Kenya and Tanzania

So, the last time I wrote in my blog, it was roughly the halfway point of my trip. It's so hard to believe that I will be heading home shortly... really I haven't had the time to think about it much, which is the scary part. I know that this trip is going to be over before I know it! But that being said, I am excited to be home for Christmas and it will be really nice to have some of the luxuries of home- like my own bed and a hot shower in the morning!

The past 10 days have been spent in Kenya and Tanzania... with a lot of animals. I can't tell you how many times in the past week and a half I have thought... "Am I really seeing this right now?" It's been like an episode of National Geographic.

The start of this trip was in Nairobi, which is kind of a big, dirty city. It's not classifed as a "safe" city, so I didn't do too much wandering outside of the hotel, but we did go out as part of the tour here and so I was able to see parts of the city that I wouldn't have otherwise. There are definitely no traffic laws here... at least none that are followed... and so driving around the city has been interesting. One of the main attractions that we visited in Nairobi, and the one that I enjoyed the most, was the Giraffe Center. There are three main types of giraffes in Africa- the Masai, the Reticulated and the Rothschild. The Rothschild Giraffe is endangered, and the Giraffe Center in Nairobi is attempting to breed them and release more into the wild. We were able to get really close to these amazing creatures... feed them, pet their noses, and even give them a kiss. I was able to get some great photos that I'll post as soon as I get home.

Left Nairobi after a couple of days there, and headed into Arusha, Tanzania. Arusha is much more lush and green than I thought it would be, considering the Serengti plains are not too far away. This place defnitely has an interesting mix of lush green and arid plains.

From Arusha, we set out on basically 7 days of game drives. Our first stop was to Lake Manyara National Park, which is the only place in teh world where you will find lions climing trees. The lake itself is huge and there are underground springs that come out of the mountains surrounding the lake and provide this park with the majority of its water. The vast amounts of water here make this place a very lush, green place and it felt like a tropical jungle. Aparently this is why the lions here climb trees... so that they can get a better view of potential prey.

The lake was amazing and supported vast amounts of birds- and a ton of flamingos. Unfortunately a few years ago, someone wanted to get rid of all of the flamingo in the area and introduced an algeae into the lake which killed most of the birds. THey are slowly making a comeback in the area and already their numbers are so vast, it's hard to imagine what it was like before they were chased away.

We saw a ton of zebra, giraffe, elephant and gazelle in the park and we even saw a dikdik... which is a small deer-like animal that is apparently very shy and rare to see. No tree climbing lion, but it's okay... maybe next time!

Next it was off to the Serengeti Plains, and the really amazing part of the trip. For three days and two nights, we were surrounded by all kinds of amazing wildlife. We were there during the annual zebra and wildebeast migration, so we saw literally thousands of them. We also saw a ton of lions, hiyena, jackel, and giraffe. We saw so much in those days, so again I will just stick to the highlights.

The Serengeti plains and the Savanah are more what I pictured Africa to look like- arid, dry, with acacia trees everywhere. It was very picturesque and the perfect backdrop to the wildlife that we saw there. So, here are the highlights....

Like I said there were thousands of zebra there, and not too many places for them to get water. We came acros a watering hole where you could see zebra everywhere around you. You could tell that they were very thirsty, but you could also hear warning calls coming from many of the zebra next to the water. They would get close to the water's edge and look like they were going in for a drink, then they would suddenly dart away, barking a warning. The reason for this became aparent as we got closer to the water and saw a pair of eyes staring back at us, and the back of a massive crocodile about 15 feet from the water's edge where the zebra were trying to take a drink. It was fascinating to watch the few brave zebra who would go in for a drink, just to be driven back as soon as they sensed danger.

We waited there for a while until all of a sudden about 30 zebra came running wildly towards us from a road not too far from the watering hole. Our driver sped away and as we came around the corner of the road where the zebra had come running we saw the reason why they were so frantic. Right next to us on the road stood a young male lion with a baby zebra in its mouth. It was really sad to see, but fascinating at the same time. The lion would throw the zebra up in the air and let it flop down then shake it in its mouth, just to make sure it wasn't still alive. It would then pick it up again and we watched as it repeated this a couple of times and dragged it off into the acacia forest. It was one of those moments... the "holy crap, did that just happen?" moment.

A bit later on that day, we had another crazy encounter with lions. This time, we were out at sunset and came across a pride of lionesses. We followed them around for a while until they found a log where they decided to plop down for a rest and some play-time. It was so cute to see how they interacted. They were very affectionate with one another, and looked just like house cats playing and biting eachother. Pretty soon they were joined by more lions... they looked like they were coming from all directions. Three groups of lions came up and joined them and then they all were on the move. We followed them in our truck towards another watering hole where they decided to stop. We stopped our van there, and before we knew it, we were surrounded by lions. There must have been 15-20 lions- young males, lionesses, and cubs- all around our vehicle. This gave me a whole new appreciation for the cute animals we had just seen playing by the log. They looked so innocent from far away, but when they looked at you, you got this feeling that they just wanted to eat you. It was crazy.

On the next day, our morning game drive took us way out in to the savanah where there aren't many trees. Our guides spotted a whole group of vultures circling in the air in front of us and below it they saw three cheetah in the grass. We followed the cheetah until they crossed the road right in front of us. There was a group of gazelle just across the road, downwind of the cheetah. We watched as one of the cheetah pulled out in front of the other two, eyeing the gazelle. As she got closer, she started crouching down in the grass. I couldn't believe how close she was able to get before one of the gazelle noticed and started alerting the rest. This was the moment that she popped out of the grass and went sprinting after one of them. It was so incredible to watch her speet as she fully stretched out. She didn't make much of an effort, and didn't catch anything, but it was still absolutely amazing to witness. Our guides told us later that they thought it was a female with two cubs and she was teaching them how to hunt. The vultures in they sky probably meant that they had already killed something and were not very hungry, so what we saw was just a hunting lessn for the cubs. We were incredibly lucky to see that, and it's not something that I will forget. It was absolutely amazing.

Those were kind of the big moments of the Serengeti. Other than that, we spotted a leopard up in a tree with two very small baby cubs, we saw a pair of lions mating, and we saw several more cheetah.

After the Serengeti, we moved on to Ngorongoro Crater, which is the largest fully enclosed crater/caldera in the world. Much more wildlife there, including a black rhino with a baby- which meant that I saw the Big 5 again! :) Many more flamingo in the crater, although the same guy who killed the flamingo at Lake Manyara did the same at Ngorongoro so there weren't as many as there were 5 years ago. Still it was amazing to see.

Another great highlight of this trip was that we were able to visit a Masai village, which are the nomadic people of Tanzania. It was fascinating to see how they live- in little mud huts, relying on their herds of cows and goats. We were shown around by the son of the chief (we actually visited the chief's house, but he was sleeping... we saw his feet sticking out of his bed). They did their traditional welcome dance, which was really cool. It was mostly performed by the men, but the women and childredn sang along with them. They are poligamous and woud traditionally travel around following the rains. Now that they are ablet o buy water, they are able to stay in one place for longer periods of time, although they will still move when necessary. Again, I have some cool pics that I will post as soon as I get home.

So, now I've moved on to the last part of my trip. Currently I'm in Egypt, and am really loving it here. I'll write more about Egypt shortly. Hope all is well with you!!