It’s our last day in the Serengeti and tonight is our last night on safari! Today we’ll drive back through the park, through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and back into civilization. We’ll stay tonight in Lake Manyara NP, do a game drive tomorrow morning, then head to the airport to fly to Zanzibar. But first, we have some more animals to see today! As we head back south again, we turn out onto the Hippo Loop Road. On the sign it says very clearly to not get out of our vehicle in this area. This becomes important in a minute. The first thing we see of course, is hippos!

There’s so many of them, and they are so active. They climb all over each other, so we get some great shots of their whole bodies.

And then, off to the left, what’s that in the water?

It’s a crocodile!! I had just been thinking, “How cool would it be if we saw a crocodile?! We haven’t seen any and I would love to have the chance!” and sure enough, there they are. I need to try this trick more often. It would be so cool if I had a million dollars…

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Nothing? Bummer.

Remember how I told you that there was a sign clearly stating not to get out of or vehicle? And remember how I told you in a previous post about having to use the bathroom frequently? Well this is one of those times. I can’t hold it anymore so Abdul backs the truck up away from the creek so he can keep an eye on everything and has me jump out quickly. I can’t be more than 100 yds from the crocs. So cool and so scary!

We stop by a watering hole to watch some zebras getting a drink. There’s so many!

This is why zebras have stripes. It’s so hard to pick out just one in a group. They look like one great big zebra with a dozen heads.

All of a sudden, we take off and race down the road. We aren’t sure where we’re going, but something cool must’ve been spotted. We arrive back in the leopard area and Abdul tells us 2 leopards had been spotted walking nearby. But we don’t see anything. We wait around awhile, and then Abdul sees something move in one of the yellow barked acacia trees.

It’s a baby leopard!!!

Apparently this is pretty rare. Even Abdul is excited and later tells us it’s his favorite part of this entire safari. You can tell it’s a big deal because this is the most safari vehicles I’ve seen.

We sit and watch it for quite awhile. It keeps wandering all over the tree, jumping from branch to branch. It was so cool!

Finally, it’s time to leave. I could stay for days longer, but I know we have a long drive back and we should get to see flamingos tomorrow! As we drive out, I manage to get a picture of the sign I missed on the way in, but only from the leaving perspective. I guess that just means I need to go back!