This is from the 25th

Great day! Serengeti. My third visit and each visit outdoes the previous visit. On this green savannah, the wildebeest and zebra outnumber any possibility of counting. Imagine driving across Montana on a dirt road with no fences and seeing the land covered in cattle and horses. It’s impossible to take a picture or describe the numbers of bio mass that we saw. The elephants gathered to an extended family of 75 that I could see and you could probably add another 20 who were too bunched or too young to show. Then later….. the leopard! There were also lions, ostrich, impala, grants gazelle & tommys, hartebeest, topi, springbuck, waterbuck, vultures, eagles, giraffe (not as many as the 50 plus we saw yesterday), hippos, wart hogs (pumba), jackal, hyenas, even the little dik dik, and I can continue……

I sit now in the yard beyond Ndudu’s lodge. A nearby knocking tells me that a pileated woodpecker knocking the acacia tree to my right. Between my seat and the blue lake, (yes it has water!) stalks a marabou stork on its long stilt legs. A lodge worker comes out to begin the evening fire. The hat is not needed but the smoke keeps down the flies. Eight superb starlings are curiously checking me out. Oh look, zeebra. What a trip of contrasts. Just this morning I was discussing water filtration systems with a man working with another NGO. Issues of sanitation, implementation, maintenance and cultural necessities blended into sanitation and hygiene. His most stunning statement was that in places where these are used, the locals say they use it because “babies are not getting sick,” Can anything be more sublime.