Today, we are on the third part of our seven-part “Plan a Perfect African Safari in Kenya” series.  Your safari should include an attempt to catch a Wildebeest crossing.  If you’re like most people you probably have read about it in National Geographic but when you go, here are a few things that you probably didn’t know.

1. Wildebeests can line up for miles in single file and we’re not exaggerating!  Now, if you need to get to the other side of their line, don’t force your guide to drive through them.  It will disturb the herd and it will ruin the crossings for many others on safari who have been waiting patiently for hours!  You don’t want to be “that *&!# tourist who scared off the herd.”
2. A Wildebeest herd will always wait for a different type of animal who is more experienced to cross first.  If you see a Zebra or Gazelle at the river bank with all the Wildebeests, it’s a good sign a crossing may happen soon!
3. It can be emotional to watch a Wildebeest eaten alive by a crocodile.  You will hear the screams, see the struggle, and feel the fear.   It is amazing to watch but be prepared.
4. You’re probably going to wait many many hours for a 5 to 10 minute show.  However, once the crossing starts you’ll see hundreds to thousands of animals crossing all at once!
5. In addition to the fear, animals feel love too.  We once saw a family of Giraffes cross.  The father crossed first, and waited halfway in the crocodile infested river for his ‘wife’ and children to cross before finishing the crossing himself.  Now isn’t that love?

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Today, we are on the second part of our seven-part “Plan a Perfect African Safari in Kenya” series.  Traditionally when you go on a safari, you are going on a big game hunt.  Your objective is to successfully shoot and bring back  some of the largest and ferocious animals on the planet.   These days the objective of a safari hasn’t changed except now you’re shooting the animals with your fancy DSLR and bringing them all back in your memory cards!

You must first hunt down the Big-5.  Once you’re done with that you can go for many others.  Here are the Big-5 we captured, plus five others you may also want to hunt for.

The Big 5:

1. African elephant – You’ll have no trouble finding them.  However you’ll need to keep your distance as the last thing you want is for an angry mom to charge at you!

2. Black Rhinoceros – Here we caught a pair of African White Rhinos, a mother and son staring at at each other.  The black rhinoceros is very difficult to find!

3. Cape buffalo – There are a few of these around.  Not too hard to find.

4. Lion – There is nothing like hearing a lion roar in person in the wild (especially when you are sleeping in the tent)!

5. Leopard – You need luck to find leopards.  They like to hide up in the trees.  We got lucky and found this one cooling off in the shade.

Others worth searching for:

6. Crocodile – They’re huge, about the size of a hippo!

7. Cheetah – Beautiful animal.  Looks like a leopard.  Compare their coat pattern!

8. Giraffe – Once you see them in a herd in the wild you’ll never want to see them in a zoo.

9. Topi – The males of this type of antelope mark their territory by standing on a big pile of dung, ready to fight any other male that tries to invade.  The taller the pile of dung, the better it is for them!

10. Warthog – They were very funny to watch.  They always ran with an urgent purpose, like they were late to a meeting or something.  Now we know why warthogs always wear business suits in cartoons!

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Introduction

Back in October of last year we traveled to Kenya to go on a once-in-a-lifetime Safari.   We had read about the great migration of the animals, especially the Wildebeest river crossings.  It is the kind of event that you would see on a National Geographic episode and we wanted to see it for ourselves.  Since then, many of our friends have asked us to write about our experiences, so here they are – for the next week, we will focus on reviewing our African Safari trip.  By the way, if you are planning a safari to catch the crossings, you should book the camp now!  The best ones filled up very quickly!

A successful Safari requires some planning to take into account the type and location of your accommodations, the time of year of your visit, the animals you want to see, and your transportation to the Safari.  You also need a little bit of luck so if you’re superstitious, carry a lucky charm!

In the following seven-part series we’ll let you in on the details about our experience and we’ll share a few things to consider when planning your own successful safari.

In the end our safari was better than we could have hoped for.  We got lucky and saw the “Big 5” plus others not on the list that we thought were also big or must-sees.    We were also fortunate to see a Wildebeest crossing, twice!   All in all we had a fantastic time with which made the long journey well worth the effort.

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