Serengeti Plains  , Seronera

We are now going to stay four nights in one place in the Seronera part of the Serengeti. The staff are very friendly but this is a very large hotel with plenty of large groups. We somehow manage to get the staff to like us and they make sure we get a nice private table away from the crowds outdoors.

This place is on a hill but surrounded by forest and again we strike the dreaded tse tse flies. They look like a large horse fly , you don’t feel them land until they bite which is very painful. The ones we had in Tarangire did not welt up but appeared as very itchy spots two days later. Here they are obviously a different strain as just after they bite it turns into a huge , itchy welt that stays thAt way for days. Luckily they apparently do not carry the sleeping sickness disease here. André gets the full brunt with his hands out there on his camera. In the afternoon as we watch some beautiful topi in the afternoon light I hear rain starting on the truck, in fact it’s not, it’s just the hard bodied tse tses landing on the roof with a pop. We become extremely adapt at a hard targeted crunch of squashing them once we start moving , window rolled back up. This is the only creature we do not feel sorry for as they die!

We see large herds of migrating wildebeest and zebra which can cover a section of the plains.

Rain has been very scarce and the waterholes are becoming very full of animals. There is lots of jostling to get a slurp before moving on.

As we watch the wildebeest, Andrew spots some movement and sure enough there are two cheetahs eyeing off the herd. In the end they decide that it is too hot for a chase and the zebra are clearly aware of their presence putting on a sentinel perimeter around the wildebeest, they apparently have a better sense of smell and sight so are the guardians of the herds.

We move off and go and check out some hippo pools in the afternoon. These are packed with honking hippos again the water levels are dropping and it will become pretty desperate soon.

We finish off going for a late afternoon explore on the other side of the valley where we find more zebra, giraffe and wildebeest.

After the epic survival day and the amazing courage the car showed in getting us through, we decide it is only fitting he has a name. I get the privilege of that and so Sam it is. We are now the SAMA team:)