Serengeti is on the bucket list of many travellers. But what is the Serengeti? Do you know the answer to this basic question before you start planning a trip to this majestic land?
The Serengeti is a massive African ecosystem that spans 12,000 square miles (31,079 square kilometers) in northern Tanzania and into southwestern Kenya. As a vast, expansive ecosystem, it’s not surprising the Serengeti’s terrain varies wildly. According to Vivian Temba, co-founder of Tanzania luxury safari company Kantabile Afrika, the area’s vastness is what makes it so special.
“The colors are different in every season, and there are new things to experience each time you visit,” she says via email. “The Serengeti has many habitats, from open savannahs to riverine forests, acacia woodlands to swamp, and the granite kopjes are pretty impressive, too. The biodiversity is incomparable, really.”
While the Serengeti boasts hundreds of mammal and bird species — 800 to be exact — many travelers head here to see the “big five” in the wild: lion, rhino, leopard, elephant and Cape buffalo. Spotting these animals is exhilarating, particularly the elusive leopard and rhino, but these hardly scratch the surface of animals you’ll see in the Serengeti.
Most Serengeti National Park safari days start before sunrise and, if you’re willing, can continue right up to sunset. (Sunrise and sunset are when animals are most active.) The days can include hours upon hours of driving in an open-air vehicle; this is all on road, as off-roading is prohibited for conservation reasons. Instead of cars and buildings, you’re spending the day driving past animals like zebra, wildebeest or warthog. Safari guides will stop for any animal you’d like to photograph, but the zebra, giraffe and wildebeest sightings become so common that, by day two, you’ll probably be fine just slowing down and rolling by.
As you watch the spectacular wildlife outside your window, guides, who spend years training in the classroom and field, scan for tracks, poop, birds and plants to “form a mental map of what might have happened at a location and its surroundings,” Temba says. “They make some educated guesses about what may happen next.”
The guides use this intel to locate the big five and other favorites like cheetah or hyena. If you’re lucky, the guides will get you to the scene of a hunt just before it happens — although be prepared: On one of her visits to Serengeti National Park, travel journalist Stephanie Vermillion spent two hours slowly following a cheetah hunting a gazelle. She and her travel companions were only lucky enough to stumble upon it because their guide had a good hunch.
“Guides that go on safaris often, like week after week, can get to know the animals intimately,” Temba says. “Often the experienced guide will go searching in familiar terrains to continue their storylines or find out what’s happened to the animals since they last visited.”
To learn more about How to See the Great Migration, read the full article by Stephanie Vermillion…
