east africa safari highlights

a safari of this calibre will bring with it some amazing memories, events, sight, sounds and experiences. here are some of the highlights we experienced while camping in east africa:

first, i must explain that when you go on safari for any extended period of time, you develop what we have called "safari dementia". it comes from spending countless hours staring into the bush looking for lion, elephant, rhino, leopard and buffalo. everything you're looking at starts to look like a lion - a bird in a tree, a termite hill on the ground, a pile of elephant dung, a branch in a tree. also, everything that we see and say becomes hysterically funny to the point of tears. this is mainly due to the exhaustion. this often leads to the "no laugh laugh" where you are laughing - but no sound is coming out. you know what i'm talking 'bout.

here are some highlights, supported with photos wherever possible.

• camping on the rim of a volcano
• waking up with an elephant in the campsite
• a sand tornado ripping through our campsite
• waking up, unzipping the tent, pouring a cup of tea and looking out at Mt. Killimanjaro
• driving through the vast, dry, endless plains of the Serengeti
• watching the sun rise and set....half expecting the soundtrack from "The Lion King" to break out
• wild pigs and zebra sniffing at our tents in the middle of the night
• watching a cheetah track and chase a gazelle
• interupting two lions mating and being rushed by the male
• the grace and beauty of a running giraffe
• seeing the animals with their babies: baboon, lion, warthog, zebra, hippo, hyena and giraffe
• watching 30 lions feed on a zebra kill
• being close enough to a lioness to be able to hear and see her sneeze
• being close enough to a lion to see the inside of his mouth
• having a cheeky month old baby elephant do a mock charge at our vehicle
• getting caught in a herd of elephants crossing a stream
• hundreds of species of birds
• toilets that were a little primitive
• baboons in out campsite trying to steal our food
• lions drinking from our water tank at campsite
• personal cook, driver and tracker. the bar on camping has been raised
• seeing many thousand of zebra, elephant and wildebeest
• finaly seeing the stars and milkyway the way they were meant to be seen
• being attacked daily by the infamous tsetse fly - very annoying
• visiting the Olduvai gorge and seeing the ealiest recorded upright human footprints
• having your vehicle catch on fire on the way to the Ngorongoro crater
• getting a flat tire in the serengeti and having to change it in the wide open
• seeing a 5-legged elephant. heh heh
• finally seeing a rhino and leopard - the hardest two of the big five to see

it was such a wonderful and crazy trip. it's impossible to put into words the beauty of the land that we saw. i could just watch the landscape go by for hours without saying a word. it was totally breathtaking and made you realize that there is so much else out there to enjoy, experience and see. if you get the opportunity to take such a trip - i urge you to do it, for such an opportunity will come by only once in a lifetime.

memories

capturing the memories from a trip like this is essential. my only regret is that we did not have a video camera to capture some of the trip on video. but i took over 500 photos as well as writing in my journal every day to capture the details of each days' activities. i have done this before on my trips to south africa and reading them today brings back the memories like they were yesterday. the cost of developing the film and taking the time to write in the journal is peanuts when you compare it to re-living, remembering and sharing the experience you had. on your next trip, take as much as you can to capture the memories - you will regret it if you don't - believe me.