mambo everyone!! i am back in arusha after an AMAZING safari... it was so so awesome. it began on a bit of a rocky start as emily and i are not quite used to living on "tanzanian time"... our guide showed up an hour and a half late to pick us up so we were a little nervous that this company had taken our money and run. BUT eventually he showed up and everything after that was awesome. we had met these two people from england in the safari office the day before we went and decided to go together (so it was much cheaper!) and they turned out to be awesome. it would have been pretty awkward if it was just me, emily, and our guide... and alex and ollie (our new friends) turned out to be lots of fun. i could talk for hours about safari but i'll try to just give a few highlights and let the pictures do the talking when i get home. i only took 600 pictures... pretty good for me! a few of my favorite times on safari weeeere...
1. just camping in the middle of the serengeti was awesome. i didnt realize we would be so close to the animals!! when we pulled up to our campsite, there were two giraffe like 50 feet away, which we thought was pretty cool. then later that night, emily and i went to the bathroom and freaked out a bit when we saw a big pair of eyes like 20 feet away from us. we went to get omar (our guide) who identified the eyes as a lion's and threw rocks at it while screaming "I WANT TO KILL THE LION!!!". it was kind of scary kind of hilarious. about a half hour later we heard a lot of crunches in the bushes right near us so being a little over-paranoid, we went and got omar. when we turned on our flashlight, we realized that there were two elephants right near us, just munching away! it was quite an experience for the first night... the following night emily and alex were followed by 4 lion and the night after that an elephant almost stepped on our car and there were TONS of zebra maybe 5 feet from our tent. i got some neat pictures and no injuries! :)
2. we literally saw every single animal we wanted to... our guide was awesome. we were some of the few people to see a cheetah, jaguar, rhino etc. my favorite animal was probably zebra and they were basically surrounding us all the time. we saw lion cubs playing with each other, a lion stalking some gazelle, elephants taking a mud bath, a pool with TONS of hippos and crocodiles, and a zebra carcass get attacked by vultures and jackals just after a lion had left it. i think those were all the most exciting moments... honestly just looking at the gorgeous landscape was enough to keep me entertained! unfortunately it takes like 45 minutes to upload ONE photo on this super slow internet so i'll have to wait until i'm home, but i promise it'll be worth the wait!
i guess this safari update has gone on for long enough... i'm sure you won't be able to shut me up if you ask me about it once i get home haha. if you have any specific questions, feel free to e-mail me (alikolb@gmail.com and akolb@wisc.edu -- i never know which one will decide to work) and i'll try to get back to you! miss you all!
