Serengeti

The grass goes on past where you can see. At first light the sky is still pink and nothing moves, and then a line of wildebeest does. The Maasai called this place Siringet, the place where the land runs on forever. By the second hour you have stopped talking, and nobody had to ask you to.

More than 70 species of large mammal live here, across 14,763 square kilometres, in every month of the year. Lions lie draped over the kopjes in the afternoon heat. A cheetah stands on a termite mound and scans the horizon. A leopard hangs in a fever tree above the Seronera River. The migration sets the calendar, but the predators never leave.

What you notice first is the quiet. Between drives there is the wind in the grass, a fish eagle somewhere far off, and at dusk the whooping of hyenas. Nothing is asked of you. Within a day most guests say the same thing: they feel lighter.

At a Glance

Serengeti