Serengeti National Park

The past five days camping in the Serengeti were unbelievable. We camped in an ungated and unfenced area within the Serengeti, and animals could walk through really at any time. Often at night, there were hyaenas and lions nearby or in our camp (and don't worry mom, we had guards and I refrained from walking toward scary noises at night). Giving you a play-by-play of the trip is impossible, and since I find myself completely unable to describe my experience with words alone, I decided to make this post more picture oriented than my last ones. I promise to keep things as hilarious as possible.

Olduvai Gorge (really should be Oldupai- damn Europeans always screwing things up) I was in some serious rock and fossil heaven here. This place is famous for its fossils relating to human evolution. The rock layers aren’t too shabby either.

Mr. Lion Man greeting our car on our game-drive to the campsite. And when I say greet, I mean guarding his lady and growling at us when we got to close.

Cheetah brothers giving us a fabulous show. Initally when our car arrived, there was only one brother and he began calling for his other half (male cheetahs are only found in male groups with their brother).  I actually teared up when we came across them and the fact that they were less than a foot from our car made the whole sighting even more amazing.

Lion cub chilling with his mommy. 

I could have stayed here all day watching this pride of lions. There were about 4 females and 8 cubs. SO CUTE

DERP

Chilling with a rock hyrax. “BG, I know it’s cute, but don’t touch it. Also, you probably shouldn’t let it jump on you”

Lazy, lazy leopard sleeping in a tree. His kills were hanging in the next tree over. I think we stared at him for almost an hour. Also, when we came back later that day, the lazy leopard was STILL sleeping. What a life.

Elephant parade. The baby made me squeal like a child.

Oh look, what a beautiful cerval. OH MY GOD IT JUST KILLED SOMETHING.

Lions feasting on a newly killed buffalo. After feasting, most of the lions fell onto their backs and passed out. Earlier in the day, our SFS group had feasted at a wonderful buffet- we all knew exactly how the lions felt. Delicious food can do that to you.

I "dabbled" a bit in birding during this expedition. Here is a beautiful lilac breasted roller. I'm pretty sure this is one of only five birds I am now capable of identifying.

Crocodile! Some impala got pretty dang close to it, but their brains kicked in and they fled before this majestic creature could attack.

A wittle baby warthog.

Our sendoff from the Serengeti. This was one of the last animals we saw as we speed off back to the SFS center in Rhotia.

There's still a ton of pictures that didn't make it to this post (mainly because it's a pain to deal with resizing and uploading), but I'll try to send some to those who want them when the internet is at full strength.