The Park Prize goes to Arusha National Park, where we saw the greatest density and diversity of animals. It is in the foothills of Mount Meru and gets lots more rain, so things were green and lush – good for living things
Peace Corps Volunteer Lee Forney in Tanzania: Safari
Sunday, August 07, 2005
August 5
So the Safari has been underway now, since Tuesday. I had intended to keep a daily log of the event, but that quickly went into the dust bin of good intentions. So let’s try to catch up a bit.
Logistics: We gathered in Arusha, in the Meru House on Mon, then we were in the Arusha National Park Tue and Wed, camping in two-person tents for those nights. Thursday we returned to Meru House mid-morning to transfer all our stuff from the Victoria Expedition lorries to the Fortes Safari lorries for the rest of our trans-Tanzania jaunt, then spent the afternoon in Tarengira National Park, and the night at Migunga Forest Camp. Friday (today) we got an early start to go to the Ngorongoro Crater, then we stopped at the Olduvai Gorge Museum on the way to the Serengeti Park Youth Hostel, the only reasonably priced accommodations Maria could find for us on this night.
Impressions: Everybody seems happy with the Safari and what we have seen so far. The list of animals is really impressive. But from having done Tarengira and Ngorongoro in Nov of 2003 when things were green, I was disappointed by the much lower animal density. Last time I got hoards of animal pictures up close and friendly, right beside our lorry. This time the animals were few, and off in the distance in the brown grass, mostly too far away for decent photos. Our guides aren’t telling us that old “Boy you should have been here last week, did we ever see ANIMALS!!!!!” but it is pretty clear that it would be a much higher animal density in the wet season. Green grass = food for all.
We didn’t see a lion this time, but while we were looking for one we saw a CHEETA, which is an even bigger prize. So far, the main prize goes to the hippos for the way they splash the water and wipe and splash their broad asses with their little tails, and for their glorious pink bellies that show so well when they roll over in the water and have their feet up in the air.
Animals photographed: The colobus monkeys that are only found in Arusha National Park, blue and vervet monkeys, troops of baboons, dik diks, ugly warthogs, endless zebras, cape buffalo, Masai giraffes (official animal of Tanzania – the Twiga), herds of elephants, a python in a tree, hyrax (a cute rodent – for the longest time we thought the guide was calling the hyrax “rat”), incredible crowned cranes (the official bird of Uganda), rabbit, bush buck, water buck, wildebeests, hartbeests, the Thompson’s and Grant’s gazelles that always seem to cohabitate, camels for tourist rides (do they count?), spotted hyena, golden jackel, hippos, that cheeta lolling in the grass, a black rhino off in the distance (another prize sighting), ostriches, and a whole bunch of birds.
The Park Prize goes to Arusha National Park, where we saw the greatest density and diversity of animals. It is in the foothills of Mount Meru and gets lots more rain, so things were green and lush – good for living things. On the second day there we took a walking tour, with an armed guide. We came across four giraffes that let the kids get pretty close – Mothers were getting frightened – before they ambled away. Quite a thrill for the kids, although by now when they see another giraffe it has become ho-hum.
But we never actually saw Mount Meru, beautiful mountain that it is, even though we were right beside it. Our weather has been quite cold and continually overcast. The group is amazed that we can be here, three degrees from the equator, and be cold.
We are really enjoying having the family together. The four kids are getting along fabulously, and their excitement carries through us all. But they can be a bit much, and today we separated the boys from the girls. That helped a lot, but people are still saying they do NOT want to be in the same car with the boys for long periods any more – the continual noise is mind-shattering. We are hearing lots of sibling stories and sharing family history from multiple viewpoints – usually things that the older generation did not know were happening.
Of course there are lots of questions about Africa and African history that I enjoy expounding about, now that I am the Two Year Expert. And it is good to share about what we are all doing in life, though it feels hard to really get beneath the surface with Matt and Paola.
