If you haven't checked out Part 1 of the Tanzania Adventure, you can do so
here.
The second part of the story picks up right where I left off in Part 1. As we emerged from the rain forest into the parking lot at the base of Kili, I saw our Safari guide, Justin, waiting for us. I have never been more excited to see a human in my entire life. I tackled him, and then I promptly climbed into the car and refused to move another muscle. Thank God safari's are basically just road trips with scenery that is 1,000x better than normal car ride scenery.
As we drove to Lake Manyara National Park, Justin gave us a history of the area. It turns out, he was actually a member of the most famous tribe, The Masai, so was able to give us some interesting insight into that way of life. Later in the trip, we would actually get to visit one of the Masai villages, but more on that later.
About 2 hours into the drive, I looked to the right and spotted a giraffe! This was the first animal besides the normal raccoon or deer I had ever seen outside of a zoo. My excitement level was on par with winning at Bingo or losing 5lb's without trying. Justin pulled a u-turn and we were actually able to get out of the car since we weren't inside a National Park. Oh, wait, there are animals like giraffe's just wondering around out here? Yes, yes there are people. (Cue "A Whole New World" playing in your head right now)
I have never, in my life, felt as gross, dirty or exhausted as I did on this day, but nothing could keep me from taking a picture with Geoffrey the Giraffe.
Once we waved goodbye to our new friends, it was full steam ahead to Lake Manyara. This was the smallest park we would be in, but we actually saw our first elephant and hundreds of baboons there. Justin's favorite activity was hissing at the baboons to get a reaction out of them. They were literally everywhere.
When we finally arrived at our lodge for the night, we were greeted with a cup of fruit juice and a hot towel. The towel was placed into my hand a pure white, and was handed back a pure grey/brown. It was clearly time to have my first shower in 7 days.
When Justin saw me the next morning he said, "Oh! Kelly! You look better today." Thanks for really driving home how bad the situation was yesterday, Justin, thanks.
We headed out bright and early towards the Serengeti. This national park is Tanzania's oldest and most popular park and we would be touring it for 2 days. Pretty early on in the day, we spotted our first lion. All of the drivers have to follow really strict rules while they're driving through the national parks to ensure the safety and habitat of the animals is kept intact. That being said, Justin saw an opportunity that was too good to pass up to get close and was able to venture off the road a bit to get us closer. What we found was epic - a mother and her cubs playing. I was floored. Never in my life did I imagine I'd be able to see this type of scene outside of a photograph. We stayed and watched for several minutes.
Our hotel while in the Serengeti was beautiful. The bar and restaurant were actually built into a giant rock so it looked like it was just an extension of the land. Running all over the grounds were packs of what looked like giant squirrels - a bit overwhelming in numbers, but hilarious to run after and scare. At all of the hotels we stayed at that were actually inside a national park, there were strict instructions not to just head out for a walk. There are no fences or barriers set up to protect you from the animals in the parks. It is very much the animal's world that we're just visiting. At one point, a one-eyed monkey came to visit our room balcony's and we were able to get some fun shots with it and throughout our stay, we could see packs of wild boar's running through the desert and all sorts of wild life just living their lives.
We saw literally hundreds of elephants in this park. We'd find packs of them just hanging out with eachother and had the luxury of time to just sit and watch them interact. Justin would sometimes play chicken with an elephant walking down the road and a few times we actually had an elephant trumpet at us and charge. Another incident had us watching as a baby elephant got caught in some low tree branches. It trumpeted in panic and 6 full grown elephants charged towards it to help. It was awe inspiring and at the same time terrifying to see these giant animals run with such a purpose.
I've always had a particular love for Hippos. I generally think any animal that is slightly over-weight is hilarious and the greatest, so Hippos are like the crème-de-la-crème for me. Justin took us to the "hippo pond" and I am telling you, I was in heaven. This Hippo pool was crawling, well, not really crawling because they were all asleep, but LOOK. LOOK AT ALL THE FAT HIPPOS. Heaven.
On our way out of the Serengeti, we happened upon 2 pairs of lions traveling together and actually walking on the jeep path. They literally walked right beneath my window; had I been interested in losing a limb, I could have pet one. It also happened to be mating season, so the pairs would walk for a bit, mate, rest, continue walking. "Mating" took all of about 5 seconds and at the end the female would usually snarl and try and bite the male to get him off her.
After the Serengeti, we headed to Ngorongoro. This park is actually the bottom of an enormous crater. The road down into it was quite perilous and I was glad I had years of experience road-tripping with my parents to train me not to vom as we winded down to the bottom. At this point we had seen our fair share of lions, giraffe's, wild boars, zebras, etc. The last major animal we wanted to see was the elusive black rhinoceros. This park was notorious for sightings so I was geared up for success.
All day, we criss-crossed the park hoping to see something move through the tall grass that looked like a rhino. Finally, at the end of the day, Justin pointed out a tiny, tiny, tiny, black mass in the distance. Patrick and Justin claimed they could totally tell it was a rhino. I will take their word for it. TOTALLY COUNTS - I SAW A RHINO.
The final park we ventured to was Tarangire National Park. Here we saw several Ostrich here - and we definitely saw them mating. That process is legitimately the funniest thing I have ever seen and I wish we had gotten a video of it. The male Ostrich's neck get's incredibly pink when they want to mate, and they chase after the female to show them this very odd mating dance. Here's a video on
youtube that's actually taken in Tanzania. Skip to about 1 minute to see the dance I'm talking about. Thank me later.
On our way back to Arusha, we finally stopped at a Maasai village to take a "tour". The "head of tourism" approached our car and started brokering a deal with us for the tour. I think we finally agreed to about $30 a person for the tour. What followed was...interesting. The Maasai people gathered around us and began to sing and dance. At one point, a woman grabbed my hand to pull me into the dance and all the men started jumping straight up and down, competing with each other for height. Our guide then took us inside one of the homes. These tiny huts are home to sometimes 6-8 people. The Maasai also have a practice of only consuming meat, milk, and blood. Yep. Blood. All in all, I felt the experience was something interesting, but not a tour I'd take again. I very much felt like I was being exploited for money, and as a female, it was difficult to hear about some of their practices like child marriages.
On our last day with Justin, he drove us to his house on our way out to the airport. We were able to meet his daughter, son, and wife in the house he was building for them. We ended up staying just a wee bit too long and were pretty late getting to the airport. Don't get me wrong, this vacation had been a crazy/epic adventure, but after 1 week of straight hiking and camping followed by 1 week of sitting in a car for 8 hours a day all with 2 boys, it was time to get home. I was
not missing that flight.
As we cleared "security", I saw our plane out on the tarmac and I ran to the door only to find it locked. I pounded on it and slammed my ticket up to the window when a staff member looked at me oddly. I yelled "that's my plane!" The gentleman gave a little chuckle and mouthed back "we haven't boarded yet" as he pointed behind me. When I glanced over my shoulder, I noticed the 40 or so other passengers patiently waiting for boarding to be announced...
And of course...pictures on pictures on pictures:
