Also, this is Part 3 of a Series, if you missed Andrew’s previous posts, click here to start from the beginning.

As it turned out, I did get to see a big cat that day - along with two baby-big-cats.  Which is better? To see Big Cats?  Or to see little Big Cats?

We drop off the backside of the crater and into some of the driest desert I’ve ever wandered through. We aren’t but an hour down the road when Leslie squeals: “GIRAFFE!”

“Where?!” Jen says.

Machine pulls to a halt.

“There in the distance.” Leslie says, pointing three ridgelines over where indeed a giraffe stood on the horizon line between a series of thorny acacia bushes.

Machine laughs, “Just wait a little bit longer, and we will really see a giraffe.”

Apparently, you can see a giraffe or you can see a giraffe. And, this is a lesson we end up learning every species over.  You can see hippos...

... or you can see hippos up close and personal wallowing in a fart-swamp, fighting each other, grunting and yawning with their jaws flopped so wide, you can't help but yawn yourself.

Then, we slide to a stop in the gravel road.  “Giraffe,” Machine says, satisfied with his prediction. Across the way, a whole herd of giraffe stretch their long legs across the desert much like their Maasai brethren, making way toward us, their necks stretching forward and arching back in rhythm with their feet. While underway slowly, the giraffe step forward with both right feet, then both left, but when they decide to run, they move more like I would expect - opposite arm/opposite leg. They look positively alien in this unfamiliar expanse of planet Earth.

“I want a photo of a giraffe crossing the road,” Pete says, “Can you order that up, Machine?”

No sooner had he said this, did a gaggle of the giraffe divert course to step across the road. “Ohh, look at that! It’s iconic!” Pete exclaims from behind his shutter button. “Now, I really think they are animatronic!”

Jen is thrilled.

Leslie is disappointed that now, she must come up with something new for her bucket list.

I watch the giraffes chewing on the branches of trees that look mighty scratchy to the throat. They wrap their tongue around a branch, pull upward and strip it of leaves, leaving the thorny bits behind.  Then, chew and chew and chew. 

Birds ride along their backs, feasting on the tics that inevitably attach to suck the giraffe’s blood away. A picturesque, symbiotic relationship.

We find teenage male giraffe “punching each other in the arm” teasing each other for being too much of a “pansy.” They wrestle with each other, their necks twisting and looping in knots, each one vying to butt the other with his bushy horns.

Eventually, we carry on. We stop once at a monument to mark the place where the oldest known skeletal remains of human ancestors have yet been found. “The Motherland”, in the truest sense.

Onward, to arrive at the entry of Serengeti National Park.

“The Maasai call these the ‘Never Ending Plains,’” Machine tells us. In truth, there is nothing but flat plains with golden grasses rippling in the wind like waves on the ocean. In some spaces, grass with white or bright red flowers bloom in bushels among the regular grass. It's beautiful in its austerity. In the distance, groupings of rocks are clustered within the grass. Near the rocks, there may be a tree or two. “We will look for lions and leopards over there,” Machine tells us. 

We turn right off the main road and follow two ruts leading into the vastness. We are the only vehicle on these roads today, and it feels as remote and lonely as a day out at sea. I imagine fuzzy lion ears and golden predator eyes peeking just above the grass as a shark fin might slice through sea waves. How long until I see a big cat today?

Can you spot the mongoose?

We pull near a clump of boulders, each on high alert, with Machine instructing us to look for leopards in the branches of trees or resting in the shade of the rocks. “Leopards are the most difficult to see,” he explains. They are the best at hiding, and the only ones who can climb trees. We swing around the back side of this first outcropping, and there we find three male lions perched at the top of the rocks, basking in the sun, noses to the wind and their manes flying majestically in the breeze.

Buzzards and vultures wait in the tops of nearby trees with honeycomb strung in their branches.

“We aren't likely to see leopards around here, now.  The Lions will keep this territory leopard free." Machine explains. “But there will likely be female lions somewhere nearby.” We drive a while yet through the rock outcroppings, seeing nothing else to catch our eye.  “Maybe we will look for cheetahs next.” Machine suggests.

We venture out into the wild open grasses, the light and color playing between each blade giving off the same colors of what I imagine a cheetah might be. A perfect camouflage.  Nonetheless, Machine stops after a while, plucks his binoculars from their holder in the center console and leans out his window. “Cheetahs! A mother with her cubs, there.”

Right alongside the road, a cheetah mother and two scraggly, scruffy cubs lounge in the grass. We coo at the cubs; Mama keeps a wary eye on this tin can with talking Cheetah snacks. We watch until Mama picks up her cubs and walks them away. We don’t follow, as we don’t want to stress them out. “Mother cheetahs usually give birth to six cubs in each litter, but very few survive,” Machine explains. “Everything tries to kill Cheetah cubs. Lions and leopards kill them as they are competition for territory. Hyenas kill them, too.” This is sad to consider, they have such fuzzy cute Cheetah-Cub fur. Mama has a sad face with her tear streak black fur running the lines of her face amid the yellow, and yes, spots.

Down the way a bit further, we find two brother cheetahs hunting in the grass.  Leslie claps her hands to the beat of her latest request: “Cheetah Chase.  Cheetah Chase.”

Pete requests to see a live action kill.  “A cheetah chase would satisfy my bloodlust, but only if it is a successful chase.” A mother and baby gazelle cross the horizon line as we watch the brothers, but it seems they are too far away to entice these cheetahs to run. No chase for us today.

Machine receives word over the radio a leopard has been spotted in a tree. We race to the location directed. There, we join a bevy of other safari drivers to peer at the barely visible drooping tail and one foot of a cat draped over a tree branch. Now, while this technically is a leopard - sighting we have been spoiled.  We take a few photos, but harbor hopes of seeing another one up close.

“All these trucks,” Machine says, “This is more like it usually is.  With Covid, there just aren’t as many people out.”

For the rest of the afternoon, we keep our eyes out for leopards, but that sighting is left to another day. Machine allowed us to look if we possibly could, declaring eventually that we had to get a move on, otherwise we would miss sunset at our lodgings for tonight, and “you definitely don’t want to miss sunset, there.” He explained. Our stomachs dropped out beneath us as we took flight across the Serengeti, kicking up dust and buzzing through mud patches as we go.

Whereupon, we came screaming into the “Sounds of Silence” Glamp site, sliding to a stop just in time to get a cold beer in our hands to watch the sun drop below the Serengeti horizon.

“Give me that, not for you!” Leslie says, plucking the icy cold beer from my hands. Damn it. It’s the only item of sustenance I’ve wanted all day. She orders me a Pineapple Fanta instead.

We shower the day’s dust off in our glamp tent, complete with his and hers sinks and a bed comfortable and wide enough for a King. Leslie climbs aboard and makes like a starfish while I radio ahead to call for an escort back to the dining tent. The man who retrieves us is nice enough and carries a big flashlight, but I wonder exactly what he might do if a lion pounced out of nowhere. I feel the hairs raise on the back of my neck, and I look over my shoulder to scan the bush for glowing hyena eyes. They are there, but they twinkle like stars.

We enjoy a memorable meal, Leslie with a local freshwater fish, and I with a gratefully dainty portion of beef curry. Then, we tucked into bed with the chill of Serengeti night air sliding through the open screens. Nuzzled down under piles of feathered blankets, the crickets sing us our lullaby. “I hope we hear a lion roar in the night,” I say. Unfortunately, I probably didn’t even finish my sentence before I was so soundly asleep, a lion could roar right next to my face and I’d have never known.

This Safari business is hard work.