Pictures from Last Safari Day

A warthog who just completed a vigorous scratching of his rear on that rock.

Zebras and their kids

Justin where we ate lunch.

Chris in front of our balcony at our hotel.

Our Final Safari Day

Ngorngoro Crater:

Today is our last day on Safari.  Tomorrow we drive back to Arusha for lunch and then onto Mount Kilimanjaro to get on an airplane.  We left the Serengeti this morning to go down into Ngorongoro Crater.  We arrived around 10:00 a.m.  The inside of the crater was beautiful.  We got lots of great scenery pictures.  Today’s challenge was to see the last of the big five: the rhino.  However I guess rhino are shy and hard to see up close because they do not like to be close to the road.  We saw three rhino today: one up close and two far away.  They did not move much and pretty much just ate grass the whole time.  Two wart hogs walked up close to the one rhino and it did not seem to even notice its presence.  I guess rhino are solitary animals so they are often found alone as the one we saw closer up.  We saw an abundance of wildebeest and zebras.  They graze together often.  We got to see a lot of baby wildebeest and zebras as well.  They stick near their mothers and we saw several of them nursing throughout the day.  We also saw flamingos, cranes, gazelles, an African dog, and buffalo.  We also saw a hyena chased around a lot of wildebeest which seemed funny to us since the wildebeest are so much bigger and were greater in number.       

We had lunch in the crater at a little pond.  We were told to eat our lunch in the vehicles because birds are overly aggressive there in regards to food.  We walked around the pond afterwards.  You could see several hippos deep in the middle swimming around.  We could also see and smell a lot of what we suspect is elephant poop.  It was everywhere which also made up glad that we ate in our vehicle. 

After lunch, we saw the highlight of our Safari.  We came across a cheetah stalking a gazelle.  We pulled over (along with ten or fifteen other vehicles) to see what happened.  The cheetah slowly got closer to the gazelle (which had no idea it was being stalked).  The cheetah finally made a run for it and the gazelle ran away.  The gazelle did not make it far before the cheetah attacked it and killed it.  The cheetah then feasted on the gazelle.  We could not believe we were able to watch this occur.  It made me a little bit sad though when our guide pointed out a baby gazelle hiding in the tall grass.  Obviously the cheetah had made an orphan of it.  The orphaned gazelle was all alone so we guess its chances of survival are very low. 

Tonight we are staying right on top of the crater.  We have an amazing view of it.  Tomorrow we leave for Arusha and to do some shopping on the way.  We are so glad to have had this experience together.  We cannot wait to share it all with you but please, don’t worry that we will make you look at endless pictures or listen to endless stories.  We appreciate everyone taking an interest in this and we cannot wait to blog about our next trip to Ethiopia to actually pick Crew up to bring him home.      

Pics from All Day in Serengeti

Our friend did not want us using his road.

Large pride of lions very close.

We saw lots of hippos today.  There had to be over 100 in this pool alone.

This is very rare. Looks up above the elehpants on the branch, a bit towards the trunk. There is a leopard in the tree.

All day in Serengeti

Our tent was surprisingly free from all bugs and animal visitors on the inside.  However, we did hear very odd growly noises and rustling that we thought were baboons.  It did not keep us up that long, as we are both exhausted from the sun.

Today we started out our day by having our normal breakfast.  I was about to order my meal and all of a sudden I heard a noise.  I looked up and saw two monkeys running around and playing on the top of the tent where we are eating.  We heard them running back and forth and chasing each other all breakfast.  We believe they were velvet monkeys.  We heard a very funny conversation next to us.  A woman said to her friend, “It is very windy outside.”  The waiter replied in a Tanzanian accent “Not windy, monkeys.”

We had a full day of Safari on the Serengeti.  As we were loading the camera with batteries, only 1 minute from our camp, we came upon a very large male elephant blocking the road.  We had to stop and realized there were 17 elephants grazing and passing through.  We were obviously too close when he shook his head and charged us twice.  Our driver quickly put it into reverse to remove us from danger.  It was actually a bit scary for a second.  After they had all passed, we drove 3 minutes up the road and saw the highlight of the day.  We saw a pride of 13 lions, including 2 young males (very hard to find).  They were only 8 feet from the road.  5-6 did not like us there and moved away behind a bush, but the rest stayed.  After about 5-8 minutes, there were 4 females left where we could see them.  Then, 2 antelope ran about 100 yards behind us over the road.  About 9 females went from laying down into attack position very quickly.  Unfortunately, they did not chase them, but was really cool to see their instincts. 

Our time in the Serengeti today was slow.  The warm sun and the constant motion of the Land Rover kept putting me to sleep. At one point, our driver asked “Justin, are you very tired?” which we realized that we were probably both asleep.  We saw a ton of gazelles, impalas, buffalo, 2 African Fish Eagles, tons of hippos, elephants, giraffes, antelope, lion, 2 leopards in trees, zebras, and warthogs.  We really enjoyed watching the hippos snort, fight with each other, walk up on dry land very slowly, and poop right on one another (Justin especially). 

Tomorrow, we are off to Ngorongoro crater to go inside the crater where we are promised to see the last of the big 5 animals, the rhino.  We can’t wait. 

Pics from Safari day 2

Elephants in the Serengeti

Cheetahs in the Serengeti

Chris "roughing it" in her tent

More babbons in the road.



Safari Day #2: Ngorongoro Crater/Serengeti

We left our hotel yet again to venture out on our Safari.  We started our day in the Ngorongoro Crater.  We will be spending more time in the Crater our last day here at our hotel and for our last Safari day.  However our morning was spent on top of the Crater looking down.  We went to two different viewing points of the Crater which were amazing.  We also got a shot lecture about pre-historic foot prints found in the Crater which leads them to believe that prehistoric “people” lived here.  Of course we don’t believe this since we believe in creation, but still interesting to hear.  The lecturer said that every summer (June, July, & August) they still have geological digs here led by professors from all other the world.  I had my first non-toilet experience here.  The women’s toilet was a hole in the ground with two brick looking things next to it with no toilet paper.  I hope not to remember that experience again.  We saw lots of animals on the way to the Serengeti living along the road.  We saw a lot of zebras, giraffes (one which we scared out of the road), and gazelles.  We also saw some baboons playing in the road at one point and that only moved when our vehicle got really close to it. 

We had lunch at the border of the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti.  Our guide told us we could sit anywhere but we later realized (after we had finished lunch in the parking lot) that there were picnic benches with tables.  The Serengeti is huge.  We drove around looking mainly for cats today but we also saw elephants, zebras, gazelles, antelope, and hippos.  We saw a few lions, cheetahs, and leopard (the leopard was hard to see because it was up in a tree with its cubs). 

Our tent, well I would camp a lot more often if Justin could promise me a tent like this.  It has two queen beds in it, living room chairs, a desk, and a bathroom (including sink, toilet, and shower).  The tent is more secure in regards to the canvas it is made from.  It has screens to let in air and hopefully not bugs.  There is no lock so we are a little worried about our belongings while we are gone but we were assured it would be okay.  One of the rules here is that you are not allowed out of your tent after dark (about 6:30 or 7:00) without an escort because the wild life is so close to us.  This means you have to call for an armed escort, with an AK47, to go to and from dinner.  I realized why about ten minutes into our stay here.  Justin and I were getting settled into our tent and I walked towards the door to look outside.  I could not believe what I saw: four elephants eating from trees about 50 feet in front of our tent.  Justin and I quickly went outside to watch it.  Justin also noticed a hill next to our tent with 30 baboons sitting on top.  On our way to dinner we saw two baby sized gazelles and one large looking rodent (it was large bunny size but looks more like a hamster) which they have a name for but we have never seen it before. 

Tomorrow we spend more time in the Serengeti and spend another night in our tent. 

Pictures from Lake Manyara

View of a market on the way to Lake Manyara

View from the pool overlooking Lake Manyara.  I bet you wish it was pool weather...

Justin in front of our safari vehicle and driver.  We stand up and look out the top.

Some baboons that we saw close to our vehicle.