Hell yeah we played "The Lion King" soundtrack!

So I truly haven't updated in forever, which isn't so good considering so much happens while I'm here....whoops. So instead of update you on everything that's happened, I'll stay up extra late and write a bunch of different posts on the whole bunch of difference things that have been going on.

So first up is the safari. And it was the most amazing thing ever! I bet a lot of you have seen my pictures on Facebook but I only posted the best 58 pictures out of the 285 that I kept. That's after I sorted through them even. I probably took around 700 or 800 pictures before I went through them and deleted a bunch of doubles and extras and bad ones. When I get home come find me and I'll show you the awesome 227 other photos I have of my trip =)

I do have to say though, I am SOOO glad i splurged for a good camera. For those who don't know, I decided to buy a new camera before I left. I do have one but it was getting pretty old (for a camera) and if I was going to be taking a lot of pictures of a beautiful place, I figure I had better do a good job. If you want the details it's a Panasonic Lumix DMC ZS40 (not too sure about those letters at the end) but it's been awesome so far.

A good example is when we saw our first giraffes. I happened to spot their heads poking out of the trees and they were a decent ways away:

So I decided I wanted a closer shot and zoomed in:

After looking at it on my camera, I made the off-hand comment "jeeze they have such long eyelashes!" The rest of the people in the jeep proceeded to be stunned that my camera could zoom enough to see the giraffe's eyelashes. So yeah, SUPER glad I got the good camera. I pretty excited to see my pictures in Zanzibar but that's for a different post. =)

Anyways, starting from the beginning, we left for our trip early Friday morning. There were 10 of us going- 8 from the volunteer house I living in now and 2 other girls from a home stay, so we managed to go in 2 jeeps. We also were able to pay the discounted resident price because of our work visas. In order to volunteer, we needed to pay for a work visa so we didn't get fined or deported, but it also gives the status of a resident of Tanzania so you can get the cheaper prices for safaris, flights, bus tickets, and tons of other things. It was also pretty cheap because we chose to stay in tents.

I really can't escape camp ever since living here is basically so similar, especially on the safari. I'm living with all girls, we have little to no personal space, we lived in tents, we're always dirty, at our placements we're surrounded by hordes of small children, more often than not those kids are just as dirty as us, and yet we're always having a blast. Yep, still sounds like an average summer.

We traveled with two guides who were our drivers and two cooks. There's an area for cooking (not sure it qualifies as an actual kitchen) at each of the campsites so depending on where we were, we would drop off the cooks at the campsite so they could chill until we got back from driving around all day. The food was pretty incredible too. That's not to say that the food we normally have isn't awesome, (cuz it is) but it's just become familiar to us and it's not anything special. It was a nice break and at least something to look forward too after being tired from driving around all day and getting covered head to toe in dust.

Our guides were also equally if not more awesome. I swear they must have some sort of hawk heritage in them because they could see things and identify them that we wouldn't even see, let alone think are animals. The best example was the first cheetah we saw. From the road, we're just bumbling along staring out in the endless grass (side note: I think I finally have an idea of what it feels like to be on open ocean because at some points on the road there's nothing but grass until the horizon) and all of a sudden we screech to a halt and our driver points out the window and says "There. That is a cheetah out there" So of course we're all excited like "WHERE. I NEED TO SEE THIS" but as we look around there's nothing but a tiny little speck really far away. Yeah, it was the speck he was talking about. We're straining our eyes and even through the binoculars and it just looks like a dot, on a slightly larger dot. On the amazing zoom of my camera, this was as close as I could get:

see? a dot on a slightly larger dot!

We eventually ventured off the road (which is technically not allowed) to get closer and boy was it worth it. We were pretty close:

Little did we know that later on we'd have cheetahs walking alongside our jeep but it was still worth it.

Our first stop on the safari was to Lake Manyara National Park. The campsite was really schwanky and we stopped there for lunch before leaving. The area outside the park where we were staying was swamped with storks. Like, the big huge baby-carrying birds. They're cool to look at...but their poop is definitely not. The town is covered (as was part of the campsite) with bird poop. Some areas its not too bad, but others we had to hold our noses as we drove by. The worst were actually white- the trees, the rocks, the road was just all white.  They also have such huge wings it's rather startling if one takes off near you. It's a great WHOOOSH WHOOOSH WHOOOSH-ing noise and you're just spinning around like "holy....what the hell was that noise?"

The park itself was very different than what we expected of a safari. It was pretty much forrest that we were driving through most of the time until we got closer to near the lake where it opened up. The first critters we saw (besides the baboons eating garbage on the side of the road in town) were vervet monkeys...otherwise known as blue-ball monkeys. I have to say, that name is much more accurate than vervet. They are cute and adorable despite the fact that they don't care about their brightly coloured junk just hanging out for the world to see.

After cruising a bit more we finally got to the lake and into more open area like what your think of when your hear safari. This is where we saw our first zebra:

not all that impressive. i bet you were expecting something like this:

Thankfully, this was our next view and the more common one through out the safari. People who had been on safari the week before warned us that by the end of the trip we'd be bored of zebras and wildebeest. Of course were like "pffft that would never happen! how could I not want to see a zebra?" but I have to admit that it's true. They were super stunning at first, but by they end of the trip they were only mildly intriguing since we already had loads of pictures of them.

We also ran into our first elephant which was pretty cool (not the coolest) since it came right in front of our jeep:

I have to say I was truly surprised at how GIGANTIC they are. Our guide said they were easily 3 times the weight of our car (with us in it) and i totally believe it. Even in the picture you can see how it dwarfs the other jeep. We saw a few others while we were here and I got some awesome pictures:

And the babies are so cute!

 

After we went back to the campsite I finally got to have my first hot shower in over two weeks. The house I'm staying in doesn't currently have a water heater so I've been freezing my butt off in the shower. On the plus side I've never taken quicker showers in my life!

The next day we drove a long way to get to the Serengeti.  We had to drive through Ngorongoro Conservation which was a nice (but dusty) ride. Everything here is dry because it the dry season (captain obvious here) but things are dusty and dirty everywhere we go. I actually have not been completely clean since the beginning of this trip. 

Since it's a conservation, the Maasai people are allowed to live inside so literally, we'd be driving and there is NOTHING around except for grass and the every present dust, and all of a sudden we'd pass a couple of Maasai boys with a herd of goats on the side of the road. Where did they come from? no clue. Where are their villages? no clue. Can we even see them? nope. They just pop up randomly. 

so pretty....and so accurate.....

So we finally get through to the Serengeti which is a national park so the Maasai aren't allowed in. This is where all of the typical animals are  in the typical settings when you hear "safari". Lots of grass and dirt (duh) and acacia trees which are the scrawny flat ones that look cool and my personal favourite the baobab trees. Right now, none of them have their leaves so they actually look like upside-down trees with their roots in the air. I personally prefer the name "rafiki tree" since its the type of tree rafiki lives in in the Lion King. =D

see the resemblance?

so i dont have a good picture myself
so this one is just offline...

It was this day that we came across two young cheetahs that our guide said has recently been "kicked out" of the home. We had seen a female lounging on a termite mound at one point and it seemed like the other 2 cheetahs were looking for her. They actually have really weird calling noises, we first mistook it for a bird chirping it was so high pitched. We got some really awesome photos of them just strolling around.

 

Another notable moment was when we saw a herd of elephants just plodding along the road. These got even closer than the first ones we saw in Manyara, but the biggest one just so happened to be the one that came closest and it was indeed rather frightening seeing an animal that's bigger than your car come lumbering towards you. 

but again, the babies are adorable!

The campsite for this night was much more what I was expecting, otherwise, basically nothing. There was still an area for cooking and for eating and it had to have lockable doors since animals do come to the camp at night since they smell food. I did actually wake up at one point an hear something growling and scratching at the doors but the guides said they don;t bother the tents and I was too tired to actually care so I just went back to sleep. (in the morning i heard other people talking about it being hyenas)

I was on the other hand, so super excited for the stars. Being the nerd I am, I was almost as excited to see the night sky as I was the animals during the day. And I have to say, it was with good reason. I have NEVER seen anything like it before. There's no cities, or pollution around to block anything and the campsite itself is fairly dark so you can look up and you can see so much! I was hoping to even see the Milky Way but I didn't even need to worry. It was so clear that it looked like clouds across the sky. The view in the early morning was pretty cool too with the moon and what I assume are Venus and Jupiter (they were really bright). Unfortunately, I don't know and constellations in the southern hemisphere, but our guide pointed out the southern cross to us (which was all he knew). That still didn't stop me from getting a crick in my neck from looking at it so much.

The next morning we were scheduled to wake up early (like super duper 5:30 early) to see the sunrise. We were all grumbling and moaning about how early it was as we were bumbling along the roads at 6 in the morning, but oh boy was it worth it. At first we didn't think we would be able to see it since it looked fairly cloudy but the second we saw it peak over the horizon we skidded to a halt. Although Disney did a good job, they are not exaggerating but cannot ever do it justice. It was AWESOME. It actually does rise that fast too we could't believe it. We did indeed have speakers and my iPod playing the circle of life as we watched and took pictures. One person even took a video of it it was rising so fast and you can hear the music in the background.

ooooooo......

ahhhhh.....

ooo lala!

So yeah definitely worth the irritation of being tired the rest of the day. The 3rd day we spent making our way home, but since it was a long way off, we had lots of time. I'll write another post for it though since I seem to be writing more than I thought. I guess this is a good time for:

I don't have snacks for you though. You'll have to get them yourself.