Safari
This weekend we went on a safari to the Ngorogoro Crater and Lake Manyara. Contrary to what a certain Tijuana night club might have you believe, it was INCREDIBLE.
Short list of the animals we saw:
- baboons
- a leopard (apparently VERY rare to see where we were, but we saw it running into the bushes as we drove by)
- zebras
- wildebeasts
- warthogs
- hippos
- pelicans
- a family of black rhinoceri (can only be found in the Ngorogoro Crater)
- lions! (a couple lionesses got so close they rubbed up against the car as they walked by)
- flamingos
- gazelles
- cheetah (from far away, stalking a gazelle)
- blue-balled monkeys (yes. exactly as it sounds- bright blue.)
- a dikdik (i'm not sure if i spelled it right but it's the smallest in the antelope family and it's back stands about a foot high)
- maasai giraffes (my FAVORITE of them all)
- elephants (we even saw a baby elephant)
- mongoose
- impalas
we also went and saw some crocodiles and really awesome snakes at this mini zoo before going out. mambas, pythons, cobras. way cool.
i'm sure i'm forgetting some. it was incredible to see so many animals in such a small area. they naturally live there in the reserves. the zebra and wildebeasts hang out together. the crater is just ugly with zebras. they're everywhere! it's funny to be excited about going to see a rhinocerous and then on the way think: damn zebras, always in the road. during lunch by a pond with tons of hippos, this big black kite (the bird, not the paper on a string) swooped down and grabbed my friend's chicken, aluminum foil and all, out of her hand and brushed my other friend's head during his get-away.
my camera's battery died as we were leaving the snake park (about 2 hours into our safari). but luckily i had borrowed kendra's video camera. that means i got a ton of AWESOME footage that we could probably get stills out of, and if not there were 11 other people on my trip who probably got some good shots.
that's really all that i'm going to say. i'm so exhausted from this weekend but it feels good to be back at the home base. i'll write more later. send me emails! deburns@ucsd.edu
Short list of the animals we saw:
- baboons
- a leopard (apparently VERY rare to see where we were, but we saw it running into the bushes as we drove by)
- zebras
- wildebeasts
- warthogs
- hippos
- pelicans
- a family of black rhinoceri (can only be found in the Ngorogoro Crater)
- lions! (a couple lionesses got so close they rubbed up against the car as they walked by)
- flamingos
- gazelles
- cheetah (from far away, stalking a gazelle)
- blue-balled monkeys (yes. exactly as it sounds- bright blue.)
- a dikdik (i'm not sure if i spelled it right but it's the smallest in the antelope family and it's back stands about a foot high)
- maasai giraffes (my FAVORITE of them all)
- elephants (we even saw a baby elephant)
- mongoose
- impalas
we also went and saw some crocodiles and really awesome snakes at this mini zoo before going out. mambas, pythons, cobras. way cool.
i'm sure i'm forgetting some. it was incredible to see so many animals in such a small area. they naturally live there in the reserves. the zebra and wildebeasts hang out together. the crater is just ugly with zebras. they're everywhere! it's funny to be excited about going to see a rhinocerous and then on the way think: damn zebras, always in the road. during lunch by a pond with tons of hippos, this big black kite (the bird, not the paper on a string) swooped down and grabbed my friend's chicken, aluminum foil and all, out of her hand and brushed my other friend's head during his get-away.
my camera's battery died as we were leaving the snake park (about 2 hours into our safari). but luckily i had borrowed kendra's video camera. that means i got a ton of AWESOME footage that we could probably get stills out of, and if not there were 11 other people on my trip who probably got some good shots.
that's really all that i'm going to say. i'm so exhausted from this weekend but it feels good to be back at the home base. i'll write more later. send me emails! deburns@ucsd.edu