SAFARI !!!!!!!!

Well I'm back, in one piece. No limbs were taken by wild animals or anything like that, although at times the animals were seriously close enough to have done so with a single movement.

We, Cassie and I, joined two other volunteers from local orphanages on Wednesday morning and headed off to Lake Manyara National Park. We dropped our stuff at the camp outside of the park and left the cook, Moses, behind to sent up camp and prepare dinner. We had box lunches that we ate on the way. Then our driver, Saudi, took us into the park. We saw Hippos, Baboons, Giraffes, Elephants, Silver Back Monkeys, Blue Monkeys, Mongooses and lots of birds! We even had an elephant begin to chase after us, as we had accidentally cut him off from his pack! He was a straggler and we did not notice him, until I heard something and turned around to see him beginning to run towards the jeep. I quickly told the driver who started the jeep promptly and moved to the side of the road. After the elephant passed, he calmly said he had seen him in the rear-view mirror!!! :) Even so I'm glad I said it when I did! I will say he had no fear and maintains that elephants are not dangerous to humans, UNLESS they have babies! Which they all did!!!!!

AN ASIDE: He was truly amazing! He was able the drive the car on less than ideal roads, avoid animals and spot, I swear, every animal that we passed even if they were hiding in the tall grass. In the Serengeti many times he would stop the car and the four of us would be dumbfounded looking around at open fields. He would very matter-of-factly say "do you see the lions?" We would still look around knowing what we are looking for and couldn't always see them! So he was great!





Back to the safari: Wednesday night we camped at Lake Manyara and stayed up late talking to the cook. The next morning we headed to Serengeti National Park. We arrived in the afternoon and once again ditched the cook and our belonging to go out and find animals. We must have only been in the park for 5 minutes before we saw our first group of lions. It was a group of 3 males taking a cat nap in a dried up waterhole, right next to the road. Apparently not bothered by the cars at all.

While we are on the topic of lions, we averaged seeing 8 lions a day while in Serengeti. Four of those sightings lived less than 1 km from our camp site that we were staying in both nights while we were there! But we never saw them at camp, only heard some Hyenas at night!



Other animals we saw in the Serengeti include (and I'm sure I will forget plenty of them) elephants, giraffes, hippos, gazelles (3-4 kinds), wilder beast, water buffalo, a leopard, impalas, ostriches, antelopes (3-4 kinds), zebras, warthogs, the largest flight bird (the name escapes me), a fox like animal, lilac rollers (birds), guinea fowl, hawks, falcons, a small field mouse of some kind, camels and donkeys ( both of which have been domesticated by the Maasai people while live around the boarders of Serengeti national park). It is also note worthy to say that almost all of these animals we also saw baby versions of, it is apparently a great time for baby animals in the national parks! All were very cute!




The leopard sighting was probably the best part of the 2 days in the Serengeti. We watched him for over 2 hours! This might sound boring but he was constantly on the move and had attracted almost EVER tour jeep in the park! Our driver was great at anticipating his moves and almost always placed us directly in his path. At one point we could have honestly reached down and touched him! I have pictures! Oh and another slight aside, our drivers favorite phrase "Taking more pictures, Taking more pictures" He would say this when really lucky things happened and we would end up with rarely seen animals extremely close to the vehicle. This happened a lot on the trip!!!!


On Saturday afternoon we left Serengeti and headed to Ngorongoro crater. We camped at the edge of the crater over looking the animals and wildlife below. That night was the most "interesting" as it is common to have wild pigs, water buffalo and elephants at the camp during the night. Lucky us we had all 3! It started with pigs smelling the tents. We had been given a very serious warning about keeping food in the tent at this particular campsite due to these pigs! So you better believe we made sure there was nothing edible in the tent. But it was the water buffalo that kept us awake! They came right up to the tents and would rip the grass out of the ground with such noise! It was incredible. They also would walk right up to the tent screen take a deep breath in then blow it out with great force! I was still awake reviewing pictures when they arrived so falling asleep was not easy. Then once I had fallen asleep about 1.5 hours later Cassie woke me up telling me there were buffalo outside the tent. I assured her that I knew that and I helped calm her fears, as I had done for myself several hours prior.


We woke at 5:30 the next morning to have tea and leave for the crater so we could see the sunrise! In the crater we finished our last animal of the big five by having 4 different black rhino spottings. This is a very high number of spottings as there are estimated to be only 20-25 rhinos living there. We also added hyenas, a cheetah, a serval cat (which we were told is very rare to see at all) and flamingos to our already growing list of animals! It is interesting to point out that the only animals that are not in the crater but are in the Serengeti are giraffes and impalas because they can not make the trip over the steep terrain, it is also rare to see female elephants inside the crater.




We left the crater and headed home, but stopped on the way at the "snake park" of Arusha. It has snakes, crocodiles, tortoises, and some birds. The enclosures for the animals were more interesting to me than the animals themselves. I took more pictures of how unsafe the enclosures were than of the animals I think! They had added some safety features, but obviously as an after thought, likely due to problems they had had! Also included in the price of admission was a Maasai cultural museum tour. This was very interesting to hear what they taught the tourist about themselves yet what I have learned about them at the hospital was very different in some cases!

And to end, today I went back to the hospital to begin my surgical rotation. We had no surgeries so I went on grand rounds and learned about every patient who is there. Yes, one doctor rounds and writes orders on the entire hospital (except he is not responsible for Labor and Delivery)That was about 50-60 patients. So it took most of the day. Tomorrow is general surgery day, so hopefully I will get to see some interesting things.

I hope to add some pictures soon, but it might be awhile before I get back to the coordinator's house to be able to do that.

Until next time...