Days on the Serengeti begin much like they end, surprisingly cool and surrounded by a mix of zebra and wildebeest.  According to Swai, recent rains during the beginning of the dry season brought back some of the migrating Wildebeest, adding to the smaller in number sedentary populations.  Our two main objectives for the day were to see some hippos closer than we had at Lake Manyara and a Leopard.  We started the day with some breakfast and tea.  Side note, we were looking forward to drinking some nice Tanzanian/Kenyan coffee on our trip but found nearly every place served Africafe, an unpleasant and strong instant coffee.  Unfortunately for us it looks like most of the quality coffee grown in this part of the world is exported to people willing to pay for it.  After eating we headed over to the hippo pool where we found close to 100 hippos in and around the water.  Turns out hippos are deceptively fast and aggressive. We stood up above the banks of the year round pool watching them play and/or fight in brownish black water while laughing at the sounds they made.  We also saw a couple of Nile Crocodiles around the hippo pool that did not seem to concern the hippos.

After the hippos we got back into the Land Cruiser and drove around the plains stopping briefly for the ever present wildlife.  It is astounding how quickly animals that had mesmerized us two days earlier were now almost minor nuisance.    This complacency rapidly disappeared when we spotted a leopard resting in a tree.  Kate had read somewhere that leopard sightings on safaris were a rare occurrence so we counted ourselves lucky.  As we were watching the leopard it leaped across the crook of its tree some 5 meters from the ground.  Supposedly leopards will drag their prey , sometimes as large as a full grown antelope, into the tree to feed free being bothered by other predators.

Following the leopard we headed back towards the wilderness camp finding more lion, elephants, zebra, water buffalo, warthog, dwarf mongoose, and the vibrant red orange and green fisher lovebird.  We stopped by the visitor’s center and toured their wonderful display and history of the national park, along with the fascinating hyrax, a large rodent.  Tanzania prides itself on the national parks and do a great job maintaining them.  The center included a wall of shame citing incidents of companies breaking the rules.  These included driving off road, surrounding an animal during a hunt, or not completing the proper paperwork, the last to get the biggest fine.  During our two days in the Serengeti we saw more animals than we had ever ever expected.  In reading about the Serengeti prior to our trip it occasionally sounded inundated with tourists and potentially unenjoyable.  While we saw a good number of other vehicles in the park the sheer size of the park and the impressive management of the tourism industry in the Serengeti help to maintain an authentic wilderness experience.  The Serengeti exceeded our already high expectations in every way.