With picnic boxes in the car we set off for a drive deeper into the park. The landscape is very different here; endless stretches of grass with sometimes a solitary tree, half a mile from anything else that is more than knee high. We’re admiring some baby zebras when Job suggests racing off to a place not far away where cheetas have been spotted. Indeed, two cheetas, a mother and almost grown juvenile, are stalking four Thompson Gazelles. The gazelles keep a safe distance and the cheetas just saunter in their direction.
Every once in a while the gazelles will
race off, but then turn around and approach the
cheetas again. The reason for this becomes apparent
after a while: a young gazelle has become separated
from the adults, and the adults are trying to distract
the cheetas. They might have succeeded if the young
one hadn’t suddenly made a sprint for it, immediately
pursued by the cheetas. The outcome of the chase is
not immediately clear, since they quickly disappear in
the distance, but Job is convinced the gazelle is
“Dead! Dead! Dead!” Indeed, when the safari vans catch
up with the cheetahs, the mother has the gazelle in
her mouth.
Our next stop is at a river where there is a herd of hippos.
The other major view this day is the Wildebeest migration. These animals eat up all the grass in the Serengeti, then cross the border north to find more to graze. We were not sure what to expect, but the spectacle is more low key than we expected. No thundering herds, but endless landscapes of herd after herd of hundreds or thousands of animals, grazing most of the time, but sometimes walking single file towards, what? Among the wildebeest are a large number of zebras, and the occasional gazelle and hog.
We eat our lunch watching one herd of wildebeest make up their mind whether to cross the Mara river. In the end they don’t, even though the low water would make it a cinch. Our way back to the lodge is through endless fields of grass, dotted by occasional trees, giraffes, and ever peevish looking ostriches.
