Walking on the wild side...

So I got back from my safari a few days ago. The safari included tours of Lake Minyara, Ngorongoro (aka, 'The Crater'), and Tarangerie. So we left in the late after noon of Friday and arrived at Lake Minyara (including a pit stop at the Shoprite in Arusha and dropping by the camp site) in the late afternoon. We stopped off in Arusha for a few minutes to load up on your traditional car ride fare. I don't care too much for Arusha, too many tourists.

Upon arrival at Lake Minyara, my 'rechargable' batteries died. So no pictures from this particular park. We saw elephants, hippos, and girraffs a plenty. It was all pretty cool. After about three hours, we went back to the camp site for dinner. One staple for camping, as many of you are aware of, is s'mores. With that in mind, I purchased plenty of s'mores ingredients while in Arusha. So imagine my dissapointment when I arrive back at the site and there is no fire pit. GRRRRRRR. Did you know that people outside of North America have no clue of what they are? So our resident Australian is still in the dark about the marshmellowy goodness.
The safari was in a minibus over very rocky and windy roads, so its no surprise that a few people felt the effects of that. And as per usual, its the Canadian to the rescue with her Gravol.

Megan, Joe, John, Elise, Allen, and I at 'The Crater'

The next day, we took off in the early hours in the morning for The Crator in Ngorongoro. Basically, the whole park is this massive crator. There, we saw a mosaic zebras, wildebeasts, hipppos and ONE lion.

And the damn thing wouldn't even turn around for us. At one point, two wildebeasts starting fighting. By the time we all got our cameras out, they stopped. It was at this point that I yelled 'Are you going to take that from him?!?!' and he growls in reply. It is apparent that I speak fluent wildebeast. For when one of the others yelled something at him, he stayed in silence. I forget how high the crator is, but its deffinately at a high altitude, bring the temp down to the mid 20's. Which was kind of nice, it being 35*C every single day and all. One more thing that I didn't enjoy too much, but one of the other girls' found great fulfillment in, was squatting. We thought that they would have western toilets throughout. But when we arrive at our lunch site, it's not the case. I walk into the stall and see a commode similar to this....

Yeah, not fun. But you gotta do what you gotta do. So after lunch, we went in search for more animals. Wasn't as much as there were in the morning. Maybe the African wildlife are just early risers. So we head back to camp to enjoy another delicious meal prepared by our cook who is aptly named 'Goodluck'.

The next morning, we head off for our third and final national park of Tarangerie. The park was deffiantely more vibrant and pictureque than the previous two. I just wish I could say the same for the animals. We saw one Cheetah under a tree from a few kilometres away. And from that point on, it was pretty much all elephants.

Although, it was really cool when two elephants started sparring. You wouldn't beleive how loud it gets when they bang their tusks against each other! So at the end of the day, we pile back into the minibus and head back to our homebase. The ride was pretty uneventful. I fell asleep pretty quickly.

Peace out homies

AC