New (to us) African Stuff

I thought I would give you the teensiest break from Tanzania stuff before I started up again.

I'm now starting up again.

Even though we did our research before going to Africa again (oh, who am I kidding? G did the research.) we didn't really know how the trip would play out. Here are some things that we weren't expecting, and/or that were totally new to us.

Having the safari truck to ourselves!

We had All The Space and didn't have to share with anyone else. Score! This meant we could take our shoes off and stand on the seats (the better to see out the top of the truck) and we could ask our driver questions whenever we wanted. And we didn't have to put up with those pesky, annoying Other People.

We had the same guide, Nas, for the entire stay in Tanzania.

Hippos out of the water!

On our last trip, we got some spectacular pictures of hippos (in the water) in the Zambezi River. But, we'd never seen them out of the water. It turns out, that's a rare sight. Hippos are active at night; that's when they come out and munch their way through the grass. But during the day, they look like a bunch of gray stones in the water. We were lucky to see this one. Look at those stumpy lil legs!

The scope of the animals!

We saw a lot of different kinds of animals when we visited South Africa and Zimbabwe, but not on this scale. Pretty much the only animals we saw in groups during that visit were wart hogs, lions, and elephants. This time, though, we witnessed migrations - groups and families traveling from one part of the country to the other. All in all, we saw hundreds of zebras and wildebeests, and many large groups of elephants, lions, hippos, baboons, vervet monkeys, birds, hyenas, and more.

Here are some of the highlights.

The Great Wildebeest River Crossing!

This was perhaps the most Nat Geo Moment of the whole trip: we witnessed the Great Crossing of the Mara River. This is the only place in the world where wildebeests make this type of large-scale and dangerous effort to move to greener pastures, so to speak. They cross from Tanzania into Kenya via the Mara River, braving the rapid current and the ever-present danger of crocodiles.

G was really hoping for some crocodile drama, but alas, we didn't see any. We did see hundreds and hundreds of animals cross in the span of about 15 minutes. These pictures capture the scope but not the speed. We spent a lot of time waiting (over two hours) for about 15 minutes of complete chaos and mayhem. It was worth it.

I'm also going to post about our accommodations, which were very different and new as well. More to come!