Thursday, April 19, 2012

Expedition to Serengeti Days 3, 4, and 5!!!


Mambo I say (Tanzanians speak all fluent Swahili, but always add ‘I say’ to the end of their sentences),

The third day in Serengeti was the most amazing of all the days!!!  After the day, I was so thrilled with everything we had seen, I could not even believe that it was real!

The day, however, started on a terrible note.  That day, we had a different kind of birding exercise to do, and of course, birds are the best in the early morning.  We woke up at 5:30 am, only to find that it had POURED the entire night and for some reason, we did not have water proof tents!!!  Everything, and I mean everything was soaked all the way through, including my pillow, sleeping pad, textbooks, blanket, sweatshirt, and every article of clothing that I brought with me to Serengeti.  The only dry thing in the tent was me, thanks to my lovely sleeping bag that I owe a lot to now!  You can imagine how freezing it was with the moisture in the air and no warm clothes that were dry.  I climbed in the cars at 6 am in my pajamas and an apple because we were going to have breakfast when we returned from the exercise.

You can only imagine that I was not in the best mood as we flew to our transect in the grasslands.  We had to count and identify every bird that we saw in the grasslands for a total of two hours, but it was quite tough since all the birds could hide easily in the long ocean of grass!  The one plus was the gorgeous blue skies and blowing grassland that accompanied the transect.  As we were driving, the roads were so muddy from all of the rain the night before!  The cars were bumping around more than usual and we would have to speed through puddles to make sure that we wouldn’t get stuck.  Unfortunately (and kind of fortunately), we did get stuck in this huge muddy area and we had to reverse and go forward over and over to keep our tires from sinking in any farther.  We started moving in a forward direction with the wheels spinning 10 times faster than we were moving, when we suddenly lost control and started fishtailing.  I was sitting in the back corner of the car, four rows back from the driver, and suddenly, I was going straight down the road as if I was the driver!!!  We all went from cheering that we were finally moving forward to screaming in both fear and excitement as the car moved through the mud completely sideways!  When we finally slid to a stop, the entire car exhaled in unison, and then burst out laughing.  It was so hilarious and we could not believe that the car did not flip at the speed we were going!  When we were all finished, my friend offered me her shuka and I curled up in the back corner of the car and tried to fall asleep.  Just as my eyes were about to shut, I saw something far in the distance!  I couldn’t tell for sure what it was, but I had an idea. 

I stood up abruptly and started pulling on Jenna, saying “Jenna what is that, Jenna I think it’s a cheetah, Jenna ahhhh!!!”  She felt so bad because she was convinced that it was a stick and I was getting excited over nothing.  But the closer and closer we got, we could tell that I was right!!! I was the first person to spot a cheetah in the Serengeti!!!!  I was shaking so bad that I could barely focus on the cheetah sitting proudly on top of a termite mound, just like all of the pictures you see!  As we got closer, I was sad to see it leap off the mound and start walking away from us, but at the last second, it climbed slowly on to another mound only a few meters away.  The cheetah was only 100 meters away from our car and no one else was around to see it.  We all were panicking with excitement, taking as many pictures as possible and admiring how beautiful it was!  A gorgeous cheetah, sitting among the endless grasslands with a shining blue sky and hills in the background.  I was literally speechless and still am when I try to explain the emotions that were going through all of us at that moment.

Eventually, the cheetah ran off into the grass, and we kept moving back toward camp for breakfast.  Just as I was settling back into the car, we noticed a giant group of cars ahead of us, all pointing and taking pictures!  Quickly, we realized that it was another cheetah literally 5 meters from the side of the road!  It was so close that I could see its beady eyes and the pattern of its spots completely.  It was so sad because over 50 cars were following it and trying to get their pictures.  The cheetah wanted to cross the road, but the cars were keeping it from doing that, and eventually we left so that we would no longer be a part of the problem.  It was amazing to see the cheetah that close, but we were happy to leave and get out of the way so that the cheetah could continue with its day without us getting in the way.

When we got back to camp around 10 am (yes all of this excitement happened before 10 o’clock), we had a relaxing breakfast and got to hang out around camp for a few hours.  We all hung out in our tents, hung up sopping wet clothes, and listened to music.  We had lunch only a few hours later and then prepared to head back out into the field for the rest of the day!

Our next stop was the main visitor’s center of the park where we would get to explore all of the education materials they had and then have a lecture with the warden of the park.  When we pulled in, we noticed that the entire visitor’s area was covered in Rock hyraxes and dwarf mongooses!!!  They were like squirrels on a college campus, begging the tourists for foods, climbing picnic tables, and running under your feet when you least expected it.  We had about an hour before our lecture, so we got some snacks and sat down at a picnic table.  The mongooses and hyraxes were all over and we all tried to get awesome pictures with them since they were clearly not afraid of us at all.  When no one was looking, I even petted one.  I couldn’t help it.  It was a foot away and soooo fuzzy!  And it didn’t even respond when I touched it. After the hyrax excitement, we wandered around the information that they had all over and discovered some cool facts about the park and how it all got started!  The lecture started before we knew it, and we all gathered in a lecture hall and met the warden of the park.  The warden talked to us about the challenges that the park faces and how it is managed.  I really enjoy these lectures at the park because we are able to compare Amboseli National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Nakuru National Park, and now Serengeti to see how they differ and how the challenges change depending on where we are!

After the lecture was over, we had another game drive for the rest of the day, and I was hoping that our luck from the morning would continue for the rest of the afternoon!  The first thing we saw was a leopard, although it was barely visible in the distance.  It was propped in an acacia tree above the grassland and its long straight tail was easy to see, even from where we were!  That was two big cats in one day already!!!  We didn’t stick around long and when we were driving, we suddenly saw ANOTHER cheetah!!! This one was once again propped up on a termite mound with a huge log accompanying the mound.  The cheetah stood up tall on the mound and almost blended in with the log that was right beside it!  I was happy because one girl in our car had not seen a cheetah yet and she was the one to spot it!  The cheetah ran from us before we got too close, but I couldn’t ask for much more than three cheetahs in one day!

As we continued our drive, we suddenly saw some sort of ruckus in the road ahead of us!  As we moved closer, we realized it was a Serval cat, and not only that.  It was a Serval Cat being chased by a white tailed mongoose!  I couldn’t even keep my laughter in when I saw this ridiculous sight, and they ran quickly through the grass out of sight before any of us could really process what was happening.  We all burst out in to laughter, and couldn’t wait to explain to our wildlife management professor what we had seen!  That was three cats already and it was not even close to when we had to be back to camp!  We kept driving around, and had to do more giraffe behavior exercises every time we saw a giraffe, so to my dismay, the time that we had left was running out!

We finally turned our car back toward camp and I was so content with everything we had seen.  Up ahead, nearing camp, however, were three or four cars stopped and taking pictures of something else.  IT WAS CAT #4!!!  There was a huge mamma lion and two little cubs sitting in a clearing near a watering hole.  The cubs were hiding from one another behind tree stumps and then leaping out to tackle one another.  One even came over to nuzzle its mom and curl up with her.  She wasn’t a big fan of this motion and quickly got up and crossed the road right in front of the car in front of us!  She snuck into the grass and plopped down, like the trip had exhausted her.  Her cubs were still on the other side of the road playing and exploring, and to my surprise, they started coming straight toward our car.  We all fell silent as these two little lion cubs walked around the car I was in, only 7 feet from where I was sitting!!!  The little lions stared right into my eyes and I was just taken back at their beauty and gracefulness, even as clumsy little kitties.  They walked past us, playing with each other as they went, and eventually made it to their mom of the other side and they all curled up together!  I was so happy that we were in the right place at the right time, and as soon as they laid down, it was time for us to head back to camp!

What a day that was.  I could not have asked to see anything better and was so thankful by the end of the day with everything I had seen!  I knew that no other day could compare to this one, but I was looking forward to the last few days we had in the Serengeti to see what other surprises awaited us!

The last full day that we had in the park was filled with game drives and lodge visits.  I had cook crew in the pitch black in the morning cooking over hot coals placed in a basin.  I had never cooked like that at all!  We left early again at 7:30, meaning cook crew started at 5:30!  When we left, we were still aiming to get more giraffe and elephant exercises done, but in all reality, we knew it was just another game drive!  I was exhausted that morning, so I took a lovely nap in the back seat and picked a great day to do so because until around 11 am, we didn’t see anything besides a few birds here and there!

When I did finally wake up, that same mama lion and her two cubs (we could tell because of her radio collar from the Serengeti Lion Project) we sprawled across a log near the road!  They didn’t respond to the car at all, but instead just hung there limp, relaxing in the hot sunshine!  We stopped and watched them, but quickly realized they were not going anywhere anytime soon and decided to head to our next stop!

The next place we were stopping was another hippo pool at another part of the park that we had not been to yet!  I could tell we were getting close because of the terrible smell that always accompanies the hippos.  And of course, the wind was not in our favor that day.  When we got out of the car, I was absolutely amazed at the number of hippos there were!!! The water was completely solid with the massive bodies that are half under the water.  There was a constant sound of splashing, swimming, fighting, diving, and other disgusting things going on.  Hippos are quite possibly the most disgusting animals in the area.  They lay around all day in the same place that they poop, and when they do poop, they stand up and fling it everywhere by wagging their tails as quickly as possible.  It’s so gross and I was thankful to be as far away as we were.  As we were watching the hippos, I suddenly saw a croc slide sneakily into the water behind them and move down the shore, trying to avoid being squished by the massive hippos surrounding it.  The hippos were very entertaining to watch, but in the middle of the day with no shade around, we quickly were ready to move on. 

Just as I was about to step into the car, I heard another tour guide yelled “duma,” which is the word for cheetah in Swahili!  We walked back to the hippo pool and to our surprise, a cheetah was standing proudly behind the pool looking over the water and the hippos.  Something was scaring the cheetah though, and it timidly looked back into the woodland that it had come from.  Once, it even tried to go back into the woods, and came running back out in fear.  Jenna and I were so taken back by the cheetah and the fact that we were standing on the same ground for once instead of in the car like always.  We just stood in amazement to see what the next move of the cheetah was.  It finally took off running back into the woodland and was gone for good, just in time for us to leave for our next stop!

Finally, we got to head to one of the lodges in the park to enjoy the pool, some good food, and just relax.  When we arrived, it turned out some other cars had been there for almost an hour, so we all quickly threw on swimsuits, ordered a sandwich, and dove in the pool.  The pool felt amazing on my blistered feet from the silly tsetse fly bites and I never wanted to get out of the water.  I had a Panini with ham and cheese on it with French fries and a coke, and it was much needed after sleeping in tents and eating a lot of packed lunches! I even tried this drink called Amarula, which is definitely my new favorite thing. I sat with my friends Erin and Karianne and we all just talked about internships and summer plans and what was next after Africa.  I really enjoyed their company and the entire lodge experience was a great one!

After we wrapped up at the lodge, we had about an hour and a half to finish off with a game drive and hopefully see something that would make up for the anticlimactic morning!  We drove and in almost the same place that we saw our first cheetah, my friend Patrick suddenly saw a cat tail pop up above the grassland for a few seconds.  I have no idea how he spotted it in that short amount of time, but we slammed on the brakes and waited to see the tail again.  It showed up a few meters from where it was before, and we were able to tell that it was a leopard!!! Once again, we were the first car to spot it and waited for it to move onto a mound where it was visible.  And lucky for us, that is exactly what it did.  It hopped up on a mound right under an acacia tree and sat there looking around!  This was by the far the closest that I had been to a leopard and I was so excited to see it.  By far, the leopard has the most beautiful of any animal’s coat.  Its spots line its spine perfectly and are so defined against the lighter color of the fur.  It was shocking stunning and when it leaped into the grass, we got a better view of its spots down its entire tail.  The leopard walked closer and closer to the other cars that had gathered and finally crossed the road only two cars away from us, noticeably stalking something on the other side!  It crept up a termite mound and we finally saw that it had its eyes on a baboon in the distance.

The leopard crept closer and closer, but suddenly, having noticed the leopard, three male baboons leaped out of the tree and started chasing the leopard back to where it had come from.  The baboons were screaming and as the leopard disappeared into the distance, the baboons climbed up on branches and mounds above the grass to keep watch for the leopard!  It was quite a chase scene and we were all shocked at what had happened!  Apparently, baboons and leopards have an on-going battle and one will kill the others babies if it has the chance.  One of the baboons had a huge scratch on its face, and I think it was safe to assume it was from that same leopard!  I was just thankful to have seen a leopard that close and even though we had to go back to camp, I was content with the day and felt very relaxed and satisfied with everything about the Serengeti.

Our final day was for packing and heading out of the park. We all woke the earliest of all the days and started packing up all of our things and rolling up the gigantic tents to throw in the white rhino truck with Sipaya!  We ate a quick breakfast and grabbed some snacks for the road and apparently beat the record for any group leaving the Serengeti!  We had another three hours until we reached the gate, so for the last time in the Serengeti, we popped the hatches for a game drive!  I stood for around an hour and a half, but was so tired from such an early morning that I quickly sat down and fell asleep for a little bit.  I woke up again when three cheetahs were spotted, but they were so far from the road that none of us could even see them well in binoculars.  That was the last group of animals that we saw in the Serengeti, which was fitting.  We arrived back at the gate and grabbed a few snacks and drinks again for the rest of the drive back.

After the gate, we wouldn’t be stopping again until the gate of the crater, which was around a two or three hour drive.  We were cruising the entire way, eating random parts of our packed lunches during the day and sleeping all the times in between.  I was listening to my music, thankful that my iPod had lasted that long through the trip since we had no power.  I finally fell into a deep sleep when suddenly the car jolted and the brakes were slammed.  Immediately, I assumed that we had popped a tire because the impact was only from the front right of the car, but as I opened my eyes, I realized that we had been involved in ANOTHER car accident on the side of the crater!  The road is unbelievably narrow, and our car had been going a little too fast to stay on the inside of the turn and had clipped another car making the climb up.  Our car had very little damage, but once again, the police were called and we were stuck sitting in the car until that point.  The area where we were was such a scary point, though.  We were right on the curve with no guardrails and other cars coming from every which way.  I was so nervous to get hit again in the position we were in.  Suddenly, another one of our cars came to get all of us and take us back to camp so we would not have to be involved when the cops did finally arrive.  I felt so bad for the staff that had to be involved and deal with it, but I was happy to not have to have the corruption like we had in Kenya the month before.

We made it safely back to camp, helped unpack the rhino, and all lounged around camp.  We finally checked our e-mails, and I finally got an offer to a summer internship in Florida that I was running around camp extremely happy about! Between that, watching movies the rest of the day, and an unbelievable trip to Serengeti, life could not be better!!!

Thanks again for following along with my trip to Africa.

Love,
Mollie Ann

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