My parents and I had a great 4 day safari through the Serengeti and into Ngorongoro Crater and we're now back in Arusha, gearing up to begin our Kilimanjaro climb tomorrow. I took about 300 pictures on safari, so I'll only give you some highlights and you'll have to come over to see the rest.
Before safari, we were able to visit with Dave and Eunice Simonson, Dr. Mark Jacobson's family (the hospital director), and Dr. Kipuyu's family. Dr. Kipuyu was friends with my grandfather and they worked together to get funding to turn Selian from a dispensary into a hospital.
Dad and mom with Dave and Eunice Simonson
Dr. Jacobson with his wife, Linda, and their youngest daughter, Katherine
Mom, Erik, and me with Dr. Kipuyu, his wife, Judith, and their grandchildrenOur guide, King, drover my parents and I along with our cook, Juma,in a Land cruiser for our 4 days and 3 nights in 2 of Tanzania's Northern national parks. Before entering the parks, we stopped to buy fruit in Mto wa mbu and they have all sorts of varieties of bananas including yellow, green, and red.
We had to drive through Ngorongoro park to get to the Serengeti, which is flat grassland for as far as you can see with a few scattered acacia and other trees. It's been pretty wet, so the grass is taller and greener than it typically is this time of year. Acacia trees are really pretty, but don't be fooled. I had a huge acacia thorn go through my shoe and poke my foot and I had really thick soles on my shoes. 
We camped 2 nights in the Serengeti and woke up early one morning to see the sunrise. 
We had a shock absorber break on our vehicle, so we drove around in a very noisy car until it could be welded. We saw too many animals to list and I'll show the best photos. My dad has a better camera than me so he could get pictures of the animals we didn't get close enough to for my camera to take a good picture, like a leopard, eland, and rhino. My mom was very interested in all the birds and also had to take pictures of all different kinds of animal poop to take back to people in her lab. We started calling her the poop lady.
Guinea fowl eating grubs out of elephant poop.
A weaver bird making a new nest near our tents.
A mama baboon carrying her baby. The baboons sit in trees like birds on branches so thin you'd think they would break.
This topi was charging down the road toward our vehicle and turned just as it got to us to run off into the grass.
Wildebeest
2 Wildebeest fighting
Mama and baby zebra
The Thomson's gazelle are a bit smaller than Grant's gazelle and have a stripe across their side.
Male impala. They live in harems and bachelor colonies.
African buffalo
Warthog
I had to take about 50 pictures at a hippo pond to get a few yawns. There was a dead, bloated hippo on the side of the pond that crocodiles were waiting to rot so it would be soft enough for them to eat.
This giraffe walked in front of our vehicle and then decided to stop in the road for a snack.
We watched these giraffe do what they call "necking" where they wrap their necks around each other and play. I took a video.
Our first animal in the crater was a lion.
And we saw plenty of them.
This will give you an idea how close we could get to some animals.
We parked in the middle of about 20 elephants and watched them eat. I have videos of this too.
There are a couple of places to get out of the car in the crater and use a bathroom and someone likes to leave buffalo skulls at both of these places.
We had a great time on safari and we saw each of the big 5 along with many other animals.
We had to drive through Ngorongoro park to get to the Serengeti, which is flat grassland for as far as you can see with a few scattered acacia and other trees. It's been pretty wet, so the grass is taller and greener than it typically is this time of year. Acacia trees are really pretty, but don't be fooled. I had a huge acacia thorn go through my shoe and poke my foot and I had really thick soles on my shoes. 
We camped 2 nights in the Serengeti and woke up early one morning to see the sunrise. 
We had a shock absorber break on our vehicle, so we drove around in a very noisy car until it could be welded. We saw too many animals to list and I'll show the best photos. My dad has a better camera than me so he could get pictures of the animals we didn't get close enough to for my camera to take a good picture, like a leopard, eland, and rhino. My mom was very interested in all the birds and also had to take pictures of all different kinds of animal poop to take back to people in her lab. We started calling her the poop lady.
Guinea fowl eating grubs out of elephant poop.
A weaver bird making a new nest near our tents.
A mama baboon carrying her baby. The baboons sit in trees like birds on branches so thin you'd think they would break.
This topi was charging down the road toward our vehicle and turned just as it got to us to run off into the grass.
Wildebeest
2 Wildebeest fighting
Mama and baby zebra
The Thomson's gazelle are a bit smaller than Grant's gazelle and have a stripe across their side.
Male impala. They live in harems and bachelor colonies.
African buffalo
Warthog
I had to take about 50 pictures at a hippo pond to get a few yawns. There was a dead, bloated hippo on the side of the pond that crocodiles were waiting to rot so it would be soft enough for them to eat.
This giraffe walked in front of our vehicle and then decided to stop in the road for a snack.
We watched these giraffe do what they call "necking" where they wrap their necks around each other and play. I took a video.The campsite in the Serengeti was very simple with outhouses and no showers or sinks and we were visited by giraffe, mongoose, and rock hyrax in the day and I had hyena pawing at my tent at night. We passed by the Olduvai Gorge on our way back to Ngorongoro park and stopped at the visitor center to learn about this famous archaeological site. A fossil of a 1.8 million-year-old ape-like skull came out of this gorge in 1959.
Olduvai Gorge
Olduvai GorgeThe campsite at Ngorongoro Crater was very nice and electricity has been added since I was here 4 years ago so there is hot water to go along with their flushing toilets. This campsite gets visited by elephant and many birds.
View of Ngorongoro Crater
View of Ngorongoro Crater
Our first animal in the crater was a lion.
And we saw plenty of them.
This will give you an idea how close we could get to some animals.
We parked in the middle of about 20 elephants and watched them eat. I have videos of this too.
There are a couple of places to get out of the car in the crater and use a bathroom and someone likes to leave buffalo skulls at both of these places.
1 comment:
Awesome blog. Great pictures. I definitely need to go back to Tanzania.
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