Safari in the Ndutu area of the Serengeti national park

It's painful to wake up before 6am. We start our game drive at 6:30 this morning.

The sky is grey and we will definitely get rain today. It's quite cold when we start the drive.

This portion of the Serengeti where we stay, around lake Ndutu, is quite lush with big trees.

We see some small dik dik to start the day and mostly birds.

We also come across a lost baby wildebeest, we called him lunch. He follows us for a little while.

Sadly, we found his dead body not far from where we saw him, just beside a sleeping lion in the afternoon. His nickname should have been snack.

We drive along the shore of lake Ndutu for a while. Flamingoes are in the water but not much else. We get a little above the shore into some plains. There, a lot of Marabouts are walking in a line, maybe 50 of them. They are digging for bugs to eat.

We continue on this piece of flat land, until I start to wonder why we stay here, there is nothing to see. But Donald just stop and point, there, small cute bat-ear foxes. They are around their burrow and very small. Usually nocturnal , but in the early morning, we have a chance to see them. That's what Donald was looking for.

We continue driving and the rain starts in earnest. There is not much we can see in this pouring rain, luckily it doesn't last so long.

Along the lake shore we see some cars stopped, a lot of them. We assume something interesting is there and we go too. It's a pride of lions with a lot of cubs. We observe them playing and running around for a little while. It's quite nice.

The rain has stopped and Donald drives back along the shore. I spot some rounded back and think it's elephants. He goes totally off road and climb the hill and we come face to face with a huge herd of buffalos. Now, those are dangerous, so we stop and wait for them to move around so we can drive at a safe distance out of the thick bushes.

We arrive into the huge flat plains. Hundreds of wildebeests and zebras are grazing. The beginning of the migration groups. It's a far as the eye can see and yes, only a minimal fraction of what these herds will become. We drive through various groups and observe.

After a while, we spot something moving and get closer. That's a cheetah ! So lucky !

On these plains we also saw a black back jackal.

Donald drives us back to the forested area after we got out fill of wildebeests. Down in the empty lake floor, we see that giraffes are walking around. In big groups, or also called tower, of 10 individuals. Some isolated hartebeest and Topi are around.

We are back in the camp for lunch and a long quiet time. Which is great, because we need the nap.

At 4pm, we are back on the road. This time, it's zebra and giraffes galore. They are everywhere in the bushes. We pass some herds of wildebeests too. A couple of lions are sleeping by the lake. They don't look so majestic when they so inelegantly slumber.

A lioness has also found a nice spot in the tree.

It's been a pretty good day, we saw a lot of things and the landscape were quite nice. I really like these huge trees that you see around. The area is vast and I do not know how our guide can find his way. We did a lot of offroad driving today and that was pretty cool.

Back at camp for the night, and zebras are in the path, as we walk, they move ahead and end up in front of our tent. A giraffe is in the background.

After a nice diner, we go to bed happy. These days of safari are intense.