Post Safari

Life is good here. I had one really bad day last week where I was very frustrated with some of the people and the way things work in the city. But things are better now. It was just one very bad day last Tuesday.

Our safari was AMAZING! We saw almost everything you can imagine. We started our safari in Lake Manyara, which is heavily populated with elephants, giraffes, gazelle, impalas, baboons, hippos and so many different kinds of birds. Within the first few minutes of being there, a young elephant had sprayed us with water. My pants had water spots on them because an elephant sprayed me! There were some baboons that almost jumped on our car and another herd of elephants that held us up on the road for 20 minutes. We spent the night in Lake Manyara and had some delicious food! They feed you SO much in a safari. Basheer first brought us out some zucchini soup. It was delicious, and we all ate a lot because we thought that was dinner. Then he brought out more plates of rice, vegetables, beef and bread. So we ate that. Then there was a tray of a variety of fruits-pineapple, oranges, mangoes, etc. it was so much food! But it was delicious. And that's what dinner was like every single night. Their vegetables here are delicious! They cook them in some kind of sauce we think is chili sauce. But I love it.

The next day we drove to the Serengeti, which means endless in Maasai. Endless is the perfect description. You look out and think you see the end of the world because you see where the plains hit the sky, and there are no trees, no buildings, nothing in the distance. It is incredible.

The Serengeti is littered with zebras and wildebeest. They are everywhere! The zebras are so cool! I don't know what it is, but I was fascinated by their stripes. I've never seen an animal with such distinct stripes like that, and it is so cool. We also saw some ostriches, which are way bigger than I imagined, and hyenas before we set up camp. The campsite is just out in the open, like any animal could wander in whenever they want. After we set up our tents, we went back out to the animals and saw two lionesses stalking a zebra. Oh my heavens, it was so incredibly intense. They watched the zebra's every move and kept following it. But other dumb safari drivers drove right near the zebra and scared it away, so there was no kill. :(

Saturday was one of the best days of my life, no exaggeration. We woke up super early and watched sunrise over the Serengeti. It was absolutely beautiful! Early in the morning there, the sun is totally red, and the sky just glows orange. It looks exactly like the opening scene of The Lion King. After the sun, we turned around and saw five cheetahs, one of which was chasing a jackal. Man, they run fast. And because they're the same color as the grass, the cheetah blends right in, and you can hardly see it when it runs. I also got to see not only one lion in the wild but a whole pride of lions, right cubs, two mamas and two daddys, feasting on a zebra carcass. We watched them for about 45 minutes. The cubs played and pounced on each other, the mamas cleaned the cubs. It was surreal. If you turned in a full circle from the spot where we watched lions, you could see the pride, hippos, zebras, wildebeest and elephants-all in 360 degrees. It was so unreal and something I have ALWAYS wanted to do.  We saw cheetahs eating a zebra later, too. Poor zebras (but there are millions of them, so it's okay).


We left the Serengeti that afternoon to head to the Ngorongoro Crater and after a couple hours our driver noticed something was wrong with the car. We had lost four of the five bolts on one of our rear tires on the unpaved and incredibly bumpy roads between the parks. That's a long story, though. We eventually got to our next campsite overlooking the Ngorongoro Crater. It was freezing up there because the elevation is so high; it's like being at the top of the tram at Snowbird in October. There were elephants and zebras at our campsite, like I got within 30 feet of them; it was incredible. The next morning we headed into the crater and saw TONS of flamingos, more lions, hippos, wildebeest, zebra, gazelle and even a mama and baby rhino. It was the most amazing experience!!! I can't wait to tell you guys everything and show you all the pictures. But I'm bringing home an African man. His name is Basheer, he's Muslim, he's 21 and super shy. He was our cook on our safari. We asked him if we were dumb Americans, and he said yes. After he said that a few times we asked if he knew what dumb meant. He said no, so we told him it meant pumbavu (stupid in Swahili). His face was priceless! He felt so bad!!! Then we asked again if we were dumb. "No, no. You not dumb. I so sorry about that. I did not know what it mean." It was one of the funniest moments of the trip. I will never forget it. On Wednesday we leave for a village called Magara to drill a well for them. We will be there until Saturday, and I'm super excited! Since we will be driving four hours on Wednesday, we are taking the day off Thursday to celebrate the 4th of July and are going swimming in some waterfalls and to see the monkeys. It will be so much fun; I can't wait!!!