Disneyland...

The two hours after we left Kogatende airstrip were... remarkable. The area looked, literally, like a movie set from a Disney movie about Africa. I'm going to let the pictures do most of the talking here. Enjoy!

We were barely away from the airstrip when, suddenly, Wildebeest! Lots of them, all just hanging out. Here, Mom is giving Junior lunch...

Not long after, we were reminded by this White-Backed Vulture that Africa isn't all baby animals and beautiful scenery...

This handsome male Impala was apparently quite the ladies man...

Judging from his large harem...

We no sooner arrived at the Mara River than we spotted elephants on the other side...

And a Maribu Stork, standing over the carcasses of dead Wildebeest...

I was starting to realize that dead Wildebeest were everywhere, washed downstream when they failed to make a river crossing...

It was about this time that my brain started rebelling. "Wait a minute," I thought, "This looks a little too much like it was set up by Disneyland for the tourists. These dead Wildebeest look like they were dropped in place by a crane." Of course, the nearest crane was probably 200 miles away in Arusha. No, this was real. Stunning, but real.

Thoughts of Disneyland were soon set aside, however, when we came across this guy, who looks like he swallowed a Wildebeest whole (and probably could - he was close to 15 feet long).

There were Hippo in the water...

Giraffe and Hogwarts...

A train of Zebra...

We interrupted this Giraffe's lunch...

But not the lunch of this Wildebeest calf...

This Cheetah didn't care that he was surrounded by three or four trucks (we were now near camp)...

But his siblings were a little more reticent (there are two Cheetahs here, and a truck in the background)...

The Leopard Tortoise is not a common sight around here...

But if there is a rock to sun on, there is an Agama lizard somewhere nearby. These colorful characters love to do pushups.

Now, I don't expect you to believe this, but these cute hyraxes are one of the elephant's closest living relatives (not the closest, but one of the closest). Look it up - I had to...











So that is only part of what we found on the trip from the airstrip to camp. A 45 minute drive direct, but about 2 hours of game driving. The next couple of days were very promising.

In the meantime, though, we were met at Sayari Camp with a refreshing welcome drink of hibiscus tea. After the customary camp briefing it was off to our tent for some rest as we had a late afternoon game drive planned. Our tent was, of course, the very last one on the end of the line, and a good 400 yards from the main compound. Where else would it be?