Having just witnessed the slow movement of giant masses, we were to head towards a more brisk and painful event.
We had crossed the Mara without incident or loss of life, to re-enter the Lamai Triangle, if only to check on the previously mentioned romantic couple.
The audience looked on in anticipation.
What was this? A large, seemingly endless herd of wildebeest descending a banking.
Leaping into the water.
But no. This was just a trial run through a small, mostly dried-up, stream. No crocodiles here.
But still some scary creatures.
A good time to practice your leaping technique.
And running together without tripping each other up.
Certain members of the audience looked on with disappointment.
And empty throats.
We popped by the courting couple to see what they were up to.
Yup, they were still up to something.
We had circled back to the Mara from the northern side to check for any activity.
The signs were not good.
In fact the signs were seriously bad.
Amd here they go.
This time we were watching them from the northern side. The biggest disadvantage to us was the dust blown up from thousands of hammering hooves interfering with my photography.
On the other hand, the biggest disadvantage to the wildebeest was the aforementioned significant stockage of hungry crocodiles.
This guy, an adult wildebeest, had been trapped by two of them.
He fought against them for a long time, even managinging to get to the northern shore.
But these crocodiles were big bastards. They were not letting go. This wildebeest was doomed.
The rest of the herd continued on regardless. Each animal may have been part of a giant herd, but each fought to get to safety entirely on its own. No one was going to help anyone else if it increased your time in the water and your chance of being consumed.
These wildebeest adults had calved in the breading grounds of the southern Serengeti six moths or more ago. But there were some younger than that. These guys were at a huge disadvantage.
It was much much more of a struggle to get across the Mara. This one looked up to see a missile coming towards it.
There was no escape, no way to avoid those giant jaws.
It took only seconds and it was gone below the water, destined to become a crocodile's dinner.
The Mara is not the best place for youngsters to go for a swim.
The sun was going down, we needed to get back so that we could be fashionably late for dinner again. This was no great motivation for us, as the camp we were in served the same food every day, based on starch and possibly some kind of meat. Best to stay vegetarian here.
Unforgettable food maybe, for all the wrong reasons, but in a couple of days we were to have our most memorable meal ever. Unique, unrepeatable, and slightly disturbing to any sensitive digestive system.
Before that, another mass movement...
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