Safari

Giraffes, elephants, monkeys, and hippos: The Tanzanian country side is beautifully decorated with an abundance of African wildlife. The girls and I arranged a safari excursion to Makumi National Park this past Saturday. 5:30 am came around and we hopped into our hired van that conveniently picked us up at our doorstep. After a short one hour drive, we reached the park gates; literally within one minute of being inside the park, there was monkeys running on the road and zebras crossing in the distance. Once we reached the safari area, we hired a guide and were on our way. The first animal to greet us was a lone giant, standing strong, chomping away at some grass, the Massai Giraffe. Standing about 5 meters away, he stared directly at us as if he was studying us as much as we were he. He stood tall, not moving an inch, before he turned away abruptly as if to say; move along now, shows over. After our first encounter with a giraffe, many more were to follow. The openness of the East-African landscape-broad rolling grasslands dotted with lone acacia trees- makes spotting a giraffe an easy feat. Their long legs and great neck stretch high to eat from the lone trees.

The following half-hour of our trip had us studying hippos as they bobbed about in the pond, gazing at packs of Impala standing on alert for predators, and laughing at Baboons as they played about with their family. We managed to see a great number of elephants in various herds scattered throughout the park. As we approached one herd of approximately four females, two babies, and at least one male, we were reminded that these animals are wild, unlike the many we see at zoos all over the world. We were at a standstill when all of a sudden the male of the group began flapping his ears wildly, shaking his head, raising and blowing his trunk, and running straight towards us. He charged us and came to a halt at about 15 feet away. I guess this was just his way of saying “screw off.” Luckily, I managed to capture this moment on video, so stay tuned for that.

Throughout the day, we managed to see more elephants and giraffes, monkeys, crocodiles, hippos, zebras, impalas, various birds, a giant lizard, water buffalo, saddle-billed stork, and wildebeests. Unfortunately, there was no Simbas for us L but that’s okay. You basically have to spend the night to be able to get up early enough to catch the lions in the morning, so we were grateful enough to have been able to see as much as we did.