hello, wild beasties

We woke up for a 7:00am breakfast with the sun rising over the golden hills. Today we would see the great migration that makes the Serengeti one of the most sought after safari destinations in the world.

Each year, millions of wildebeest journey up through Tanzania, cross the Masai Mara River to Kenya, and circle back down again. Scrawny, ugly, and awkward, the wildebeest seem embarrassingly mindless as they munch on grass and dawdle through dangerous territories (lion, cheetah, crocodile). But, as dumb and drab as these guys may seem, I found a soft spot for the wild beasties (as Matthew called them). They spend their lives following their instincts, like lots of us blindly end up doing: searching for greener pastures, chasing the crowds, or running after the ones we love. Their final destination is never in sight, but year after year, they make the journey...

After a few hours of driving north toward Kenya, the Serengeti I had imagined began to appear: hundreds of miles of open grassland rolled soflty into the horizon. Wildebeest and Acacia trees sprinkled the otherwise spotless plains, and the occasional zebra stood out in the crowd. (Wildebeest are lucky to travel with these more intelligent, watchful zebra.)

Soon enough, we were approaching the Mara River. It was teeming with wildlife. Dozens of elephants lined the river banks while hippos waded upstream, flicking their ears as they hid below the river's surface. The wildebeest planned their crossing: watching, walking toward the bank, spooking eachother, turning in circles.

We ate our boxed lunch inside the Land Cruisers, perched at the riverbank, waiting for this pack of a few hundred wildebeest to make the plunge. After much debate and confusion, they went for it. It was chaos, but it worked. Each wildebeest looked as though it got swept up by the momentum of the crowd and carried across by the current-- no chance for turning back! Luckily for these guys, the croc that swam through their crossing didn't seem to be too hungry. Well done, beasties... you did it!