Sayari Mara, Tanzania

Arrived at Sayari Mara in the Serengeti on Saturday, Aug 13. We had one connecting fight from Kigali to get to our camp and we were the only ones on board!...on both flights. Met Albert our guide at the airstrip and planned out our day. We decided to go directly to camp and do the meet and greet and unpack and have some lunch. Our hostess Tanya is a native South African, who was born in Ottawa!....so we hit it off. After lunch we went for our first Serengeti game drive, just me K and our guide Albert...there was going to be another couple joining us but they had not arrived yet. The Serengeti is huge, so we ran in to very few others out doing their thing. We saw a bazillion Gnus aka wildebeest, but none that were ready to take that famous crossing across the Mara river. We also saw lions, giraffe, crocs, hippos, gazelles, impalas, zebras, vultures, storks, elephants, hyena and a plethora of birds.
We were out from 4:30 until almost 7:00. Dinner was at 8:00 and it is served in the dining tent. It is a communal dinner at a 60 foot long table. We all introduced our selves swapped stories of the day's and past events. Since our tent is in the middle of the Serengeti and it was now night time we had to be escorted back to our tent for the evening. Were heard all kinds of animals all night...lions were calling, hippos were grunting, hyenas were yipping....and there were the grazers around our tent all night. 

Sunday we had a 5:50am wakeup call, wakeup calls out here consists of bringing you coffee, tea and cookies. Then it was off on our game drive at 6:30am. We spent most of the morning running back and forth from several possible crossing points where the wildebeest were congregating. We saw 2 crossings, but both were really small and they were from quite a distance away. The first was a handfull of zebras and the second was also just a handfull of wildebeests. Wildebeest are very finicky they will all gather at a crossing point and then change their mind and all turn about and head back out to the plains. It's a little bit like fishing trying catch them crossing at the right time. We got back from our morning game drive at 12:30, just in time for lunch. I was starting to come down with a head cold so we decided to just chill for the remainder of the day and stay in camp. Tomorrow brings more adventure!