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Published: August 9th 2008
Wilt The Stilt
This is the guy we caught in the act.My parents came to meet us for a week of safaris. They are vacationers, as opposed to travelers, so while the duration of their visit was limited to a week it was first class the entire way. As they planned it to visit us, we managed to leech off them and enjoy the spoils of “the good life,” as Kanye would put it, for a week. Fantastic food, that arrived in a timely manner, beautiful rooms, with facilities that worked appropriately, and service that didn’t leave you baffled; it was hardly the Africa we have become accustomed to.
We started off in Lake Maynara National Park. It is a narrow stretch of land sandwiched between two striking features. On the east is the large spring fed, salt lake of Lake Manyara. On the west is the Great Rift Valley Escarpment, a two thousand foot cliff that looms over you wherever you are. In between is an amazing array of birds, huge numbers of elephants, a few prides of lions, and baboons as numerous as squirrels in northern Wisconsin. We had several game drives each day and had too many encounters to mention them all, so I’ll stick to the highlights.
At the end of the first game drive (after seeing a 15 foot python which my dad loved), as we came around a bend in the road, a large male elephant stood directly in our path. He started flapping his ears, throwing sand, etc. to display dominance. Luckily he wasn’t in musk (or so our driver said), so he wasn’t going to charge. He was just acting like a frat boy in a weight room, showing off what he had. We (i.e. our driver) called his bluff and drove right at him and, with my mom frightened out of her wits, the elephant eventually mozied off the road. Later that night we went for an evening game drive. All other vehicles need to be out of the park by 6:30, but as our hotel was inside the park the rule did not apply to us; furthermore, as it was the only lodge inside the park, and we were the only ones doing a game drive, we literally had the place to ourselves. Right at dusk we spotted a lion in a tree just off the road. We waited fifteen minutes to see if it would come down, and luckily it
did. It dropped down, crossed the road right in front of our vehicle and came broadside across it within 10 meters of the car. We followed him for sometime (about 30 minutes) as he walked in front of our car towards his prides’ area. Lastly, we had about a hundred baboons walk through our tree lodge the next night. Not the normal hotel.
Our second spot was Ngorongoro Crater. It is a phenomenal physical feature. It is 19 kilometers in diameter with a rim of several thousand feet above the bottom. At the bottom of the crater is a small salt lake, a huge savannah, a few forested areas, an enormous amount of wildlife, and an even larger number of tourists. Because of its proximity to Arusha, the beautiful landscape, and the huge numbers and array of wildlife, it is the largest attraction in Tanzania’s safari circuit. It isn’t easy to get any alone time with the animals, but you do get to see some amazing things. The zebras in the area are completely immune to vehicles and come absurdly close to them. Normally they are a fairly skiddish and can only be seen in the distance. They are
in close running for my favorite animals of the savannah, so I was really happy. Also, we saw a leopard, completing the "
Big 5." They are incredibly hard to see because they are very reclusive and camoflage extremely well in the trees. The one we spotted was very far off the road and extremely well hidden; I have no idea how it was spotted, but it took me at least 15 minutes to finally locate it. While the crater is exceptionally beautiful, and in a single safari lets one see a vast array of animals, I think it was my least favorite of the three.
We took a small prop plane up to the northern Serengeti and stayed just outside the park at Klein’s Camp. Staying on a private reserve provided amazing benefits I hadn’t initially realized. You can do night safaris, walking tours, and, best of all, you can go off road to get a better glimpse of the wildlife. The latter quickly proved its worth, as five minutes after being picked up we spotted a few lions under a tree. We drove closer to investigate and saw that they had recently killed a zebra. They had already had
Elephant Eating
I don't know how much they eat, but they produce 300 pounds of dung a day. a bit to eat and were just relaxing. I was amazed at how close we could get without them caring the slightest bit; we must have been within fifteen feet. We left them alone after a short bit and headed back for a quick respite.
Later that evening we found a couple lion’s mating, and again were within 15 feet of them. My dad provided more entertainment than the lions though; he was thoroughly impressed by the fact that a male lion will mate around 300 times in a week when one of the females is in heat. He wants to reincarnate as a lion now. Even funnier was when they actually started mating (most of the time they spend resting after the action). The male mounted the female and my dad started giggling like a 13 year old in health class. Darren and I burst out laughing. I have a video of it and you can’t even hear the male lion’s purring over the three of us cracking up. It is a bit ridiculous.
After a half hour or so we decided to leave them alone and headed back to the kill we had previously seen to
see what was left. We came across six lionesses feasting on the zebra. It was incredible. You could hear bones cracking, cartilage tearing, and the smell of exposed flesh filled the air. This time I was actually a bit scared, as we again were only 15 feet away from some enormous cats as they dined on fresh meat. I thought they would get a bit protective of their kill, possibly come my way for desert, but they just kept munching away.
After a half hour or so we decided to leave them alone and headed back to the kill we had previously seen to see what was left. We came across six lionesses feasting on the zebra carcass. It was incredible. You could hear bones cracking, cartilage tearing, and the smell of exposed flesh filled the air. This time I was actually a bit scared, as we again were only 15 feet away from some enormous cats as they dined on fresh meat. I thought they would get a bit protective of their kill, possibly come my way for desert, but they just kept munching away.
The next day we headed into the Serengeti to get a glimpse
of the wildebeest migration. They were somewhere near the border of Tanzania and Kenya, near the Mara River, so I had high hopes of seeing them swimming across the river with crocs acting like scuds picking them off. Sadly I didn't have my dream come true, but we did see about million a wildebeest walking around, generally looking like the stupidest animals I've ever seen. On the way back to Klein's Camp we got word that there were a few cheetahs at the airport. (By airport, I mean a flat strip of land where they cut the grass.) We were cruising down the airstrip at top speed looking for cats in the high surrounding grass when someone realized they were about 50 meters in front of us. The driver slammed on the breaks, and came up just short of where the cheetahs were laying. It gave everyone a bit of a scare, but all ended up okay, and we were able to get a good look at this last cat species. It completed everything that I had really wanted to see (besides wildebeest getting eaten by crocodiles, which I guess I can live with missing), and I was completely happy
Tanzanian Bird
Can't remember the name, but this bird was in the colors of the Tanzanian flag. with the safaris.
A week of living it up in beautiful accommodations with fantastic food came to an end and we headed back to Arusha. The week was absolutely great, seeing my parents again (first time in about 7 months), getting spoiled, and seeing some amazing wildlife. My rents were catching an afternoon flight back to the U.S. and D and I splurged to get us to the beaches of Zanzibar a bit early. We hopped on a regional flight and landed for a week of sitting around in the sun before we head home for a while (well, D for a much longer than me). That was about a week ago. I haven't done a thing since then, and it has been great. We get back in a few days, and I'll publish a little diddy on our stint out here from an Internet connection that works faster than I do and a Mac that didn't have a Mojito that was spilled on it back in India. Then, it will be a month of relaxing, studying Spanish, and then off to South America with my buddy Eric Bronstein from college and his buddy Drew from Hawaii...
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John Boy
non-member comment
You guys are awesome
It's been great to see the pictures and read your stories over the last few months. I'm obviously jealous, as I'm sure many of your readers are. I'm very happy for you guys and know you are experiencing some amazing things! Can't wait to see you when you get back -- when is that going to be again? Anyway, keep having fun and sending us the amazing pictures so I can live vicariously through you!