When opportunity arises to see lions, elephants, and giraffe’s who wouldn’t want to go? A safari is something that occupies a line on nearly everyone’s bucket list, and here in Tanzania we got to experience what it is truly like. Our group this year went on two different
safaris. The first safari was at the Serengeti, Ngorogoro, and Lake Mnyara.
Five coolest moments there:
1. One of the lions that we saw in the Serengeti
was tearing apart and eating a dead warthog!
2. Later that night, in our campground, one of the
volunteers went to the bathroom and a warthog was right there and it scared
him!
3.We saw a rock at Ngorogoro that looked like
pride rock from the Lion King! And, what do you know, a lion was on top! It was
incredible!
4. At dinner, there was a jumping spider and one of
the volunteers was poking at it with a napkin and it kept jumping up and biting
it! There was also a rat crawling into the food area and tons of flying insects
everywhere. So not only were we introduced to the African wildlife, we got a
bug/rodent show as well.
5. At Lake Mnyara, we saw around 50 monkeys! They
were attacking each other, picking bugs off of each other, and one even crawled
on our safari car!!
The second safari was at a place surprisingly close to Arusha at a park called Tarangire. We were
greeted at the entrance by a huge Baobob tree, and were on our way to see those
animals in their natural habitat. We started off the day with some wildebeests,
and then ended up in the middle of an elephant herd. We were surrounded by
about thirty elephants, male and female, adults and younger. At that point our
guide, Help partner Michael Medoth, was even a little nervous that one of them
would get angry at something we did and charge. We took our time by taking
loads of pictures, and when it was safe to continue we did so safari style.
When the day came to a close we went back to the parking lot where volunteer
Emilee Eddings attracted some nearby monkeys with her brightly-colored tennis
shoes. We went into the nearest town, ate some delicious Chipsi Mayai, and then
went to bed at a lodge in our proximity. 
The next day we
arose before the sun did and set out on our second day of safari. It was a
completely different day, and we were itching to see some cats. About an hour
or two in, our wish was granted. There we were, thirty feet away from a lion
and his lioness. They laid in the grass for most of the time, just being lazy
cats. If we made sudden motions or if a safari car drove too close the lion
would growl an angry sound warning us to be aware of his “King of the Jungle”
status. Those growls definitely made for fun pictures as well. We drove around
looking for other cats and had no luck. However, after we saw elephants and
impalas running away we went to where they were coming from and saw a group of
6 lionesses out on the hunt. That was definitely a cool sight.
A
definite benefit of coming to help in Africa is the opportunity to go on a
safari like this, and I recommend it to everyone who hasn’t had the chance to
do so yet. You never know what you might see.
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