as long as someone does. As we were witnessing this, we realized that we had better leave or we’d be stuck in the herd until they all made it across the road.

I can’t stress enough that we really were trying to make good time leaving, but it just wasn’t in the cards because we came across a whole group of ostriches next. Of course they deserve a few minutes of our time. They are a funny bird to watch as they chase each other and prance around in their fancy feathers.

Can you believe all of this happened in two hours? Neither could we. But now, it really is time to leave the park. There is a new adventure waiting for us just on the other side.