Asilia Namiri Plains

Another early departure from camp today. By this time only 1 set of guests remain, and they were slated to leave later in the morning, leaving Sanctuary Ngorongoro camp empty.

It took 2 hours to get from camp to Lake Manyara airstrip, and it was another hour of waiting for the flight. During that hour I managed to haggle with the art shop owner (Petro told us the other night that you are expected to haggle for everything) over a painting. He started off with $50 but said that since I was the first customer of the day, he’d give it to me for $40. I never pay more than $20 for any of my ‘art’ pieces I collect on vacation, so I told him $20. He dropped it to $30, but I held my ground. I eventually got it for $20 and the shop keeper didn’t seem too happy as it wasn’t as much haggling as I just named the price and never budged.

We flew into Seronera via Lobo on a full flight this time. The flight took an hour and 20 minutes, and once we got to the Serengeti we realized this was where everyone was. The tiny airport was crowded.

Our guide, Walter, from camp didn’t wait for us as he had another set of guests and they went ahead with the game drive. Goodluck from another Asilia camp met up with us and transferred us to Walter’s jeep where they were waiting for us at a leopard sighting.

Right outside the airport we saw a bunch of jeeps parked near a tree, and we immediately knew there was something interesting to see.

The problem with the Serengeti – too many jeeps around one single animal.

In the Serengeti, guides will broadcast whenever they find something of interest. That leads to crowds and congestion. Imagine being a sleeping leopard just looking for some peace and quiet, all of a sudden a mass of noisy jeeps descend upon you, and then you start hearing ‘click’ ‘click’ ‘click’ of cameras. Luckily, we weren’t going to be part of this crowd.

Seronera is the central valley in the Serengeti, where a lot of the tourists were staying. We booked to stay in the remote eastern part of the Serengeti – Namiri Plains.

As were were planning our trip, we had wanted to see the great migration of the wildebeests crossing the Mara River in Northern Serengeti. However, given that we were going to be in Tanzania in November we realized that Northern Serengeti was probably not the place to be to see the migration, as the animals would have started moving south towards Southern Serengeti. The animals would likely be in the Central valley, but even that’s no guarantee. So instead of staying in Central valley and risk not seeing any animals, we decided that we’d go to ‘big cat country’ – Namiri Plains. After not seeing many cats last year, my main goal was to see cats this year. Namiri Plains had been closed to tourist for 20 years to help the cheetah population rebound, and now has a high concentration of cheetahs and lions. Asilia Namiri Plains is the only outfit in that area, and had just opened 4 years ago.

Being in a remote part of the park meant a longer drive to reach camp, but we just took it as part of a game drive.

Our guide was waiting for us at this leopard transfer point. So we hopped from Goodluck’s jeep to Walter’s and met up with a couple from IL who would be sharing the game drives with us for the next 3 days.

Very different scenery in the Serengeti. It’s mostly flat plains and some scattered kopjes.

An elephant trying to scale the kopje

In no time, we spotted a cheetah.

Cheetahs are relatively small, so their main prey are the smaller Thomson gazelles and not so much the bigger antelopes and zebras.

However, these guys were not letting their guards down. They kept their eye on the cheetah to make sure they weren’t going to be lunch.

You know it’s cat country when all you see are cats on your way to camp.

The guinea fowls nearby had the cubs’ attention.

Not only did we have Walter as our guide, we had Manja as a “guide in training” in our jeep. We were told that Manja’s a Masaai, and I wonder if that’s why he see things that none of us could. As Walter was driving past a kopje, Manja nonchalantly said, ‘lion’.

None of us saw this one. Not even Walter.

Speechless.

Before reaching Namiri Plains, we saw our first topis.

We finally reached Namiri Plains in time for lunch, and outside the camp is this beautiful acacia tree.

Indoor shower
Outdoor shower

The Asilia setup was not as luxurious as the Sanctuary camps, but they more than made up for it with their hospitality, great food, and fast wifi in the individual tents.

After a brief sieta, we were off for our afternoon game drive at 4PM. I couldn’t imagine what more we could see given what we’ve already seen in the morning on the way to camp. But Walter amazed us by showing us the most beautiful male lion one could ever lay their eyes on.

Just look at that mane!

This was one powerful looking cat, not like the paunchy baldy one we saw at Tarangire Park.

As regal as this lion looked, it showed us its goofy side. It would try to bite at the tse-tse flies midair like Truffalo would with the flies at home. It was quite comical.

It finally laid down, and it was our cue to go look for something else.

When there’s a lion, you know the rest of the pride is not far away.

Of course, Manja saw the lioness before anyone else did.