Introduction
Serengeti October 2027
Another crazy fortnight. Another two weeks of stunning stuff. Another two weeks adjusting my backside to a bouncing truck seat. Another 40,000 photos to sift through.
Yes, I know. That’s a stupid amount of photos. You should understand that my new camera has the amazing super-power of taking 30 frames per second.
Unfortunately, on the downside, it DOES take 30 frames per second.
Forgetting to turn off its super-power has led to enormous numbers of photos of static objects.
Sigh.
All the photos in these blogs were taken in a two week period in October 2026. All were taken in the Serengeti, partly near the Mara river and partly in the Eastern Serengeti. All photos are real, but names may have been changed to protect the innocent.
This will not be a day-to-day diary of what we saw, but instead, arranged in logical animal-by-animal order. Some of the photos will require some explanation. In fact, I’m told everything that I do requires some explanation.
Just to confuse the issue, the first part will not be about animals. Weird huh?
Taking all these photos has been a labour of love, as well as financial suicide and a test of anatomical discomfort. All the daylight hours for the entire fortnight were spent encased inside a single truck, as leaving it for more than a pee-break would have been a one-way-trip to the insides of some predator or other. Leaving the truck even for that aformentioned pee-break was sometimes tantamount to suicide, requiring a rapid discharge behind the truck, hopefully blocking the view from the local wildlife and random peeping toms, while cursing at the wind for causing damp footwear.
We left France suffering its latest heatwave, then spent two weeks at similar highs. It was like out of the frying pan and back into the frying pan. Occasionally, the temperature was just bearable. Occasionally it wasn’t. Appart from peeing and perspiring, almost all food was also eaten inside the truck, with only one occasion outside using basic civilised amenities. Table, knife, fork, servant.
Staying in the van was obligatory even when other visitors attempted to gain entry.
As an example of how crazy this all was: : Ian (our guide, driver, friend and general mad-person) has the ability to see things that normal people simply cannot. For simplicity I will include myself in the ‘normal’ group. However, even he can, on occasion, make mistakes. Every now and again he would pop out of the van to ‘mark his territory’. On one such occasion, on returning to his post, he found himself standing next to this:
Thankfully, cheetahs rarely attack humans. However, it did get me to wondering, what if he hadn’t come back? I’m pretty sure I could drive the truck, but in what bloody direction? It is not called the endless plain for nothing. Most roads from the middle of nowhere head nowhere.
And so onwards to the next blog that will outline our amusing adventures within the transport systems of two continents. Just give me a few months to sort the photos…
To try to hold your interest in what is to unfold, here are some spoiler photos taken in the first few days of our sojourn.
