Day four in the Serengeti was a bonanza! We only had until 11am before we had to catch a local flight from Seronera airstrip (2.27’29.15”S 34°4p’21.56”E) to Rubondo Island airstrip (2°18’01.17”S 31°50’58.52”e.) Baraka insisted we leave the lodge early and do a final game drive. We didn’t take much convincing. He had asked us a few times during our 5 days together what we wanted to see; lions were always right up there, along with elephants and giraffes, but the animal we hadn’t seen yet were cheetahs. Baraka took that as a challenge.

Serengeti Day Four

About 10am (after we had seen lions, elephants, and hippos) another guide stopped us and told Baraka where a pair of cheetahs had been spotted. Baraka drove at 35 miles an hour over some pretty “iffy” roads to get is there before having to take us to the airstrip. There were probably 10 safari vehicles already there when we arrived, but the cheetahs didn’t seem inclined to leave, so over the next 1/2 hour we worked our way a little closer to them and got a solid 10 minutes saying, “god they are gorgeous!” over and over. Sad to say that cheetahs are losing ground, not to human intervention this time, but from being out-competed by lions, and hyenas. One estimate says that only about 1 in 20 cheetah cubs makes it to maturity; god they are gorgeous!