Safari

Habari zenu,

Well, we had a frikin blast on the safari! Everything was great so we both owe a huge thank you to our mothers for setting it up. The first day, we drove from Moshi out to lake Manyara National Park, where we met our driver Mombasa( I (Ryan) secretly wanted to call him Mufasa but restrained myself). When we entered Lake Manyara, it felt like we were going into the African jungle. We got some great pics with baboons, giraffes, and elephants. The views were spectacular and we were extremely excited to be out exploring the wild animals. We then traveled to our hotel, the Highview, and had a great dinner along with some well deserved bruskies. Along with the wildlife, we also got to experience the obnoxious Americans we have missed so dearly. At dinner, we sat next to a party of 15 who were quite rowdy. DAMN SOUTHERNERS!

The next morning we had a little taste of what many Americans think of as stereotypical Africa. We drove on an insanely bumpy road for two hours to visit the bushpeople of Lake Eyasi. The Hadza tribe is one of two tribes in Africathat still follows an extremely primitive lifestyle. They make the Massai look like high-class millionaires. They live in one place for no more than two weeks, and their shelter consists of small huts made completely from leaves and small branches. Their only means of food is hunting via bow and arrow. They have absolutely no agriculture or domestic wildlife. The most modern advance for them is the addition of metal arrows, which they barter for with local farmers. The tribe we went to see wore some clothing, as a result of tourism, but the majority of the Hadza are completely naked in the wilderness. One of the highlights of the trip was our hunting adventure with a group of boys aging from 10-12. We saw them chase down birds and they eventually shot one. They cooked the bird right where they shot it by starting a fire old school style ( twisting one of their arrows really fast on top of a notched piece of wood to create some smoldering wood). They plucked off the feathers and offered us both a piece after it had been barbecued in dung. We accepted gratefully and it didn’t taste too bad. The leader ate the head of the bird, skull and all, saying that it was the best part. Afterwards, they let us try and shoot with their bow and arrow but we failed pretty miserably. After we were done, Andy traded his pocket knife for one of their authentic arrows. It is pretty bad-ass.

After another night at the Highview, we drove out to Serengeti National Park. After another bumpy journey, we drove around all afternoon and saw everything from a herd of about 750 wildebeasts stampeding across the road to a female lion stalking a warthog. At this point in the trip, the sunburn started to set in. We adopted several interesting strategies to cope with our baking skin. We draped ourselves in random pieces of dirty clothing and every time we stopped to take pictures with other cars around, others people gave us strange looks (Ryan in particular because he was using his zip-off safari pants to cover his forearms). At night, we stayed at a campsite inside the national park. Our tents were very nice and had both a portable toilet and a shower. Some of the people we met at the Highview hotel were also at the campsite, specifically a family from Ohio who we spent the majority of our trip with. We obviously live in a small world because the father of the family was a Lambda Chi at South Dakota.

After two days in the grueling sun, we woke up at 5:45am to get a head start in Ngorongoro National park. The view from the top of the crater was amazing and the density of wildlife inside was astounding. The animals inside had no fear of the trucks around them, and we were able to get within five feet of a male lion. The entire day was incredible and our only disappointment was that we did not get to see a cheetah. However, we did get to see 2 of the 24 black rhino that still exist in the wild. Another highlight of the trip was driving out of the crater on a road that followed the rim. We stood up on top of our seats with the roof open as Mombasa SPED through the roads. We could see for miles on each side of us, on the left the crater and on the right the small town of Karatu. We both had several things fly into our mouths but the frigid air was very refreshing.
This safari was an experience that we will never forget.
Kwaheri,
Andy and Ryan