The third day we got an early start and came back for an early lunch. We just missed a kill, but saw a male lion feeding from far away. When we went back to camp there were baboons coming in looking for food! They got pretty close to us, and Adam said they aren’t afraid of white people because we just take pictures and leave them alone, but they are afraid of black people because they will scare them away. I didn’t realize a baboon could tell races. After lunch we saw a herd of elephants, and two of the elephants were doing a pre-mating ritual that looks like fighting. Afterwords an elephant stumbled on a leopard (which are really rare to see on their own) and was so startled he trumpeted. It was really awesome. When we tried to leave the elephant site our truck got stuck in the mud and we had to rock back and forth until we could get off the road to be able to drive away. It was pretty fun. Later in the day we saw a lion in a tree, and as we were ready to pull away the other group’s tuck got a puncture in the tire! The whole car (6 people) had to come pile into our car while the cook stood on our roof with some binoculars looking for the lion. The lion of course decided that was a good time to jump out of the tree and disappear into the tall grass, but everyone made it out in one piece. In the afternoon it started raining again and we drove back to the crater where we slept.
We wanted to get a really early start on our last day (and only day in the Crater) so my truck left a bit before the other group, but they were late opening the park gate so it didn’t really matter anyway. To be honest I was a bit disappointed by the crater, probably because we had had such fantastic luck in the Serengeti. We saw lots of the same animals (zebra, wildebeest, etc.), and were unable to get to areas for better game (like lions) because the roads were too muddy to pass. We slid around in the mud a lot, and once our driver Edwardo Ricardo backed up into a ditch and our car was part way tipped over. That was pretty fun. We stopped for some group shots at an awesome tree near a hippo pond (complete with mating hippos), and on our way out saw 9 of the 20 black rhino in the park! We were all really excited about that, because we were on our way out and were afraid we’d leave without seeing any. My pictures aren’t great because they’re so far away, but it was really awesome to see them.
Safari was an amazing, once in a lifetime exerience, but I can’t say I was sad to retun to the luxuries of showers, toilets, and dry beds at CCS.
We wanted to get a really early start on our last day (and only day in the Crater) so my truck left a bit before the other group, but they were late opening the park gate so it didn’t really matter anyway. To be honest I was a bit disappointed by the crater, probably because we had had such fantastic luck in the Serengeti. We saw lots of the same animals (zebra, wildebeest, etc.), and were unable to get to areas for better game (like lions) because the roads were too muddy to pass. We slid around in the mud a lot, and once our driver Edwardo Ricardo backed up into a ditch and our car was part way tipped over. That was pretty fun. We stopped for some group shots at an awesome tree near a hippo pond (complete with mating hippos), and on our way out saw 9 of the 20 black rhino in the park! We were all really excited about that, because we were on our way out and were afraid we’d leave without seeing any. My pictures aren’t great because they’re so far away, but it was really awesome to see them.
Safari was an amazing, once in a lifetime exerience, but I can’t say I was sad to retun to the luxuries of showers, toilets, and dry beds at CCS.
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