Safari in the Serengeti central plains

I slept well but not enough. Alexis is nudging me to look, we are facing the sunrise. Our tent has huge windows and we left everything open during the night ( with mosquito nets of course ). This is a very nice view to wake up to.

Our belongings are packed quickly and after breakfast, we start our day of game drive in direction of the South Serengeti. ( Ndutu area ).

We are immediately welcomed by giraffes and some elephants in the far distance. But then it's a little quiet with the large animals. However, we see a lot of pretty birds !

We stay close to some water ponds in the morning , with hippos, crocodiles and more water birds, like herons.

On the antelope side, we see hartebeest, but they are different from the ones in Namibia and Botswana:  Not as red and a little smaller.

The morning gets better as we spot our first lions. A pair of lioness coming straight for us and stayed around the car. Then we followed them until they decided to pick a tree to climb.

From that encounter on, I can say it's a lion day. We see a few males and a huge pride. The great part about this pride is that they had stashed the cubs into a sinkhole, with a babysitter, and you had a puppy pile of cute baby lions all sleeping with their belly full.

We continue to zigzag in the plain around those huge piles of rocks called Kopje. In-between, we have the usual grazers: zebra, gazelles, hartebeest and the new one, the topi.

Until we spot three cheetahs under a tree! How lucky! That day has some great finds !

A herd of elephants was drinking by a waterhole shortly before lunch.

We start to join back the main gravel road around 3:30pm. The rain is also on the horizon and indeed, we get under a good, but short, shower as we arrive back at the main gate to the national park.

From there, we get south through more plains, but the path is now muddy. At some area, it felt like we were driving in a swamp. Ndutu is mostly visited during the migration. Our camp for the next two nights is a temporary one.

And as soon as the mud started, it stopped. You can clearly see where the edge of the rain cloud was on the ground and it's dusty roads again.

The landscape changes, we are no longer in plains but in a forest. There is lake Ndutu and most of it is empty. Most safari cars drive in the bed of what is a larger lake during rainy season. It feels a little wilder and paths are not so well defined. Our guide goes a little bit offroad at time.

In this section we see some dik dik, the smallest antelope, and few lions. Two of which were climbing trees and resting there.

We finally get to our camp. It's nested in nature and genuinely luxurious again. It's true glamping. We are quite tired.

After a little time at the tent, we hear an elephant trumpeting close by. There is a part of camps facing the wild with chairs and a fire. They called it the bush TV corner. We go there in hope to see the source of the noise. No luck, but it is a nice place to hang out outside nonetheless. Nature smells nice here, as if you had crushed aromatic plants together.

One of the waiter comes to us and ask for an order. We get served tea, watching the fire and the outdoor with some extra popcorn. What a treat!

We must have forgotten about time, because the same waiter comes back to tell us that diner has been served. We finish our drinks and go to the restaurant.

Little surprise in the bed in our tent, they had put hot water bag to warm the bed ! We have an even earlier start to our morning game drive tomorrow, so we get straight to bed.