Best wifi hotspot ever.

Back from the spa.

Lunch.

Siesta.

Happy hour at the balloon basket bar.

A Night around the fire.

It took five days and nights of tracking, but we finally found the elusive leopard. This sighting completes the big five. I’m in a constant state of awe.

This is the paradise we’ve been searching for.

Safari time.

Breakfast, then the drive to the Sabora Tented Camp on the Serengeti Plains for our final three nights.

Spot the giraffes.

It’s been rated the number one hotel in the world by several top publications over the last five years. Easy to see why with the turn down service alone. It was first class service and luxury, but we’re excited to get back down on the plains.

This is not getting old.

If we’re not on a game drive, we’re eating.

I’m getting used to daily high tea.

Dinner under the gazebo at Sasakwa

One Male, Two lionesses and four cubs each.

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…

I couldn’t possibly describe how incredible the night sky in the Serengeti is. I’ve been lucky enough to witness some brilliant night skies in Alaska, but nothing compares to what we’ve seen in the middle of these plains. The moon doesn’t make an appearance until well after dark, so every constellation is visible. To see the milky way in all of its glory with the naked eye is simply awe inspiring.

After a successful afternoon drive, our guide drove us to a hilltop where our camp’s staff had set up the greatest bonfire and bar I have ever seen.

The odds of seeing one of the two rhinos on the 350,000 acre reserve was, to say the least, against us. But Sonia and I tend to be lucky. The rhino makes four out of the big five. Only the leopard remains.

At the current poaching rate, rhinos will be extinct in the next couple of years. The Chinese, and even more so the Vietnamese, believe their horns cure cancer and are an aphrodisiac. Rhino horns are made of keratin, the same stuff that makes up our finger nails. Nevertheless, ignorance will kill these brilliant creatures before any grandchild of mine has eyes to see.

Our guide was tracking a rhino when we were surprised from behind by a herd of thirty elephants.

We found the elephants down on the plain and had a much closer encounter.

Our first elephant sighting. Three of the big five in the books. We did some major off-roading as our guide tracked a heard of elephants in to the thick of a hillside.

Hard to take a picture of the experience that is waking up in a tent in the middle of the Serengeti. Harder to describe it. It’s a feeling. A feeling that I could never tire of.

They make coffee an unforgettable experience.

I’m always my own travel agent. I do a lot of research, but I had no idea what we were in for. I knew I booked an exclusive mobile tent camp, but I didn’t know that exclusive meant just Sonia and I. Upon arrival, we were met by a staff of seven that informed us they were there for our every want and need.  Mind blown.

And this wasn’t just some ordinary camp. Below is the main tent.

This is our tent.

We then spent the evening eating, drinking and gazing at the stars.

Food was incredible.

This is sticky bread. Dough wrapped around a stick and cooked over the fire.

We landed on a small dirt landing strip at the base of a hill in the Serengeti.

We were immediately met by our guide, Aloyse. He is a native Tanzanian who has been a guide for Signita for the last seven years. We will be staying at one camp and two lodges over the next eight nights.

“Singita Grumeti, situated adjacent to the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, is an integral part of the Serengeti-Mara Ecosystem, the home of the Great Migration. The reserve was created by the Tanzanian government in 1994 in order to protect the path of the annual wildebeest migration and the indigenous biodiversity of this vast and important ecosystem. In 2002, the Grumeti Community and Wildlife Conservation Fund, a not-for-profit organisation, was granted the right to manage and conserve these 350,000 acres, for the benefit of Tanzania, Africa and the world. Four years later, Singita took over the management of the property, at the request of the concessionaire and began the task of generating, via low impact tourism, the funds necessary to ensure the long-term sustainability of the reserve through conservation and community partnerships.”

We will spending the first two nights at Signita Explore, a mobile camp. It’s a 30 minute drive from the airstrip. Almost immediately we saw a cluster of impala and Topi.

A couple of jackals.

Our first Zebra sighting.

And giraffs!

And down on the plains, Cape Buffalo. Our first Big Five sighting. The Big Five consists of lions, elephants, cape buffalos, rhinos and leopards.

We left LA on Sunday morning. It is now Tuesday afternoon and we’re finally on our final leg before reaching the Serengeti.

Breakfast at the Fairmont Hotel in Kenya. I probably should have figured out the currency before signing this bill.

A 24 hour layover in Nairobi and then we’re off to the Serengeti in Tanzania. We probably won’t have internet for a few days, so here’s a preview of our first stop.