SAFARI!!!

Sorry for the delay, but this blog post needed time and a bit of thought so it was put off. We are trying to figure out the picture situation, but our pictures are very large files and its hard to download them, but we will keep trying and figure something out. (Also sorry for the grammatical errors, posting on the fly).

Coming to Africa is something that I have wanted to do for a very long time, since I was in Grade 9 actually, and it is a place that I didn't want to go for just a couple of weeks, I wanted to spend some time here. So when we finally decided to go and then booked our safari it was pretty surreal. We decided to do a 7 day safari with a mix of game viewing and culture tours in Southern Tanzania (and then an added bonus was doing the two day safari in Kenya at Lake Nakuru). We were unbelievably lucky in what we saw and nothing was short of amazing. The first park we went to in Tanzania was beautiful and so different then Kenya - as Arnold described it, it looked like a golf course at times.We must have seen close to 200 elephants that day - and most of them very close to our cruiser. It was so interesting watching them and how they all co-existed together. We spent the night in that area in our tented lodge and my alarm clock that morning was an Elephant walking next to our tent - all I have to say, is that they make a lot of noise - but sooo sooo cool to be woken up by that and to look outside and see one right there.

The next two days were the culture part of our safari - we visited a Maasi family and learnt about how they lived and their lifestyle. Which is a bit crazy - they have more then 1 wife (many more), the whole family (including all the wives, live together, they live off the land and are quite primitive in comparison to normal African lifestyles. One of the main males in the family we saw was 35, had two wives and had killed 2 lions by his spear. He was a great warrior in their family.He also told us their recipe for curing Malaria - part of the recipe involved cow's blood - umm yuck. It was very fascinating spending time with them and very educational. The next day was spent hunting with the Hadzabe Bushmen - who lived an even more primitive lifestyle then the Maasai's. They would only stay in one spot for a week or so before packing up and moving to another location. Their huts were made of branches and sticks. They ate food that they hunted (if they were successful) and roots and vegetables they could find in their surroundings - one of the reasons they were always on the move, for more food. When hunting, they used homemade bow and arrows and for the larger game they would put a homemade poison on the arrow tip in order to kill their prey. Which was made from plants and roots in the area. (IT was so strong that it would kill a human in seconds). We learnt that there were only 1,500 bushman left and that they weren't a growing tribe because most of their children under the age of 5 would die. As you can imagine, the huts provide little warmth and therefore the child could not survive the cold nights. We went on a morning hunt with three of the men from the tribe, but they were unsuccessful in their attempts (and we couldn't help but laugh, because they weren't really that skilled with their aim that morning haha).

The remainder of our safari was solely game viewing after that and what an experience we had. Any big game animals that you can think of, I think we saw. The one day we came across three cheetahs and they were looking like they were about to start a hunt so we stayed with them and got to see them go in for the kill. Unfortunately, they were unsuccessful in their attempt, but seeing a Cheetah in action is so impressive. We ended up spending two hours watching them. On our last day we had another cool experience with the cheetahs and saw them again in action, but we were so shocked by what we saw. The cheetahs were trying to locate either the young or the weak in the group of Zebras that were in the area, but the Zebras would hide the young amongst the adults and then the males charge the cheetahs trying to steer them away from the young. We thought that the Zebras would bolt at first sign of the Cheetahs, but the exact opposite happened. It was pretty cool to watch. Our guide told us that the strips on the Zebras confuse the cheetahs and make it hard for them to pick out the babies when they are in a big group like that. Another amazing experience that we had the chance to witness was baby season!,!! On two different occasions we arrived about 15 minutes after the birth of a Water Buffalo and Zebra - the baby zebra we saw was just starting to walk and it was exactly like that moment in Bambi haha - it could barely walk ... sooo amazing. We definitely got lucky. I could go on and on about our safari, but I think that gives you a pretty good idea about it. And yes, we saw Lions, lots of them actually and man are they impressive up close, we just wish we could have seen them in action, but considering they sleep 19 hours a day, I think it can be a bit tough unless you follow them around. None the less, they are impressive and scary all at the same time. They are still Arnold's favourite animal, whereas the Cheetah is now my fave. Our guide for the safari was fantastic and we learnt a lot of the Tanzania lifestyle and the people.

But hopefully we can figure out the picture situation soon, We are actually going to be in one place for a bit of time so I might be able to finally do it. Ooh and I should mention that most of our safari was spent in "tents", but when I say "tents" they aren't your average tent. They were amazing and beautiful, just creepy at night when you hear all the sounds.

Love Melissa and Arnold