Day 1 and 2 of safari

We survived the jeep disaster, but it was not without a lot of complaining and annoyance. Basically we are all paying roughly $190 per person per day for the safari, and wasting it at a Maasai car shop is not ideal.

FYI Maasai represent less than 5% of the population in Kenya and Tanzania, but are the definitive symbol of tribal East Africa. We see them herding cattles, goats and donkeys. They are dressed in colorful clothing with a red-checked or purple shuka (blanket) walking around. They also make a lot of beaded necklaces, bracelets, and rings (aka trinkets) to sell to tourists. Unfortunately, we were not interested in purchasing any. I also found them a bit aggressive. They wanted to charge us $5 to take a photo of them.

Back to the chaotic car situation, we spoke to Moses (our guide) to figure out how he was going to make up for our lost time. Basically, we had to wake up earlier the next day to go to Lake Manyara, but we were ok with it because animals roam around the most during early morning and late afternoon.

We saw a lot of animals at Lake Manyara National Park. It is right outside Arusha and is known for its superb bird life (which is not so impressive next to big animals), tree climbing lions (which are regular lions that climb up on trees), and hippos. Yep, we saw all these cool animals and many more.

In fact, right when we drove into the park the first day, we saw a tree climbing lion sleeping on the tree branch. It was really cool. It was huge and fluffy, so cuddly. We all wanted to hug it. Lions travel in prides, with only one dominant male lion. The lionesses are the ones that hunt and feed the pride. The male cubs will usually leave the pride when they are old enough to form their own pride. They will never compete with their own father. When they form a pride of their own, meaning fight another male lion, some of the females from that pride will stick around. We are still waiting to see a pride! Maybe we can see it in Serengeti? We would also like to see a hunt....but we know that is a long stretch.

We saw a huge elephant up close and personal. It was literally less than 5 feet from us, hanging out, grazing on a tree...but then Tina started giggling and it started walking close to us. At first it was cool, but it came closer and closer, to the point where we all got nervous and Moses drove away. We like to say the elephant attacked us. Today (day 2 morning) we saw a lot of elephants. At one spotting we saw a group of 10 together with babies. The babies were play fighting too. Another one was an elephant drinking at the stream, so cute! We also saw the elephant's fifth leg....really big...and can weigh up to 27kg...hahaha.

We also saw giraffes really close, but they weren't like the ones we saw in zoos. They were more dark brown. We saw one run...really awkward looking but pretty fast. We also saw one that had an injured leg. They are also defenseless animals and can't defend their kids. How sad.

Hippos! We saw a whole family of hippos cooling in a pool. They were so lazy....just soaking themselves in the pool because their bodies can't take the heat. They only come out during late afternoon and evenings to graze. We actually saw one running into the bush pretty quickly. It was so funny since their rear was so large...it was just bouncing up and down.

From a distance at the park, we can see the lake, with a pink fog over it, which we later discovered to be flamingos.. Yes, there were that many flamingos that it looked like a pink fog...we were never able to get really close to them because the park is trying to conserve the lake.

Other animals we saw were:

Dik diks - don't think dirty. They are like baby bambis but miniature size. Vicky and Steph wants to bring one home as a pet.

Impalas - look like deer with antlers, really cute. The males and females seem to travel in their own groups.

Blue Wildebeest and zebras - they were grazing on the plains. These are the animals people usually go see when they try to catch the migration...which is supposed to be pretty unbelievable because of the massive quantity.

Baboons were everywhere. All over the streets and the park. Stephanie said "Hhhiii" to one of them and it made this angry hissing noise at her before the whole crowd ran away. Mommy baboons carry the boys on their back and girls on their stomach because the boys are heavier.

Storks - some actually nested right at our camp site...the nests were pretty big.

Cave buffalos - unlike the water buffalo, they didn't have a lot of hair. Also, Vicky said their horns look like George Washington's wig.

Velvet monkeys - very cute with their babies.

Water hog - only saw a few, but they weren't as cool as Pumba

Birds - lots of them in all different colors.

So the Big 5 animals (animals that can defend themselves and their kids) are rhinos, lions, leopards, elephants, and buffalos...so we saw 3 of the big 5...we think leopards will be hard to find.

We are now heading to the Ngorongro crater, which was created from a volcano eruption a long time ago and a lot of animals became resident in the area. We are excited to see what resides there.

Oh on the way to the crater, our car started making funky noises again, so we had to drive to the garage to get it checked again. Luckily it was just a loose screw and it only took 15 mins to fix it.