Gratuitous pool shots. Sasakwa Lodge is a masterpiece.

It came two weeks early, but we feel we’re lucky that way. We were within a mile when we began to hear them, like frogs in the night. It’s one of the seven natural wonders in the world. This first wave numbered 30,000. When all is done, two million will bulldoze their way through the plains. Nature’s lawnmower.

Coffee to start. The set up is always elaborate.

An elephant walks across the plain before sunrise.

Never a bad sunset.

Heading across the German Bridge, built by the Germans during World War I.

Another Bull Elephant.

Taking a few pictures of Sonia’s new cheetah print top for Basically Me. Because, you know, this is a work trip.

Trying to keep our eyes open for an exceptional dinner.

Pictures don’t do this place justice. Perched on a hill overlooking the Serengeti plains, Sasakwa has no equal.

Our villa.

We’re off to Sasakwa Lodge for three nights until Sunday. It has been ranked the number one hotel in the world for the last five years by many of the top publications including Conde’ Nast.

No matter how high our expectations, they could have never been exceeded. It only took two and a half days to fall in love with camp, the food, the location, and most of all, the staff. Sonia is not to cry very easily, but the tears were flowing as we pulled away.

This does not end well for the Cape Buffalo.

It was primitive, brutal and the most excruitiatingly difficult scene I have ever witnessed. We were called lucky for having seen it.

Anyone who knows me would agree that my love and empathy for animals of any kind is beyond your run of the mill animal lover. But as I reflect nearly twenty four hours later, I would have to agree that we were, in fact, lucky to bear witness to the circle of life where life began.

Not our guide, nor any seasoned staff back at the camp had ever seen, let alone heard of a hyena taking down a buffalo. But that is exactly what we saw. From the moment of engagment, to the last breath some thirty minutes later. The buffalo was not sick or wounded, but it was certainly too old to keep up with the herd. And for that it became sustenance for what would become nearly sixty hyenas and their young when all was said and done.

It was a slow and torturous death. Unlike the mighty lion, or cheetah, or leapard who quickly suffocate their prey, the hyenas made first bite at the testicals. Once they renderdered the buffalo limp, they began to eat their way into the lower body, inch by inch. A death by disembowlment. The buffalo moaned and kicked and thrashed its head about for some thirty, pain wrenching minutes, but it only delayed the inevitable.

I felt the weight of the world as I watched. I coped by viewing most of it through the lens of my camera. It was the easiest way to distance myself from the carnage. Unfortunately I couldn’t silence the moans of the buffalo.

Nevertheless, I will never shake this experience, nor do I want to. It’s one thing to understand the concept, “Circle of Life”, but another thing entirely to see the lesson play out before you.

The wildebeest were equally disturbed by the scene.

And finally, yes, there is video. I took nearly eight minutes of unedited video. I haven’t watched it, nor do I think I ever will again. But, if you’re so inclined…