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Tanzania 2014 Serengeti Mara Day 4

Tanzania is in eastern Africa, just below Uganda and Kenya, and on the Indian Ocean. At the end of our eleven day/ten-night Zambia safari, we flew from Livingston to Johannesburg for an overnight stay. The next day we flew to Arusha, Tanzania via Nairobi. Arriving at Arusha Coffee Lodge at around 8 pm, we spent two nights (one full day) relaxing there before our next adventure. On the morning of 28 August 2014, our guide and driver, Nelson, picked us up at ACL in his 4x4 Toyota Land Cruiser for the trip to Ngorongoro Crater. After three nights and two full days in the Crater while staying at Lemala Ngorongoro Camp, we flew by Coastal bush plane out of Manyara Airstrip to Kogatende Airstrip for four nights at Sayari Mara Camp in the remote NW corner of the Serengeti near the Mara River and the Kenyan border. Albert Alfred Lucas was our guide and driver. All arrangements for our requested Tanzanian safari from our arrival at ACL through our return to Arusha and departure from ACL on 5 September 2014 were made by Africa Travel Resource.

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After almost an hour of checking the herd and other animals, several crossing sites, and with other guides by radio, Albert decides that we can relax with tea, cakes, cookies and fruit. This break lasts for an hour and a half. Life is tough out here on the savanna!
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After almost an hour of checking the herd and other animals, several crossing sites, and with other guides by radio, Albert decides that we can relax with tea, cakes, cookies and fruit. This break lasts for an hour and a half. Life is tough out here on the savanna!

  • Breakfast at 7:09 am before we set out on our last safari prior to leaving Sayari Mara Camp on day 5 in the early afternoon for Arusha and an eventual return to the States.
  • A male Warthog.
  • A White-backed Vulture cleans up a wildebeest carcass while the Marabou Stork patiently waits its turn.
  • Vultures and a stork at work on a wildebeest, said to have died of "natural causes".
  • Even when they are standing still in a group, it is sometimes hard to tell where one Zebra ends and the next one begins. Imagine what it would be like for a color-blind Lion to pick out its target at twilight or at night in a shifting, zig-zagging herd of these animals moving at 40 mph!
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  • Albert analyzing the distant Wildebeest and other animals in anticipation of another crossing.
  • On our way to a potential crossing site, we swing by the Mara River to check its level and flow. This will probably influence the wildebeests' choice of where to cross.
  • After almost an hour of checking the herd and other animals, several crossing sites, and with other guides by radio, Albert decides that we can relax with tea, cakes, cookies and fruit. This break lasts for an hour and a half. Life is tough out here on the savanna!
  • The word comes to all guides and vehicles simultaneously. We hastily pack up - and we have lift-off! There is suddenly a mad, dust-choking, pedal-to-the-metal herd of about 15 open-sided Land Cruisers and Rovers bobbing and weaving, gaa-nooing and roaring thru the savanna and low brush where there is no road at all with their dazed passengers hanging on and fumbling to click their seat belts while racing for the crossing. Holy Sacagawea! Talk about your shock & awe! Reminds me of a Saturday night short dirt track demolition derby but without any collisions. At warp speed, we flash into a grove of trees, Albert fighting the wheel, dodging the larger ones, mowing down the small stuff; the rule here seems to be that brakes are for sissies. But in a few seconds we snap to a stop, inches from the smoking Land Rover in front of us, all vehicles akimbo and empty, and no two at the same angle. The dust is so thick we have no idea where we are. Well, at least we are all in the same place. We hit the eject button and bounce to the ground, every man and women for him/her self, and I immediately loose track of Nancy and Albert. More vehicles swerve sideways to a stop behind us, and those people, their pale faces and designer glasses smeared with a mix of dirt and diesel exhaust, tumble out. We are all running toward what I presume to be the crossing - either that or an ice cream truck. The further we go the clearer it becomes until there is no dust in the air at all save that being kicked up by hundreds of wildebeest charging down the river bank and plunging in. We made it, several dozen of us now teetering on the edge of a spectacle, not to mention a 20-foot drop into the Mara River. And from what I can see, nobody peed in their pants getting here. What a relief! In unison we raise our cameras and smartphones to the heavens and bleat "We are blessed! Let the clicking begin!".
  • This looks odd - two rows of wildebeest in the river and a line of zebras further upstream.
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  • Four jump at once.
  • The landing 2 seconds later.
  • A pair dives in together.
  • The pair lands in synch.
  • Another pair launches themselves.
  • Here's their splash-down.
  • In the pike position.
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