So we just got back from our 4 day safari and all I can say is that it was quite the experience. It was just the three of us plus our driver/guide and personal chef, how much better could it get! So Sunday morning we packed up our Land Cruiser and head off to Lake Manyara. It was about an hour and a half drive. We stopped at our lodge so we could drop off all of our gear and luggage into our room. Our chef also stayed behind and began cooking us dinner for that night. After things were in our room, we got in the car with our guide and started for the lake.
Basically Lake Manyara can be summed up in a few words: baboons, trees, impalas, and more trees. The drive into the park goes through a heavily forested area where it feels like you are in the middle of an endless jungle, along the way you come across many baboons that are sitting along the road cleaning one another. After a little bit, you start to drive into fields of grass where lots of impala graze. We got a kick out of the impala at first, but by the 200th impala, they start to blend in with the trees. Our first stop was at a hippo pool located right near the lake, by this time we were out of the jungle part and in the open planes. We saw a bunch of hippos there along with some flamingos and one random wildebeest. As we kept driving we came across giraffe, elephants, a few zebra, and eventually we saw two tree-climbing lions. They are apparently hard to see so we were quite lucky. However along our way to the lions, we came across another group that seamed like they needed help. We were driving along the road when we looked to our right and noticed a group stuck pretty good in the sand quite a distance off the road. So we decided to off-road it to go help them. We got out there and introduced ourselves to the group. They were from Germany and it turns out that the one guy was supposed to be our fourth member but dropped out at the last minute. Looking back on it, we realized that the 3 of us really weren’t much help to get the car unstuck, basically we took pictures of the whole thing and laughed as everyone else pushed. But they eventually got the car out and we were back on the road. So we got back in our Land Cruiser and headed back to the lodge. (which I never mentioned how much fun it is to drive in the car, they remove the roofs and you get to stand up the whole time. By the end of the trip you have some pretty crazy hair and a few bugs plastered to your face every so often.) When we got back to the lodge, our dinner was waiting and we couldn’t have been more happy, and this wasn’t the food you would think of while you are camping, we had the full deal. It started with popcorn and biscuits (which I’m a huge fan of the biscuits), then we had soup, then the main meal, and then dessert. It was some of the best food I’ve had in a very long time, by the end of the trip we were all quite fond of the soups! After dinner we went to our room and rested up for the next day.
The next morning we woke up and went and had breakfast. By this time we were beginning to realize what the food was going to be like for most of the trip so we made a pact. It turns out that I don’t like fruit, Hoss doesn’t like eggs and fish, and Grim doesn’t like vegetables, so we decided that if any of those foods come up, the other people would cover for the person that didn’t like it. Well it turns out that most of our meals either had eggs or vegetables. The fruit is always a side thing so I never have a problem, looks like I’m gonna get out of Africa without having to eat fruit J After breakfast we got back in the car and headed off for the Serengeti. When we got to the Serengeti, we stopped at a rest stop to eat lunch and take the tops of the roof. While at the stop, we hiked to the top of a lookout where we came across numerous lizards, the best one was about a foot long and purple and pink, I don’t really get how the camouflage worked but it looked pretty cool. At one point Hoss decided that he could try to catch one and he surprisingly came very close, he have it all on video too. So after the stop, we got in the car, stood up, and got ready to experience the Serengeti. Basically the first hour in the Serengeti is pretty easy to sum up, an endless plane. For as far as you can see there is simply grass, with gazelle grazing every little bit. By the end of the trip, the gazelle became more annoying than the impala of Lake Manyara. Once the endless planes start to end you get into the part of the Serengeti that most people would recognize from pictures. There is still grass in every direction, but now there were trees scattered across the plane and the animals become visible. Here’s a quick list of all the animals that we saw over the next two days: gazelle, zebra, baboons, vervet monkeys, hyrax, mongoose, wildebeest, hartebeest, elephant, giraffe, hyena, hippo, lots of random birds, ostrich, cheetah, leopard, and lion. Overall, our experience in the Serengeti was absolutely incredible. We were there during the wildebeest migration where 1.6 million wildebeest and 400,000 zebra migrate around the Serengeti searching for food. It was one of the craziest thing, we would be driving and it would appear as if nothing was around, then all of the sudden thousands of wildebeest and zebra are around you. And for those of you don’t know, wildebeest make one of the oddest sounds, it sounds like a mixture of a cow and a duck. The other cool animal to see was the cheetah, we came across four of them on a hill side along with a few other vehicles. As we were watching them, one of the cheetahs came down and sat beside the tire of the car right in front of us, so we were probably 10 feet from it and got some awesome pictured!. But by far, the best part of the Serengeti was the camping experience. We set up camp 60km into the Serengeti, which is almost the dead center. We made sure our tent was the farthest away it could be from anything and we essentially slept in the middle of the Serengeti with nothing around us except for thousands of wildebeest and zebra, talk about cool!! I got up at 4:45 in the morning and went outside to look at the stars, it was the coolest experience yet. Looking up I could see every star clearer than I ever have, and the milky way was so clear that it looked like it was from a picture in a book. I just sat there and stared for the longest time until I heard a pack of hyena run by me barking, that made me realize that I was standing in the middle of the Serengeti by myself in the middle of the night. But regardless, I decided to stay outside until the sun rose. I sat and listened to the wildebeest grazing just feet from where I was sitting. There was no boundary surrounding our campsite so I was sitting in the bush alongside them. Grim and Hoss woke up a little bit later and we decided that we were going to climb the rock formation thing beside our campsite so that we could see the sunrise better. Now most people would not have made that decision, expecially after reading the sign beside our tent that said: “Do NOT leave campsite. Animals will attack human beings!!” But that didn’t stop us and we climbed on. Once we reached the rock we were planning on climbing to, Grim and I decided that it was good enough, so we climbed completely to the top, which was a little more difficult than we expected, but once we reached the top it was all worth it. We sat there and were able to see the entire horizon as the sun rose, it was amazing. To think that the same sun that was rising there also rises in Pennsylvania was a little hard to believe. After the sun rose, one of the tour guides spotted us and immediately flagged us down and told us to climb back to the campsite. We later found out that those rocks are where lions, cheetahs, and leopards like to keep their cubs; that would have made for an interesting story if we came across a baby lion. But luckily, or unluckily, we didn’t so we came back. That morning we went back out for another game drive and then that afternoon we left the Serengeti. That night we arrived at our campsite which overlooked the Ngorongoro Crater.
Now we thought that after our night at the Serengeti we couldn’t top our campsite, but this one came pretty close. We stayed at a place called Simba Campsite and it sat on the rim of the crater overlooking the entire crater. That alone was pretty cool, but to make it better, as we were waiting for our dinner, a pack of around 15 zebra wandered into our campsite to graze. Immediately our first thought was “let’s try to catch one.” So we all grabbed our camera and took off. Hoss and Grim got quite close as they tried to corral the zebra back to the site. However the zebra outwitted them and managed to escape back into the bushes. We were a little upset, as I’m sure the rest of the campers were because we had just chased off the zebra, but it was worth it because we got some cool pictures and videos. Luckily, ten minutes later the zebra were back and this time we had learned our lesson and stayed on the side and watched them come in. They walked right up the Germans tent and stayed there for most of the night. After dinner I went back to our tent to get my malaria pill and as I came out, I came face to face with the entire pack. They had moved down the hill while I was in the tent. So I quietly sat down and watched them. Two of them started playing with each other and then started chasing after one another, they came running right past me and if I would have stuck my arm out, I would have probably tripped the zebra, but I used my better judgement and just watched. So that night we slept just a couple feet from the zebra, not too bad. The next day we found out that there were wildebeest beside us as well as some wild pigs. So we were pretty excited and ready for our last day which we spent in the crater. In the crater we saw lots of the same animals, especially the wildebeest and zebra again, but we also saw one new animal, the black rhino. Currently there are only about 50 of them left in the world and they are extremely hard to find, so we were quite fortunate to come across one. Oh, and I can’t forget to tell about our lunch experience, probably one of the funniest things that has happened yet. So we were sitting on the ground in the middle of a small forested area eating our lunch. We each had a tubberware box with a bunch of items in it. We were sitting there minding our own business when out of no where, a vervet monkey comes flying around the corner, tackles the box out of Grim’s hands, searched through all the food, comes out holding the banana, and runs up into a nearby tree. The whole thing happened so fast that none of us knew what to do. Grim grabbed the monkey as it essentially sat on his lap and Hoss and I couldn’t keep from laughing during the whole ordeal. To make it even funnier, the monkey’s private parts were the most vivid blue and bright red I have ever seen. We then set my banana out as bait to try to catch it but it didn’t work. I wasn’t exactly quick enough to catch the monkey when he came for it because the whole time I was thinking about the fact that monkey might have rabies. And after the squirrel incident, I didn’t want to test my luck again J After lunch we then went back to our campsite and headed back for Arusha to our orphanage. It was by far one of the coolest trips I have taken and I expect that I will be back at some point. But until then, the nearly 3000 photos that we took should last me! Well that was briefly what happened, there were many funny things but those were definitely the highlights. Well I’m getting tired and think I’m going to head to bed, I’m at the orphanage right now writing this on my laptop. The kids here tire you out pretty quickly, and I’ve only been back one day! Well got to go, talk to everyone soon!!