Tanzania - Serengeti

After we left the amazingness that was the Ngorogoro Crater after my lunch from hell, we struck out west headed towards Serengeti National Park.  The drive took ages and it was hot and dusty! We all spent most of our time over the next 4-5 hours in the 'Mean Green' like this.....

I woke up from my nap sunburned on my left side with a thin layer of orange dust coating my body.  The highlight of the trip came at my expense, obviously, when a HUGE dung beetle came flying in the top of the vehicle and pegged me on the arm! I thought a rock had hit me, it hit so hard.  After I screamed I looked on the ground of the truck and saw a little guy very similar to this...

I mean...sick! Those guys are big and I can assure you that their shell is hard and durable.  He was still moving so Annie started screaming and crawling on top of her chair.  Dave came to the rescue and flung him back out of the truck.  I mean, seriously, hit by a dung beetle in a moving vehicle...I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried!

We finally made it to the entrance gates of Serengeti where there is a big gate, so like the tourists we are we all got out to take a picture under the gate.  The local Masai ladies have caught onto this, so they were there to greet us at the gate and were more than happy to pose for a picture with there precious naked babies...and then accost you for money afterwards.  And then follow you to the car and ask you for more as the 1000 ($1) shillings you gave them was not an adequate payment for a photo.  I mean to their credit, they did get up and put on all of their fancy jewelry and do their hair and everything...okay so they just put on their fancy jewelry.

After we sufficiently filled their pockets we finally got our group photo...

We stopped at the rangers station/rest stop to register and they have a big rock outcropping that we could climb up to have a view of the Serengeti.  When I made it to the top (I said big, it was really just one big rock that took about 2 minutes to climb up) I was gasping for air.  I was beginning to wonder if it was such a good idea for me to climb up Kilimajaro in a few short days.  But alas, the others were a little out of breath too so I made myself feel better about it.  The view was pretty spectacular, my photo didn't really grasp the magnitude of the size of the Serengeti or how beautiful it is so I'll spare you that photo since there will be many many more photos in this posting. The one photo from the rock I will share is slightly disturbing.  We found this creature on top. 

I wasn't quite sure what to make of him.  Opposing forces were tearing me in two different directions.  On the one hand he is a lizard and by sheer principle, I hate lizards, all lizards.  But on the other hand he was half hot pink and half purple, my two favorite colors!  I decided to hate him in the end, because lets face it, he's still just a lizard.  I did actually, in true curiosity, ask the Paulo if he was really that color or if someone spray painted him.  True story. Sometimes I even embarass myself with the things that come out of my mouth.

That night we stayed at a permanent tented camp just outside of the Serengeti, the name escapes me at the moment, but it was pretty cool.  There were permanet tents with cement floors and real bathrooms with running water attached.  Not too shabby. We got there just at sunset, which was gorgeous, but then we quickly realized when it was time to walk to dinner that we forgot to bring our flashlights with us. Now to say it is dark in the middle of Africa, miles away from civilization, is the understatement of the century.  It's comparable to saying something along the lines of The Hangover was funny or that George Clooney is handsome, while both are true they are both gross understatements. You see my point. Good.  So it was dark and Annie and I were stranded a 5 minute walk away from the dinner tent with only the light of my iPhone to guide us across the wild plains of the Serengeti to dinner.  A bit dramatic, I know, but it was really scary, we could only (just barely) see the ground in front of us and we had no idea what was lurking around us waiting to jump out and get us.  I mean, seriously, at night they had guards walking the perimeter of the camp with bows and poison arrows.  Luckily, we survived the walk to dinner and they kindly provided us each with a flashlight.

We had a great dinner that night, but the highlight was Paulo telling us all about the Masai and their customs and traditions.  Paulo is full blood Masai and is also a revered Masai warrior.  My failing memory would do a disservice to the stories he told, but I vaguely remember the following being mentioned:  A lot about bringing disgrace to your family (and how to avoid that), killing a goat with a single punch, being circumsized infront of the village without making a single sound, being left in the wilderness by yourself over night, worshiping trees and rocks and such, again...I have a failing memory. Anyhow, it was all very captivating and I loved hearing his stories. You'll have to go meet your own Masai warrior if you want more details.

After dinner Annie and I made the treacherous journey back to our tent and decided to sit on our back porch and star gaze and such.  That is where we met our friend Sam.  Sam is one of the aforementioned guards with bow and poison arrows.  Sam joined us on the porch and showed us his poison arrows and let us hold his bow.  We asked him to protect us during the night.  We think he may have misunderstood our request as he showed up on our porch the next night and sat on the chair outside our tent for an uncomfortable amount of time while we were inside of the tent getting ready for bed.  Awkward.

The next day we headed out into the Serengeti, whose size is unimaginable. It seems to go on forever! Unlike the Ngorogoro Crater, you can go for long stretches without seeing a single animal, but then all of a sudden stumble upon a lone leopard resting in the branches without the slightest warning. That is the beauty of the Serengeti

To avoid being too long winded here are some of my favorite pics from the day with a few stories along the way....

Giraffes in a V formation

Peekaboo!

We went to this hippo pool that was FILLED with hippos, literally hundreds! We were able to get out of the truck and stand on the side of the pool up on a ridge and watch them for about 30 minutes.  Hippos are loud and smelly!! They poo all of the time and they flip their tail around while they are doing it, flinging the poo everywhere. so gross. My feel also got attacked by ants while we were at the pool...I got 27 ant bites on my poor feet, I'll spare you the picture!

When we were crossing a river we pulled over to look at some crocs and notices a whole troup of monkeys on an island in the middle of the river.  One of the crocs slid into the river as the monkeys were crossing, and we quickly realized why they were jumping across the river!!  They would each back up and take a running leap one by one, I managed to catch this one mid-air!  The last monkey that you see on the left standing on the rock alone had cold feet! It took him a few minutes of pacing back and forth to gather the courage to make the leap.  No worries, he made it over just fine.

Some more baboons, hanging out on a bridge

Some impala displaying a little male bravado

This lady was NOT pleased with us being so close to her family...she danced around our truck, trumpeting for a while until we decided to save her the heart attack and drive away!

we drove right into the middle of a huge heard of elephants, we were completely surrounded.  it was a little scary to have so many of them around us with really no way out.  They weren't too bothered by us luckily.

One of my favorite pictures of the trip! We came across two eagles fighting it out.  You can't see the other eagle because he is hiding out in the grass.  When this guy took off the ground, I had my camera zoomed in so tight on him, I actually jumped back because it looked like he was coming at me!

Love me some lions!!

I LOVE these gnarly trees that are stripped down to their bark, against the blue skies...gorgeous!

After our time in the Serengeti was up we flew from a dirt airstrip in the middle of the Serengeti back to the Kilimanjaro airport to start the "easiest part of our trip" as Paulo would say!  

Annie flirted herself into the cockpit with Pilot Sean and he let her FLY THE PLANE for about 10 minutes, I have literally never hated someone so much in my life, I wanted to die with jealousy!!  I have since forgiven her.

There are many many more pictures on my Shutterfly site