By Chediel Mnzava
The end of the dry season - it does not happen on a particular date or day or week. Each year is different and we usually chose two locations with flexibility or two different locations to give oursleves the best chance at meeting up with the herds.
The safari starts with a change of camp. The change in the weather means that the migrating animals are not where we had anticipated them to be at this time. So the first conversation I had with the clients was all about why we were going somewhere different.
On the vast short grass plains, as far as your eyes can see. Kopjes in the distance, big sky. That is how our safari started.
We were interested in everything: animals, birds, plants but our first big cat sighting was a leopard with a kill on top of a kopje. For me, it was particularly special as we were the only people there.
Ewanjan Camp in central Serengeti was our starting off point and we saw all the big cats, small to big antelopes, elephant and zebra.....and it rained while we were there so we saw a lot of wildebeest flowing into the area. Our three nights at the Makoma Hills were excellent.
The drive from Makoma hills to Lamai Camp was interesting, through the moving herds of gnu. Half an hour after we left camp, we spotted a Giant Eagle Owl then from nowhere, a leopard showed up and walked very closeto our vehicle. She came to drink water from one of the puddles just in front of us and then disappeared into thick vegetation. We all congratulated ourselves on our luck not knowing that she had not gone far. I heard a funny sounds from the kopjes and when I looked, I saw her two cubs.
The nice part of this safari was seeing the Serengeti landscape change from one area to another. The park is not huge in terms of kilometers but the variety of habitat is impressive.
