Wildebeest

While on safari in the Maasai Mara, you have to at least take one picture of a wildebeest. It's just such a fun word to say. Wildebeest.



I'm not 100% certain, but I think these two are wildebeest calves. They're much cuter when they're young.

Jackal

I briefly spotted a black-backed jackal on the Maasai Mara. It didn't stick around for long and it was the only jackal I saw on the whole trip. Too bad - this guy was pretty cute.

Living in paradise

As I mentioned earlier, one night we camped out at a Maasai village on top of a large hill. This picture is my lame attempt at capturing part of the view. It was much more impressive in person - one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. Running across the middle of the picture is a lush green gorge, a large lake can be seen further off in the distance, and on the horizon the rightmost mountain is actually an active volcano. Although it can't been seen in this picture, there was even smoke coming out of the volcano!



Looking further up the hill from our campsite, this was the view:



(If you click on the photo for a larger view, you can make out the Maasai huts a bit better.)

Lion - with poor hygiene

I saw a couple of male lions on the Maasai Mara. One of them was covered with flies, as can be seen from these successively zoomed in photos.





So much for the idea of felines constantly staying clean...

This other lion seemed a bit bored.

Jet Lagged

For some reason I'm finding it more difficult than usual to adjust to the 8 hour time difference since returning from Africa to the US. I seem to still be on Africa time and these past couple days I've found myself crashing in the late afternoon (when in Africa it is the middle of the night). I was so tired yesterday evening that I skipped my karate classes, went home early, and immediately fell asleep. I slept for about 12 hours, so hopefully now my body is back on US time.

On the bright side, I've been waking up early enough to actually shock people at work by arriving on time.

Perhaps I'll be awake enough this evening to post some more pictures from my trip.

Cheetah Pictures

Here are a few pictures I took of a cheetah that was found lounging under a tree in the Masaai Mara.






One thing I didn't expect on the safari was just how "tame" the animals were. I'm not sure if they are used to the safari vehicles driving around, or they just don't perceive them as a threat, but most of the animals wouldn't run away when a vehicle approached. In fact, some would allow the vehicles to get quite close. For some of the more popular animals (such as the predators), it was a common occurrence for a whole bunch of vehicles to be clustered around the animal. Once one driver found a popular animal, everyone else in the area would drive over to see it too. If you saw a cluster of vehicles off in the distance, it was a safe bet that they were all looking at a predator.

Here's a photo to give you an idea of what it looked like with the cheetah and how close the vehicles were to it:

Giraffe Pictures

I should be sleeping right now, but I just took my malaria medicine (I have to continue to take it for several weeks after my trip) and it made me extremely nauseous. Due to my traveling all day today, I definitely took the medicine too late in the day and my stomach was completely empty. It's the first time the medicine actually made me vomit. (I'm sure you all wanted to know that.)

So, anyhow, since I couldn't sleep, I figured I'd transfer some of my Africa photos to my computer. My mom's one request before I left was that I get her a photo of a giraffe, so these are for her.

These three pictures were taken on the two day safari in the Masaai Mara in Kenya. As usual, you can click on them for a larger view.

Back from Africa

I just got back from Africa. I'm now back home in a the US. I don't have much time to write a full update - I have to work in the morning. The trip back to Nairobi from Arusha was uneventful. Nairobi was pretty much back to normal. Being in the city for Saturday night was a dramatic contrast to how the city looked two weeks earlier on a Saturday after the elections. This time the place was bustling with people, even late at night and in the wee hours of the morning. Two weeks ago the streets were deserted.

It's nice to be back home - especially since there's a forecast for snow in the morning. I miss the winter weather.

Africa Update #4

This'll have to be just a quick update - I don't have much time to write today. Things are going well here in Tanzania. The country is quite beautiful. Arusha lies in the shadow of Mt. Miru (not sure if I spelled that correctly) so there's always a great view of the mountain from most of the city streets. The city has an interesting mix of the modern along with more of a developing nation environment. You can take a two minute walk from the city center where there are ATMs and other such modern conveniences and end up on some dirt side street with bustling markets that look like they haven't changed in hundreds of years.

We visited an orphanage in Arusha a couple days ago and dropped off some gifts for the kids there. It was nice to see the kids smiling and laughing as they played with some simple new toys.

Yesterday, while we were stopping at a small shop selling firewood on the side of the road, a couple of kids ran out to the car pointing, laughing, and yelling, "Mzungu!" Mzungu is a Swahaili term meaning "white person" or something similar. Apparently the kids hadn't seen many white people as they thought I looked quite funny. One of the kids even ran back to his house to carry out his younger brother so he too could get a look at the Mzungu.

Today we plan a short hike up part of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Unfortunately, a full climb would take several days and we don't have that kind of time. We drive back to Nairobi tomorrow (Saturday) as most of the group flies back to the US Saturday night. I fly back Sunday morning.

Africa Update #3

I think it's Monday today. Without a normal daily routine, I'm finding it hard to keep track of what day of the week it is. Sorry for the lack of pictures, but I don't have an easy way to upload them right now.

The camping out at a Masaai village was a great experience. The Masaai village was near the top of a small mountain or very large hill. It's probably the most beautiful place I've ever been to. Every direction you looked was just open fields, small patches of trees, and large mountains off in the distance. There was even anactivevolcano visible off in the distance. I know the Masaai have a hard life, but this place looked like paradise.

As I mentioned before, we were bringing a goat to the village as a gift. What I didn't know is they planned on eating it that evening! While we didn't have to join in on the meal (we had brought along our own food as well hired a cook to come along on our trip), we were invited to watch them kill and cook the goat. Being a vegetarian, I had mixed feeling about it, but figured it wasn't an opportunity to miss.

Before it got dark, we first helped gather firewood for the evening. While looking for loose branches among the bushes and small trees, one of the Masaai warriors told us about the various uses of the plants we were encountering. There was the bark from one tree that could be chewed to get moisture when there wasn't any water, some other bark to help with stomach problems, another for aiding in pregnency, some leaves to get put under your arm pits for deoderant, some grass used for making tea, and bunch of other plants I can no longer remember.

Once we gathered enough firewood it was getting dark. We took a break and had a great meal that our cook had prepared. I've been camping many times before, but never had such a great meal. I wish I could hire a cook to come along with me on all my hikes! After our meal, we went to the area where the Masaai were going to kill and cook the goat. Only the Masaai men of a certain age were allowed to attend - the rest of the village would be allowed to come later after the goat was killed and most of it had been eaten.

For killing the goat, they layed out a bunch of leafy branches from a bush and then forced the goat to lay down on it. Then, while one warrior held the goat down, the other covered it's nose and held its mouth shut. After a minute or so, the goat had been suffocated. Then, the warriors began to remove the goat's skin. I won't go into all the details, but nothing from the goat was wasted. For example, after removing all the goat's organs, they even drank the remaining blood that had pooled up in the chest cavity. (Sorry, I didn't take any pictures of the whole goat killing and eating business.) After the Masaai had their goat dinner, they performed some tradition songs and dances around the fire. After the singing and dancing, we headed to our tents for the night.

We set up our tents a few hundred feet from the village huts. It was quite windy up there on the hilltop, and it got windier and windier as the night progressed. I have never before been in a tent in such strong wind. It was so windy that the tent poles were being flexed enough to force the roof of the tent down into my face as I tried to sleep. I occasionally felt like I was going to be slowly suffocated like the goat. Fortuntely, all our tents held together and no one flew off the mountain during the night.

In the morning we went for a hike further up the mountain to an area where the Masaai gather water. Along the way we stopped at a different Masaai village and were invited in to have some tea in one of the huts. Once we got to the water source, we were shown how they can make a fire using just two sticks and a bit of donkey dung. We also got a lesson on throwing a Masaai spear and got to each take our turn doing some target practice. We then headed back to camp, presented some more gifts to the village and then headed back to Arusha.

All in all, it was a great experience visiting the village. It really made it clear how little one needs to survive in the world.