Today we took a full day game drive around the central Serengeti. The animal life is less concentrated here than Ngorongoro Crater, but there is a wider variety. The region we are in is home to all three of Africa’s big cat species and we were lucky enough to see them all today.

Before any of that, though, we stopped by a river bend where hippos congregated in the muddy waters. The wind must have been blowing away from us because this time the smell of their dung didn’t reach us from our perch on the bank above. Thus we were happy to spend quite a while observing hippo politics, which seems to involve lots of dozing lazily in the sun interspersed with brief and noisy episodes of bickering over position, often with surprising viciousness.

There are two effective ways of “hunting” big cats in the Serengeti. The first is to scan the landscape with eyes peeled for small tan blobs, hoping fervently that one will resolve itself into a feline form. The second is to observe the motions of other Land Cruisers (which are pretty easy to spot from far across the plain) and head towards their points of concentration. The latter strategy led us to a nearly-hidden leopard in a tree and a baker’s dozen of lions napping in the shade. One enterprising lioness took advantage of the shade provided by the traffic jam of Land Cruisers before moving to join her family by the tree after a stretch and a yawn (see above).

Our cheetah spotting came via the first method, with credit to Isack, our guide. He was the first to notice this cheetah lolling against a termite mound. By the time we left, other tourists had followed the second method and our cheetah friend had quite an audience.

Those of you who have seen The Lion King will recall Pride Rock. It turns out to be inspired by real features of the Serengeti landscape. Known as “kopjes”, these massive rock formations protrude abruptly from the otherwise flat plains. We were exploring one of these formations when we happened upon our penultimate big cat of the day. Tipped off again by a concentration of Land Cruisers as we came around a corner, we learned that a mother leopard had been spied walking with her two cubs before retreating back out of view. We watched fruitlessly for a reappearance until others spotted the mother making her escape from the back side of the rock pile, younglings safely stowed away somewhere. This became our third leopard sighting of the overall trip, and the only one not obscured by tree branches. (Still too far for a good picture – sorry!)

The last cat sighting of the day belongs to Rowan, whose sharp eyes spotted a lone lioness sleeping in the grass, unfortunately also out of good photography range with our equipment.

We made it back to our camp before sunset, which gave us the chance for some relaxation enjoying the scenic view and local beer. This is a tented camp surrounded by wilderness, so guests moving around after dark are escorted for their safety by staff member carrying a flashlight and spear. We asked our escort the first night whether he had ever had to use the spear; he answered in the affirmative. We did not press for details!