Safari at Ndutu inside the Serengeti National Park

We are in Tanzania in the Serengeti National Park, in the area of ​​Ndutu, that is located in the South-Eastern part of the park.

This morning, when we woke up in our tented camp, we immediately confronted the animals we heard tonight: lions, at least a couple of times, the hyenas almost all night long, as well as wildebeests and zebras; it is wonderful to hear the sounds of the savannah at night when you are in the dark in your own tent!

When we go to breakfast the land is full of footprints of herbivores, so those we heard in the night were practically in the camp!

We have breakfast in the central tent and we take all the things that we put in charge last night, like the batteries of our cameras, cell phones and the power bank; usually in the tented camps there is light but there are no electrical outlets, so you have to load everything in the central tent.

We leave around 7.30am; this morning we took it with a little more calm than usual.

There is still mud but fortunately this night it did not rain, maybe today the streets will dry a bit.

We descend from the hill where our camp is located and in front of us the view of Lake Ndutu, giving its name to the area, opens up; it has a little water but it is not yet at its full capacity, the rainy season has yet to start.

All around the lake grows a forest of acacias, they are wonderful with their umbrella profile; it is one of the symbols of Africa and its savannah.

We turn to the right and we follow what looks like the bed of a river, in fact at the center there is a trickle of water; all around are green meadows and then up on the banks, there are acacia trees, where we see some giraffes busy eating, but when they hear the noise of our car they turn to look at us curious, they are too beautiful.

On the other side of the river we see a hyena walking quickly following the stream; it is alone, who knows where it is going, we do not see any potential prey on the horizon.

We continue on our path and we see, in the distance, 3 cars stopped, surely there is something there, we do not have the time to make this thought that we see a male lion walking in the river bed, it's really beautiful!

We arrive in time to see it getting to the river to drink and we take lots of photographs; then it crosses the river; despite the water coming only to its paws, it seemed hesitant to get wet, after all it is a big cat!

When it arrives on the other side it reaches its brother who is lying under a bush.

We cross the river and go closer to the two lions; they are beautiful and very blonde, they have voluminous manes that sway in the wind and have a proud posture, at least until they stand or sit, then when they lie down and fall asleep they are a little less strutting and seem the emblem of relaxation and of the listlessness.

On the other side of the river there are two other brothers in the shade of another bush; at one point one gets up, stretches and goes down to the river, it also drinks and then crosses, with the same annoyance for the water shown by its brother, it reaches the other two lions and lies not far away.

Finally, even the last brother arrives and sits there nearby.

They have already done too much activity for today, one at a time they fall asleep; so at some point we decide to go, in any case they will stay here all day.

We continue our safari and venture into the scrubland of acacias, until a huge green prairie opens up in front of us; here, wherever we look, there are herds of wildebeests, zebras, Grant's and Thomson's gazelles.

There are a few cars and in the distance we see five cheetahs, probably a mother with four puppies.

The cars are kept at a safe distance, we can see them well with our binoculars, we try to take some pictures, but they are a bit too far; but they are animals that suffer from stress and, if disturbed by cars, they cannot hunt, so it is essential that safari cars are kept at a distance.

Here and there are some gazelles, they look at them and approach slowly; the cheetah does not ambush like the leopard or coordinated attacks like the lions, but approaches slowly and then takes a shot in speed to catch the prey, it reaches a maximum speed of 110 km / h, but it can run only a few hundred meters and then it must stop to regain its strength and lower the body temperature due to the race.

They walk but, when they try to approach, the gazelles see them and run away; the cheetahs then sit down, they look around in search for another potential prey and then start walking again to try to get close, just enough to then be able to capture it.

As they move, we too follow them so as not to lose sight of them; we remain to watch them for almost two hours, and they continue to make attempts; some cars get tired of waiting and go away, while we stay because Safe tells us that if we wait, maybe we can see them hunt.

In fact at one point all five start in the same direction, we were watching them with binoculars, but now that we have understood what was happening, they had already cought a baby gazelle, they were very fast.

The cheetah mother keeps the prey still alive in its mouth and the puppies try to catch it while it jumps to take it away, maybe it’s teaching them to hunt or maybe it wants to eat first.

After the cheetahs took the prey we approached them a bit by cars but already this way they are a bit scared, at this point we all stopped and let them eat quietly.

What a spectacular scene, we have not taken great photos because they were far away, but with the binoculars we have seen the whole scene very well; it was our first successful cheetah hunting and we are too excited to have been able to watch it.

We let them eat in peace and we move away, since it is past 1pm we look for a corner in the shade of an acacia and we stop for lunch; besides being very fond of making "pic-nic" around the savannah, we did well to decide not to return to the camp for lunch, we would have missed the cheetah hunting scene.

After lunch we go down along the river to see the four lions, since we left them this morning they will have moved at most 10 meters and now they sleep deeply, especially one of them, who is lying on its stomach and with open legs, it is the emblem of relaxation and of the certainty of not having predators or being threatened by any danger, it is too ridiculous.

When some cars arrive, in turn, the other three brothers open an eye to see what happens, but they immediately go back to sleep.

Our guide tells us that if they just wanted to relax they would probably have gone in the bush, the fact that they remained on the river banks means they probably want to hunt, but they wait for the wildebeests to pass by there: laziness at maximum power!

We wait a bit but we cannot see any prey on the horizon and so we continue our journey.

We go to the shore of Lake Ndutu and see wildebeests as far as the eye can see; some are seated, others stand motionless, others look at us and run away, others still, regardless of us, continue to graze, wherever we look there are wildebeests, it's really a show the Great Migration at this time of the year.

We go back along the river again and find the giraffes near the water but they are not drinking, they are crossing the river to go to the other side to reach other giraffes; how elegant they are when they walk with their long legs.

Slowly we return to our tented camp, we are very satisfied with today, we have seen spectacular scenes.

When we get to our tented camp, we go to our tent and sit outside under the veranda to enjoy the relaxation and think back to the safari that has just ended.

At some point on the horizon there are black clouds that advance in our direction, a cold wind rises and we shelter in our tent; shortly after it starts to rain, we hope it does not rain much, since the roads have dried so well today, otherwise we expect another transfer in the mud tomorrow.