Lobo Wildlife Lodge Serengeti National Park

... a great day with a roller coaster of emotions and an amazing experience. We even caught a fair bit of it on video, including the &#8216;oh ****&#8221; moment, as it became known from the commentary I was making at the time.<br><br> The icing on the cake the following day was seeing the black rhino, albeit far away, in the Ngorongoro Crater. We are now heading East to Zanzibar for a couple of days exploring and beaching. Hopefully another (shorter!) Blog soon.<br><br>

... attacks from hawks and a few times they successfully snapped food right out of people&#8217;s hands. From our perch though we were only in danger of being swooped down on and so we watched the repulsive looking birds terrorize the other groups, fascinated by their ugliness. <br><br> Our first spotting of animals was some kind of springbok and then some warthogs. Soon we were passing a sprinkling of ...

... on your tushy (or up against the side of the truck was my option), do it. <br><br>TIP: Don't forget to bring:<br>- Camera<br>- Spare Battery <br>- Zoom Lens<br>- Binoculars<br>- Water, water, water<br>- Sunglasses (not just for sun but handy for dust too)<br>- Sunscreen (you'll spend alot of time out the top of the Jeep, often in the sun)<br>- Baby wipes (unless you're opting for the lodges with showers...)

... but in no way like the numbers we saw in Kenya. At the park gate we stopped at the little shop and bought water and drinks for the evening camp as they did not supply drinks of any kind not even a cup of tea! This was my gripe about the trip as we were not hydrated well and so were tired and dry physically. Out of the park we again climbed up to the crater rim which is an ancient volcanic caldera so ...

... see was the annual wildebeeste migration. There are over one million wildebeeste in the Serengeti and as the rainy season comes to an end they form immense herds near the remaining green areas and start to migrate north and west towards the Masai Mara. They migrate back to the Serengeti around August-October. A few of the herds we saw only had a few hundred wildebeeste, but others ...

... glands which make their eyes look ultra-large and rather sad at the same time. They are also dimuniutive in stature, and have a baby-esque look to them even when as full-grown adults. In the afternoon, we had our first glimpse of a lion in the brush about 25 feet away. We could only see her head and we left after waiting for 15 minutes as we were not making any progress. I knew we had to move on and ...

... and on route picked up local support in the way of a Masai security guard. He put down his AK47 assault rifle and we set to work crowded around the opening. Another guide had found an old plastic bottle conveniently shaped like a poop scoop. We tied this onto the end of the tent pole and used another pole to push the items into it. The Masai insisted on performing the operation and after scaring me by pushing the battery charger further down the ...

... away from them. At intervals we passed great bou bou trees. After about 15 minutes of driving we caught sight of a lone elephant, sheltering under a tree from the heat. You could definitely tell that the elephant was calmly checking us out as it's eyes followed the car. That was amazing enough, but then about 10 minutes later we came across a whole herd of elephant milling around in what was left of the Tarangire river. The dominant female was watching as the younger elephants ...

... break lose. We stopped briefly at the crater to take some photos and it was a overcast day so we didn't stay to long. As we moved through the crater park we saw a number of animals and as we got closer to the Serengeti we started to see the migration of animals which was amazing 2 million wildebeests and 200,000 zebras as far as the eye can see like black dots on the horizon. After passing by numerous animals we ended up in our camp which was quite interesting as there was no ...