God was shining on us?

We actually didn't go to the crater today, it will be on tomorrow's afternoon agenda. Today we drove through the Serengeti park in the early morning and late afternoon.

Our trip started at 6am (when it was still dark out), we were the first car that left the park...which made it awesome since we were not crowded by other jeeps. As we drove out of our camp site we saw three elephants grazing (eating leaves) maybe 20 meters away, if not closer...what a perfect start to the day.

As we drove a little further, we saw three hyenas on the road. They were literally on the side of our car and we were driving behind them as they were cantering up the road. They actually looked really cute, but they are vicious. They are one of the few animals that eat any animals.

Also the whole day, the sky was so beautiful. It reminded us of the skies you would see in movies when they try to symbolize that god is shinning down from heaven. The sky is cloudy and bright blue with sun rays shinning through the clouds.

Other highlights:

Elephants - We saw two mommies and a baby walking on the plains. They walked side by side each other and if the baby elephant fell behind, the mommy pushed him a little with her trunk.

We also saw two elephants mating. The male elephant puts its trunk on the female elephant's neck to lead her to do their business outside the crowd of elephants. It took a matter of three seconds for him to release. Too quick to even snap a photo! Fun fact: Male elephants dump five liters each time they do their business.

Cheetahs - Really hard to see and we saw two of them. How lucky are we? They are an endangered species because they're having a hard time reproducing because they are fidgety. Some researchers are now saying they are not really small cats because they are not nocturnal and don't have retractable claws. They only eat what they kill, not scavengers, hence have integrity. They also don't believe in sharing (i.e. community eating). It was one of our most favorite spottings.

Lions - Today was the best lion sighting ever. At first, we saw two lioness (one was pregnant with a big belly) that looked like they were hunting topis, but they sadly didn't.

We also saw two lioness with three cubs (two female and a male). When the lioness walked near the cubs, the female cubs walked towards her and greeted her with head butts as a sign of affection. The male cub just walked towards his mom because he has to stay proud. The lions actually crossed the road right in front of our jeep. I got some awesome photos.

We also saw two lions mating...THREE times! Fun fact: A lioness can mate an average 2.3 times an hour for four days with the same lion, that's 157 times in 55 hours. If she is not pregnant after seven days, she will mate with any other lions for 134 days without conceiving. Both the lion and lioness don't eat when they are mating, and each mating session average 21 seconds. So yes, we stood there for an hour watching the lions mate three times 20 meters away! I also have phenomenal photos...but it felt violating taking photos the third time around.

Leopards - They are really hard to spot since they are really shy. At first we only saw one with a topi (deer like animal with horns) hanging dead on the branch. But then we looked over and saw another one on another tree. After a while, the one from the first tree climbed up to the other tree. It is very unusual to see two leopards at one time...and we saw two! They were small though, but completely awesome.

Giraffe - We saw a baby giraffe right in front of us. It was so cute!

Hippos - Lots of hippos in and by the water pools, we even saw a baby hippo!

After the awesome day at the park, with god shining on us skies, we came back to some delicious food prepared by Juma. Dinner was ugali (african cornmeal and polenta), beef stew, greens, veggie pizza, and fried bananas. Yummy!

As we were eating, our new Canadian friend that we met during lunch time stopped by and greeted us with, "Girls there is a situation I think you should be aware of. There is a group of Arabs in our camp site." We were like ok...and he continued..."They have a live goat and they want to slaughter it for bbq behind their tents and we stopped them...now they brought it over the kitchen to slaughter it."

Does anyone see a problem with this? A slaughtered goat produces fresh animal blood on our camp site, which could attract hyenas and lions...also goats are not native to the Serengeti so it can really mess up the whole wildlife ecosystem. So we called on Moses (our guide) to save the day.

Moses went over to the Arabic guide to sort out the situation. When he returned he told us he never heard of this situation before (and he's been a guide for 17 years) and if they were to get caught by the park rangers, they will get a huge penalty that is unimaginable. After some convincing, the Arabic guide agreed to put the goat back in the jeep, and take it out of the park the same way they brought it in this morning (which was in between the seats). It blows my mind that mosses was worried for the Arabic guide instead just informing the park ranger (who supposedly he can not contact, but they roam around the camp sites during the evenings).

Later on we found out the guide of the Arabs was new, and Bernice actually met the sister of the guide who owned the safari tour on the plane. Do not go on it...but I don't remember the name of it.

So the situation now is the Arabic guide agreed to drive the jeep with the goat far away from the camp so if the lions smells the goat, they will attack it far from there. Another problem we face is that the goat hasn't been fed since the morning, and it's used to grazing all day, so its going to start making noises soon....attracting animals to come eat it or the ranger to find out. Right now everyone seem to be discussing the situation outside our tent, as we are getting ready for bed. We need to be out of the park at 6am tomorrow....so let's all hope things work out ok tonight. Maybe god is still shining on us???