To be honest, we didn't think that we would truly feel like we were missing Christmas because we just couldn't get into the mood... We were pleasantly surprised with how well our Christmas turned out.
We left on Christmas eve from Lilongwe, Malawi crossed the border into Zambia and listened to one of the worst Christmas CD's ever while trudging on to our campsite called "Flat Dogs"! Why was it called Flat Dogs? There were crocs in the river that ran along side the campsite, hence the term 'Flat Dogs'. And to top it all off there were also a dozen or more hippos in the river who also liked to come up on land through the night. Our minds were wandering with these ideas of being dragged off in the middle of the night by some blood thirsty hippo/croc when camp security came over and verified our thoughts. He stated word for word, "Please do not leave the campsite for any reason it is not safe. There are animals everywhere. When walking to the bathrooms/showers at night please take a flashlight and walk in pairs. Usually there are visitors in the night, elephants, hippos, whatever so please use common sense." Well, suffice it to say, that made us feel a whole lot safer!
We had about an hour to erect our tent and get ready for the carolling that was taking place on the bridge that enters into the South Luangwa National Park in which Flat Dogs butts up against (only a three minute drive from our campsite). We didn't know what to expect but we were excited. The trucks that took us to the bridge were the same ones for our morning game safari. The trucks were quite unique. They were Land Cruisers with the tops and sides cut off so they could put in three rows of seating like in a theatre with no roof on the vehicles. Now picture these trucks, remembering that we could possibly see a pride of lions or a leopard hunting prey, and not really having any protection from either if they decided to have Mzungu for dinner. We definitely enjoyed these trucks, as you could see all around you and apparently they were supposed to be completely safe!
Anyways, back to the carolling on the bridge... We drive up and there must have been over 30 trucks already there and people everywhere mingling on the bridge. There was a local Zambian choir practicing as we approached the middle of the bridge, as well as little kids handing out sheets of carols with the words to help us sing along. Also, unbeknownst to us, there was a table with food and drinks set up for us that I'm sure you can imagine Jilly and I delved into. There were little pieces of pizza, cheese balls, chips, cheesies, pork shishkabobs, coke, sprite and champagne! We were in heaven considering we hadn't eaten anything for five hours. The music started by having these two local choirs walking onto the bridge singing in their native language. They were fantastic! Not only did we have this beautiful music to listen to and great food to eat, but we also had a magnificent sunset to watch over the river while gazing at the hippos and the croc in the water directly below us. I'm sure they were just hoping for the bridge to collapse and to have an international buffet of tourists!
While on the bridge a friend in our group, Allison, asked one of our drivers if there was anywhere we could go to a midnight mass? Some of us were interested. It ended up that she organized him to meet up at 11pm back at the campsite to drive us to his church (Anglican) where they were having an all night service. We were pretty excited but really didn't know what to expect.
Allen, our driver, showed up at 11pm in his own vehicle and seven of us jumped into the back of his pick-up truck. We were a little nervous at first but quickly realized that he was a very safe and cautious driver as the road out of the campsite was very bumpy and full of potholes and he took it quite slowly. We turn on to the main highway (like a secondary road in Canada) and what do we see 100 metres in the distance crossing the road... a huge hippo! It was unbelievable the size of it. It must have been the size of the pick-up truck we were in. Too dark for a pic though unfortunately. The drive took us about 10 minutes to get to the church. Along the way we drove through a village with people everywhere celebrating the eve of the birth of Jesus, or at least that's what they say they were celebrating. Once we got to the turn off to the church, our minds started wandering because we just drove for the past five minutes through hordes of people and passed three other churches and this turnoff was in complete and utter darkness. There may have been one candle on in the church and it was just this one eery looking building in the middle of nowhere. We honestly thought this couldn't be good. We had thoughts of Freddy and Jason in our minds and then realizing there's no way anyone will find our bodies... but it actually turned out to be one of the most memorable Christmas eves of our entire lives!
We jump out of the back of the truck and walk into the church and there's were approximately 60 people or so just sitting there quietly, or so we thought. It turned out it was mostly the youth of the congregation (babies to around 30 yrs old) who had decided to spend Christmas eve, from 11pm to early morn, together in the church. When we walked in they put half of us on one side and the other half on the other side because they were having a biblical quiz and they wanted the teams to be even. Two guys were up front asking the questions to one side at a time and if they were unable to answer then the other side had a chance to steal the question. It was so neat to witness this. The questions were very difficult - none of us Mzungus got any right. I know my 10 years of Sunday school weren't helping me! And when one side got a question right it sounded like we were in the Sky Dome when Joe Carter hit the game winning home run to win the World Series, it was unbelievable!
After about a half hour of watching and listening to this Q & A of how Christianity was formed they decided to interupt their game on our behalf and started to sing and dance for us. It was surreal! The conductor was leading them into song after song in English until Pierrette asked if they could sing us a couple of songs in their language. We had such a great time! But it didn't stop there. Next they asked us all up to the front so we could introduce ourselves. This caught us off guard but we all went up to the front of the church, introduced ourselves and then answered questions that some people asked us. Once we sat down, each person in the entire congregation introduced themselves! It was so neat. They sang us a couple of more songs then Jill got their address so that we could send them some of the pics that we took of them. It was a magical night! We told the driver before we left that we would only need an hour and a half but once 12:30am arrived we all wanted to stay, but we didn't think that was fair to the driver, not to mention we had to get up at 5:30am to go on our early game drive.
It was a little difficult falling asleep at first considering the noises that the hippos were making but once we had our imaginations under control, sleep came easily. The sun came up very quickly that morning, but we were pumped for our game drive. It actually started sooner than we thought. Twenty seconds after leaving our tents, we turn the corner to leave the campsite and there were three elephants to greet us. Pretty good start we thought and it only got better. Though we were a little nervous at first because it was the beginning of the wet season and supposedly there may be very little game for us to see. Well it didn't take very long to prove that theory wrong. As soon as we entered the game park there were babboons, hippos, crocs, zebra, gazelles, impalas, kudus, warthogs and many birds. Then we had our first highlight of the day. A group of 11 elephants walked within 30 metres of our truck, it was awesome! A couple of little babies and then all sizes. Not a good time for Jill to end her roll of film, but luckily I had the digital camera as well! (and we'll try and get some of our pics up soon!).
We ate lunch along side the river and Jill was able to capture a hippo in the water with its head straight back and mout fully opened on film! We can't wait to see how that pic turned out. Then the second highlight of the day, we came across a leopard. She was just walking along the track we were driving on and we must have followed her for a good 10 minutes. We couldn't believe how close we were, considering there was nothing between she and us as far as protection was concerned. We got some good shots! Then, about 20 minutes later we came across another group of elephants that were bathing in a mud puddle. It was amazing, they were using their trunks and blowing mud all over themselves as well as their little baby. They got a little over protective and began to charge our vehicle. It was a mock charge at first but then once we left the baby had moved to the other side of the road and we drove between she and her mother and that provoked another charge! What a sight to see!
After the game drive we had a huge Christmas dinner and I must admit the turkey was great! It was nice to have turkey again but the fruit salad was ok for dessert. It was a poor replacement for my Mom's pumpkin pie! Then we had a gift exchange within our group. Everyone bought something for $3 and then wrapped it up and threw them into a pile. We drew names to see who picked first and then the next person picked, etc... but the last person who picked had the choice of keeping theirs or taking anybody elses that they liked better. (most of you have played a game similar to this so I won't go on explaining the game). It was a lot of fun and we got some pretty nice stuff, considering it was only worth $3! We relaxed near the pool after our big lunch and then I played Scrabble in French, then English, with Dominique until the early evening as Jill read and talked with the ladies. That's right, nothing has really changed!
Boxing Day was nice because we had a nice sleep in, ate brunch around 10am and then a group of eight of us went to a conservation centre for the afternoon. It was run by this couple who moved from England, bought this beautiful piece of land and built this conservation centre that is geared towards local school children learning about conservation practices. They really had a wonderful set up. It was so informative yet a very comfortable setting so that it didn't feel like a typical boring museum. They showed us around the centre and then took us through their wonderful home, and it was immaculate! This guy had collections of everything; tortoise shells, antelope horns, pottery from 2.6 million years ago found on an archaeological site near his home, ancient rocks used for cutting, amazing photos that he has taken living in Africa, etc... It was just breath taking.
They also take in orphaned animals and we got to meet and play with a three month old vervet monkey and a young warthog! It was fantastic! Then we went back to the campsite for four o'clock so we could go on our evening game drive! It was pretty scary/exhillerating being in the middle of a Nat. park in pitch darkness in the middle of Africa. Our guides had a spot light and they would continually sweep it across the fields/roadsides as we drove and all we could see was hundreds of eyeballs looking at us. I wish we could tell you that we saw a leopard hunting gazelle (like our friends Paul, Allison and Fab saw the previous night) but we didn't see anything that exciting. We pretty much saw everything we did the previous day except we also saw a puff adder (snake), a large spotted genet, and a hyena! No leopards or lions, but oh well, it was still a lot of fun!
We had a truly memorable Christmas!
We are now on our way down to Livingstone where we will see Victoria Falls! We can't wait. We will also being doing a rhino walk where we will get as near as 3 feet. Don't worry we will have an armed game warden with us! Supposedly it's really amazing so we have our fingers crossed! And then we will be spending New Year's on a houseboat floating along the Zambezi River! No more tents and no more cooking, there are beds and the food is fully catered! We are pumped! So if we don't get on email between now and New Year's, have a wonderful New Year everyone and we'll email you all from Cape Town!
Happy New Year!
Bow.
There are so many things that make East Africa so unique.
Everything Can Be Carried On The Head - women carry absolutely everything on their heads. We think we've seen it all and then we notice a new and unique item on someone's head. We've seen food, firewood, pineapples, pots, entire banana stalks, shopping bags, umbrellas, and just yesterday we noticed a woman carrying an entire backpack on her head. It was the size of a backpack we would carry on our backs to travel the world.
Clothing - women all wear bright coloured sarongs. They may wear completely different ones on their tops and bottoms and even different ones to carry their babies in slings. It is always a colourful sight! Men wear ordinary pants or shorts. Many men wear sandals which are made from tires.
Names - most of the first names of people are very similar to western names. Last names are always a trick to figure out. All of the young boys we've met in Malawi have chosen a unique name so we can remember them when we want to buy something from them. So far we've met Christopher Columbus, Julius Caesar, Mel Gibson, Donald Duck and Dr. Love to name a few.
Fascination With The Mzungu (White Person) - it doesn't matter where we go the locals will stop and watch us silently for as long as we are there. We will stop our truck for lunch along the side of the road and before we know it, we have half the next village or the entire school standing around us watching quietly. One day we stopped at a swimming hole for a quick dip and they watched us for hours. They are fascinated just to hear us talk to one another. They look like they are standing still watching a film.
Constant Selling - the minute our truck stops in a village, town or city the round tubs of goods come up to our eye level. They are filled with cookies, drinks, nuts, samosas, sunglasses, crafts. We are often interested in getting a quick treat. Half of the fun is bargaining for the best price for the goods, but we are always offered a "very good price" or "special Christmas price".
The Waving - one of my favourite things about Africa is the constant waving and thumbs up. As we drive along in our truck, we can spend hours waving at the children and adults along the side of the road or in villages and towns. We have experienced nothing but friendliness from everyone we pass. You can usually hear crowds of children before you see them because they start yelling "jambo" or "hello" about 200 metres before we pass. You can look around the truck at any given time and see one of us mzungus waving to the locals.
The Children - the minute children see you walking in their village they are running to hold your hand or to talk with you. As we walk, we each have two to four kids on our arms. They love to tell you what they are learning at school or show you around their village. They also love it when we take their picture. When any of us take a digital picture of them, we always show them the picture, which leads to many giggles and lots of crowding.
The Landscape - the terrain has been diverse as we've travelled through Kenya, Tanzania, and Malawi. We enjoyed the plains of the Serengeti to the extremely lush land of southern Tanzania. We are currently in Malawi and have spent the last week on Lake Malawi, which takes up 20% of the country.
Towns and Villages - one of the most unique things about the towns that we pass through are the store signs. First off, everything is in English and there seems to be a fascination with western names for all signs. We've seen Hollywood Haircuts, Miami Beach Restaurant and Bar, and the San Francisco Salon.
African Time - we quickly realized that everything in Africa takes at least an hour longer than you anticipate. When you're on the Internet, expect for the power to go out or network to go down at least twice. On Sunday, we hurried to the local village to make the 9am mass but weren't surprised when it finally got started around 10:15. However, while we wait, something unique always seems to happen to keep us very entertained. While we waited for the service to start a group of about 20 local children sang to us to keep us amuzed. It's all part of the adventure we came to experience.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone at home!
Jill
Christmas in Africa... we must admit we are having difficulty feeling the Christmas spirit that we have grown accustomed to for the past 20 odd years... but we are coping!
Jill has previously mentioned our mini-holiday on the isle of Zanzibar so I will try and fill you in on what we have done since we left Dar Es Salam.
Because we have a 4-wheel drive truck we decided to go "playing" in the south of Tanzania for a few days before we head to Malawi. It was quite unique to get off the typical 'tourist track' and see some villages that perhaps haven't seen Mzungu (white people) before. It's quite the site when you get a whole village all waving at you as we speed by in our truck, sometimes waving with both of their arms flailing everywhere with a huge smile to go with it.
We bush camped for a few days and it was getting to be quite a while since we had the pleasure of showering. We came across a river where some of us wanted to rinse ourselves off or at least try and scrape off the 4 days of accumulated dust/dirt off of our feet and legs (though by the looks of the river, totally brown in colour, some of us had doubts that we were getting any cleaner). Then we continued to go further into the depths of the Tanzanian forest to camp in another field much like the one where we stayed the previous night. We were driving along this 'bush track' for approximately 2 hours when we drove through this little valley and Marcus our tour leader/driver mentioned that maybe it would be a good idea to camp back on the other side of this valley in case it rained. He thought it would have been quite the ordeal to get back over the next day if there was rain. It turned out that it was a good idea because as soon as we got all of our tents up the downpour came. As I mentioned before, some of us in the group were dying for a shower so before I knew it there was Jill and about a dozen others out in the pouring rain, washing themselves, shampooing their hair... I was one of the few that remained inside the truck.
The next day turned out to be quite the experience... because it rained most of the night the trip back took 8 hours instead of 2. About 20 minutes after leaving the bush camp we got stuck in the mud going over this makeshift culvert. We actually were very lucky to get out of this predicament considering our rear tire was almost 6 feet below the road if we would have slid 6 more inches. It was actually quite scary at the time. We were lucky that this happened in a village though because after the weight of the truck broke some of the culvert and it seemed to be just hanging there we were able to get pulled out by 15 of us on the end of one rope while the locals attached their tractor to another rope. Then the tractor escorted us out to the 'main' road in case we had any further trouble...
Well, apparently it didn't escort us far enough because we got stuck a total of 5 more times after that! But don't worry, I won't get into fine detail now because we had Jill Meloche, official photographer for the Arnprior Chronicle at the seen catching minute by minute footage! Then because we had such a long day we decided to stay in one of the little villages. It was fun hanging out with the locals, and who would have thought we'd be having dinner in Mehenge when Sadam Husein, the Ace of Spades, was finally caught!
The past 6 days we have been in Malawi. It is very beautiful as well and the locals all speak very good English. We have been spending our nights at camp sites along Lake Malawi (aka the Calendar lake because it's 365 miles long, 52 km wide and 7 hundred metres deep). It's been bitter sweet though because there have been all of these beautiful beaches but there's a chance we could catch some disease (Belhertzia???) which attacks your liver, so we have declined to swim in Lake Malawi. We thought we better be careful considering we won't be home for 4 more months before we could get checked for it. Though last nights camp site was attached to a Hotel and they had a pool so for an extra $5 we swam in their pool for the afternoon. It was a little paradise!
We have spent a lot of time with the local Malawi people and seen quite a few unique things. We saw the Witch Doctor in Chitimba as well as meeting the chief of the area, George. We went on a village walk in Kande beach as well and visited the local school, went to a local church service on Sunday morning and have given many locals our address for them to write us and practice their english. It will be interesting to see how many will actually write us.
Now we are in the city of Lilongwe and we'll be spending the night tonight here and then heading to Flat Dogs Resort in Zambia tomorrow. This is where we will be spending Christmas. Instead of waking up to see what Santa and his little helpers have brought us this year, we will be on an early morning game drive and then having a 3 course lunch to celebrate X-mas! Turkey and all the fixings, but I doubt they will have pumpkin pie for dessert or anything near my Mom's world famous Nanaimo Bars! But we will cope.
So Merry Christmas everyone and have a great holiday! Jilly and I are thinking of you all and will be thinking of everyone on the 25th of December!
Bow.
We're back in Stone Town, Zanzibar after three days in paradise on a northern beach village.
Before taking off to the beach, we all went on a spice tour since Zanzibar is known for growing spices and fruit. It was so interesting to see how vanilla, pepper, cloves and so many of the other spices are grown. We were all shocked to find out that pineapples were grown on the ground - I had always thought that they came from a tree. We spent the morning sampling all of the different fruits and spices. One of the locals climbed a palm tree to knock down coconuts as he sang to us. We were also invited into a local home for spicey rice and henna tatoos.
From there, we headed up the coast to our beach resort for three days. It was how I would describe paradise. I've been to the carribean once before but I've never experienced the white sand and aqua blue water, so I was in heaven! The village was big enough to have some cute restaurants overlooking the beach, but small enough that it didn't feel too commercialized.
We spent our time relaxing on the beach, swimming, eating, and hanging out with one another. Our whole group really had a lot of fun together. Of the 22 people, the majority of people are women my age, so it's great fun! The food was delicious and so cheap. The first night, we all went to a beach bbq by candlelight where there served us heaps of fresh seafood. The next nights, we chose from the different seaside restaurants. Bow and I couldn't get enough of the fresh mango, pineapple, and passionfruit juices.
Every afternoon at 5pm the beach turned into a volleyball court and football pitch and anyone could join in. Bow had a riot getting to know a lot of the locals playing volleyball each night. As we would walk along the beach the following days I would hear "Jambo Bow" or "Jambo Mr Volleyball".
Yesterday afternoon one of the guys in our group organized a sailing trip for us on a traditional sail boat. A group of seven locals took eight of us out to snorkel, sail and watch the sunset. It was the highlight of the week.
Now we're back in the main town on Zanzibar. Everyone's emailing and buying local art before we head back to the main land this afternoon. Because it's an overland trip, we can choose what we want to do next, so we're not really sure what the plan is for the next two weeks. We think we might be heading off the tourist track to do some bush camping and exploring. The truck is equipped for off roading. It's a large truck, seven sit in the front and the other 15 sit in the back which is open-aired with a roof and back wall. We each have a locker where we keep our clothes. On the outside of the truck, we can pull out a stove to cook on. We'll keep you updated the next time we hit a town or city...
Cheers!
Jill
We are all excited to have a five day holiday from our holiday on the beautiful spice island of Zanzibar.
After our time in the Game Parks, we headed to a campsite outside of Arusha, called Snake Park. We had two days to stay here, which is always a treat to be able to leave up our tents for more than one night. It was a treat with its outdoor bar, its homemade dinner, and its laundry services. This campsite was beside a Maasai village so we took an early morning walk of the village with one of the locals. Learning about the Maasai culture was so fascinating. In this village, we were greeted by a whole slew of kids screaming "hello" and jumping up on us wanting us to hold them or swing them; which we did. Our guide told us that all of these kids were brothers and sisters. There was one man in the village that had eight wives and 50 children. He was in his seventies and his youngest wife was 28. He took us into a village home, told us about how boys become Maasai warriors, and discussed the issues of the western world making its way into their culture (AIDS, money, etc).
We also took time to check out the snakes at the "snake park" within our campsite. Most people loved it, but it actually scared me to realize how many fatal snakes are really in Africa. I had nightmares about then and I'm not even taking the larium anti-malaria pills. It would have been Becky Morin's absolute nightmare - she would have been screaming for days just thinking about it!
The campsite also had a Maasai craft market. It was a little village of fourteen huts with woman selling their crafts - beaded necklaces, carvings, spoons, etc. You wouldn't be in the hut for 20 seconds without having a bracelet, anklet, and necklace strung around you from the woman tending the hut and the hut next to hers. It was hard not to buy at least one small thing from each woman - I can justify anything!
After Snake Park we spent a night up in the high mountains on the way to Dar Es Salaam (captial of Tanzania). The campsite was breathtaking! We all set up our tents on terraces, which were basically over the clouds in the sky. We spent the afternoon reading, writing in our journals, and playing cards in a long bamboo hut overlooking the mountain range.
The main highlight of this stop was the football (soccer) game that our driver, Markus, set up with the young boys from the local village. There were about 10 from our group, including Bow and I, against 15 young locals. Apparently none of the Exodus groups had been able to beat the locals, they had only come as close as a tie. It was a large sized football pitch and the outside was lined with the others from our group and the entire local village, which was at least another 40 people. We were shocked to get a 3-0 lead on them, but it wasn't long before they tied us and then got ahead. It was a truly unique experience! The game didn't even stop when one of the local men decided to walk a huge tree through the game or when a herd of goats had to make it from one side to the other. The game ended when the sun went down and we were pleasantly surprised to win 6-5. We took many group shots and gave the village the ball we had brought to play with. We've decided to buy some more footballs and see if other locals will play with us as we make our way down to Victoria Falls.
We spent the next day making our way to Dar Es Salaam to another fantastic campsite right on the beach - white sand, pool, carribean style outdoor bar - paradise! We can't believe how lucky we've been with all of the unique spots our guides have been taking us to. The weather has changed to intense heat and humidity so we were all racing to jump into the pool.
The weather here is like the hottest week in the summer in Ottawa. It's nice to have the sunny warm weather, but it's that intense heat that slows you down. We were therefore very happy to come to Zanzibar today for a five day holiday from our holiday. We are currently in Stone Town, the main city on the island today. Everyone's catching up on emails and shopping for local crafts. Tomorrow we go on a Spice Tour and then make our way to the north west coast for four days of lazing on the beach.
We imagine that everyone is gearing up for the holiday season at home. We hope everyone enjoys the Christmas season. We will be in a Game Park in Zambia for Christmas, but apparently the camp site is going to take us carolling on Christmas Eve and is going to make us a traditional western Christmas dinner on Christmas Day. It doesn't sound like we'll have any access to phones on Christmas Day, so we're going to try our best to phone home as close to Christmas as we can.
Happy Holidays!
Jill
We've been in Africa for just over a week now and are absolutely loving it!
We arrived in Nairobi a week ago and were picked up by Cailin's friend, Jamshed. It was such a treat staying with Jamshed in his very cozy apartment. He gave us a quick tour of Nairobi on the way to his place. We arrived at the airport first thing so on the drive the whole city was waking up and heading to work. It wasn't as crazy as the streets of Marrakech in Morocco, but it had the same feel.
Jamshed treated us like royalty! He took us to his place, showed us around, let us sleep in his bed, brought us take out lunch, and a heap of movies to watch. As he was leaving for an afternoon meeting at work he handed us the keys in case we wanted to go out, but in the next sentence he said "don't go out, it's too dangerous". That was also just after he told us about being held up at gun point a few months ago in downtown Nairobi. Bow and I didn't mind one bit having a day in a very cozy apartment to watch movies and hang out.
Jamshed came home in the late afternoon and took us out to a beautiful restaurant for dinner. It was the last day of Ramadan, which we celebrated with him as well. All he could dream about was having chocolate cake during daylight for the days to come. It was so interesting staying with him because he is an economist working for the Treasury Board and he was able to give us great insight into the history and economic situation of Kenya. He also loved movies as much or more than us so we had good fun discussing all of our favourites.
On Wednesday, Jamshed dropped us off at our big overland truck. From Nairobi, our driver took us about four hours north west to a farm campsite where we met up with our group. We are travelling for five weeks together from Nairobi (Kenya) down to Victoria Falls (Zambia). There are 22 of us in total - most people are from England, but there are two other Canadians, one person from Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, and Belgium. Most of us are in our twenties but there are a few who are older than us. Dominique and Pirette from Toronto are in their late fifties and make us feel like we have parents with us - they are great fun! Our guides, Markus and Vanessa, are a couple and are absolutely amazing! They are totally up for off roading and bush camping and they give us lots of options of neat things to do. We are extremely happy with them! We are camping most of the way; however, at certain spots we have the option to upgrade to a hotel room, for a little extra fee. We also all take turns cooking meals. We are in cook groups, which means that you cook lunch-dinner-breakfast once a week for the entire group. It works out quite well.
The first day of our tour they took us to Nakuru Game Park and we spent 12 hours around the park seeing zebras, giraffes, rhinos, buffalo, gazelles, many birds, and a leopard. Our truck broke down that day, which meant a day to relax in the farm campsite - a truly beautiful spot to breakdown. During that day we went on a farm tour, which took us through the village where all of the locals who worked at the farm lived. Women were knitting in the grassy streets and kids were playing everywhere as the men worked on the farm. We walked through the fields and chased down birds. Our guide was so happy that someone (Bow) was finally genuinely interested in birds that he took the two of us out for an extra hour to see as many as he could possibly find. That night before dinner the two kids of the campsite owners took us on a chamelian (small lizard) safari in the dark around the campsite. They were so cute and so informative!
From there, we travelled through Kenya to Tanzania on Saturday. We stopped at Lake Victoria, then in a few small villages, before getting to the Serengeti on Sunday. We spent that afternoon in the famous game park on the look out for all of the animals. The Serengeti is a set of plains that are filled with most of the African animals that you would imagine. We saw many birds, zebras, giraffes, gazelles, etc, etc. Almost right away we came across two giraffes fighting and it was the craziest thing. They would swat at each other with their long necks and the sound was so painful. They were literally fighting right beside our truck.
That night we camped in an open campsite in the park. We got into camp just as the sun was setting. The campsite was quite rugged and was not gated off to any of the animals, which meant that we had to got to the toilets in twos and put up all of our tents in a semi circle. Our guides gave us some instruction as to what to do if we faced a large animal (ie lion) in the middle of the night. We cooked and ate and then just as we were all heading to bed, Bow and Pirette, sighted a lion passing about 200 metres from our tents. As you can imagine, this got everyone a little excited before bedtime.
We continued to explore the Serengeti the next day. It was a great day of game driving because we came across about four different prides of lions. We also saw hippos and hyenas. From the Serengeti we carried onto the Ngorongo Crater the next day for one last day of game viewing. Our big overland truck couldn't get down into the crater so the group was split up and we went into land rovers down to see more animals. In the crater we saw many of the same animals but they were in much larger groups. There were zebras absolutely everywhere. We also enjoyed watching the hippos lounge around in the hippo pool. The best sighting of the day was when we came across three elephants in a swampy area. It was the most beautiful setting to see the elephants - it felt as though we were looking at them through a storybook or a movie setting. They came right beside our land rovers.
That was the end of our game viewing for a little while. Apparently the next time we go into a Game Park will be on Christmas Day. It will definitely be a unique Christmas this year!