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Other entries in Serengeti National Park

Sleepless in Serengeti

Here we are, camping in the middle of The Serengeti! It's so freaky! Yes, and we have e-mail from the Celtel network - what coverage! Maybe it's wrong to e-mail while we're here, but hey, at one time there wasn't cell phone or vehicles, so I guess this is just the next step.

Last night was Andre's birthday and I surprised him with a nights stay at Sopa Serengeti Lodge complete with swimming pool, bar and the biggest neverending views of the Serengeti! So we happily enjoyed our 800 sqft living area complete with a couch for relaxing! I even got our cook to bake him a cake while camping in the bush but unknown to me, he even decorated it with his name, age and birthday candles! We had some cook, that's for sure!

So here we lay in our tent tonight, listening for any strange sounds as I write this blog update. We ate our dinner inside a caged dining hut tonight about 40 feet from our tent! Talk about the extreme role-reversal, no zoo here! We were told not to leave our tent in the evening, so no late bathroom breaks. As we finished brushing our teeth, we used our headlamps to take a look into the surrounding Serengeti just to see what was looking back at us......a glow of a couple of eyes could be seen......that was when I turned my lamp off - I just didn't want to know!

The sky is HUGE here in Africa and we have already seen, lions just walking past the bumper of our jeep , leopards hanging in the trees and cheetas standing on the horizon as well as very protective momma elephants with their little bitty babies and giraffes. The one giraffe almost drop kicked our jeep it was so close!

Have you ever had a moment in your life when you knew it was the absolute best moment of your life, right as it was happening? I don't mean in hindsite, that's easy, but just knowing life would never be any better than it is right then? That was today for me and I could not wipe the smile from my face for the entire day. Seeing wild animals in their natural wild environment was an absolutely amazing experience that can never be beat..........

Better at least try and get some zzzzs......Andre says i'm not allowed to say "what's that sound" anymore. He's got his hunting knife beside him in case of any surprise visitors thru the night - but we were told that you'll go to jail if you kill anything, even in self-defense!

.........So I wrote that entry at 9pm last night in my tent but fell asleep before I got to send it. The night turned out to be a bit crazy, and if we thought we weren't able to sleep on a train in India infested with cockroaches, then sleeping in the Serengeti and having a big lion in our campsite was a bizillion times worse! Yes, a lion in our site! The set up of our camp goes like this : there's a kitchen cage like the dining cage we ate in last night complete with charcoal pits so the cook can cook in peace and close the cage door without worrying about any animal pouncing on him. Then there's our campsite, about 40 feet from the kitchen cage and then the toilets are another 100 feet beyond our tent. Andre woke me up at 11pm for a bathroom break. That's when I reminded him we were told not to leave our tent, as if the nylon walls somehow protect us like a bulletproof vest against the animals outside, but I wasn't taking a chance. But nature calls and since I wasn't about to stay here by myself, I got ready to go too. We listened for any strange sounds, put on our headlamps, unzipped the tent and tried to go to the toilet. I decided to shine my light quickly around camp before walking the 100ft to the long drop toilet. BIG mistake! My light made contact with a side view of a lion prowling close to the kitchen cage!!!!! Only 40 feet from us!!!! My light made it move a bit faster toward the edge of the campsite and we instantly threw ourselves back into our tent as though the nylon tent walls really did have a special protection. Andre unsheathed his knife, I opened my little knife (sounds sad, huh) and we sat there, straight and upright and not breathing for what seemed like hours. We had been told that lions probably wouldn't be interested in our food, but there's always a chance they'll come around to check out the area.......and at least one did! But nature kept calling - and thankfully we had a water bottle...... Andre says that if you haven't done it before, peeing in a bottle has it's subtleties.....

And so on to day four.......