In the Serengeti

Early Sunday morning we left Masai Mara National Park in Kenya and crossed the border into Tanzania.  The border experience went quite smoothly but took a long time.  Leaving Kenya, they were more concerned that our Toyota safari vehicle was not a stolen vehicle than anything else.  Apparently there's a huge market for 4-wheel drive vehicles in Tanzania.  Standing on the Tanzanian side and waiting for the bureaucratic chain was like watching a carnival!  The streets were packed with trucks waiting and many of them had to unload all of their cargo so the authorities could check for contraband or goods that hadn't been declared.   Young boys were selling peanuts by the cone, girls walked around selling baskets of bananas that they were carrying on their heads and all kinds of pull carts went back and forth transporting goods.  One that really caught our eyes was loaded with sheets of corrugated tin (used for roofing and building) and was pulled by one man with 4 others pushing on the sides and behind to get it up the slight incline.  Bob and Clarence were hoping they had a braking system so they wouldn't have a runaway when it started downhill!

We stayed on the shores of Lake Victoria (the largest lake in Africa) at Speke Bay last night and entered Serengeti National Park today.  It's a huge park and we drove 136 km on a gravel road, averaging 50 kph, from the park gate to get to our hotel.  Along the way we saw some very cool animals!!

A very big giraffe was standing in the middle of the road as we approached and he posed so we all got a picture with him in the background.  The blanket you can see on the front of the vehicle is covering the 2 bags Clarence and Bob have packed for their Kilimanjaro hike.

And then we came upon the coolest thing yet!!!

It started with a few -

and they just kept coming -

and pretty soon 28 elephants, of all sizes, had mudbaths!!!

The little babies were so sweet as they ran alongside their mothers to arrive and they plunged right in and laid down, without getting squished or stepped on!  You can see 3 of them in the picture above.

And pretty soon they were off and the fun was over!!  15 minutes earlier or 15 minutes later and we would have missed it all.  It happened only about 75 ft. from the road so we had perfect seats for the show.

This afternoon we saw another hippo pool with about 200 hippos, I think.

And then we caught the sunset as we drove home.  We had to be at the hotel by 6:30 according to park rules so we couldn't wait too much but I like this picture anyway!

Denise and Esther asked about the weather -

In Nairobi it was about +25 and very nice for sitting outside beside the pool :)

At Mount Kenya it was a bit cooler but we only used our jackets in the middle of the night when we came out on the balcony, checking for a hyena.

Samburu was hot - Clarence's backpack temperature gauge said +33 at 4 p.m..

Lake Nakuru was in the mid-20's.

Driving to the Masai Mara was a cloudy but warm day and we drove through some rain.  It's very dry in most parts of  Kenya that we've seen so this rain was very welcome.

The Masai Mara was warm but still no need for jackets.

Now we are in the Serengeti and the temperature is up again.  It was 30+ when we headed out at 4 p.m. for our afternoon game drive today.

Luckily when the sun goes down, so does the temperature, especially at these higher elevations.  The sign outside our hotel says we are at 4895 feet here.

Tomorrow's day starts with us leaving at 7:00 a.m. so I'm off to bed!