On our way to dinner we rounded a corner and there was a zebra grazing just a few feet away. It barely moved an ear as we "oohed" and "aahed" and whipped out our cameras. This place is just incredible, I can't even think of enough words to describe it.

Dinner was another great buffet, candlelit no less, and a trio of men playing African drums in the background. Pretty nice.

We came back to our room, which was both baboon and monkeyless and watched the gecko run up and down the wall, and eventually fell alseep to the sound of the crickets and the howl of some other creature out there.

TIDBITS
When we were driving through the Ngorongoro area we saw a lot of Masai herding their cattle. They have grazing rights in the Ngorongoro, plus they still have a lot of their homes and villages there as well.

If you slow down even the slightest bit, kids will run out to the road and start to yell. They want their pictures taken, which is actually not allowed as it teaches them to beg as opposed to working.

Prior to entering the park we stopped to look at some camels and a young camel herder appeared and came over to the truck. Hamisi said I could take a picture so I asked the boy: "Picture?" and he said: "Money." I held out 1,000 TS and to my surprise, he shook his head and said:"2,000" I paid him, and I got a nice picture, but I can see why it's so easy for them to beg. In Haydom most families make less than $2.00 a day. All the kids around here run to the road with their hands outstretched, and that's because the area has so many tourists in the high season who will pay a dollar or 2 to get a picture. I had a bad taste in my mouth from that experience and we didn't take any more pictures of people at all. Western influences....how wonderful are we?

The hotels on the safari are all powered by generators so there is no power or hot water from midnight-5 AM. They turn it on at 5AM until noon, and then off again until 5PM until midnight. They supply candles and matches in all the rooms in case you are up past midnight, however we are asleep long before that. We each brought a small flashlight, which have finally come in handy (for me anyhow) as I always need to make at least one bathroom run during the night..

Nicole decided to have a shower after dinner, but the prior occupant had turned off the cold water tap SO tight that she couldn't turn it on. We both tried and tried and we were just about to call maintenance when I managed to stand in the tub and use a wet facecloth and both hands and all the leverage I could muster, I almost gave myself a hernia, but *whew*, managed to save the day.

We can hear the baboons (we think) hooting and calling at night.

Jan 24.

Up at 7:30 (we have no phones in our rooms here, so no wake-up call from Chad, but our bodies are so acclimated to the time that we wake up anyhow.) Another good buffet breakfast, although neither of us was very hungry so we packed up our box lunches and saw that Hamisi was early too, so we headed out.

The Serengeti is so vast. 15,763 sq. km of wheat coloured blowing grass, acacia trees looking like they were just randomly dropped down into huge empty spaces, and these massive rocky outcroppings that appear every few miles--giant boulders that must be an ice-age leftover. The horizon stretches as far as the eye can see and is so flat that you can turn in a complete circle and it all looks the same. So easy to get lost. You can see the wildebeest everywhere, little specks in the distance that look like someone has shaken pepper on a piece of burlap.

As you drive around you can sometimes see faint, hazy hills in the distance, a pale blue against the light blue sky, it looks like a soft, often washed denim shirt.

We saw some maribou storks, a silver backed jackal and some hippo's in their pool, we also saw a big ole hippo lumbering off for some morning feed, but we could only see the side of him. But as we rounded the corner we saw 2 hyenas sitting on the side of the road.We stopped and rolled down the window for a picture, it was a little dusty so we were waiting for the dust to settle so we could get a good photo. They were not 2 feet away, I could have reached right out and touched the one. He gave me a "hyena smile" though, so I snapped the picture through the dust and rolled the window back up again. I saw a picture of a man in Haydom who was bitten in the face by a hyena and it was not a pretty sight.

Shortly after that we saw a gazelle family, mom, dad and a small baby that couldn't have been more than a few weeks old. Mom must have been teaching him to run in a zig-zag formation (as they do, to outfox the big predators who can't turn as sharply)because the little guy would stand still as stone, then he'd BOLT as fast as he could, running in a zig-zag pattern and he'd kick up little puffs of dust as he turned, then he'd take a few stiff legged bounces and stop dead for second and start all over again.

Our eagle eyed guide spotted 2 cheetahs under a tree, we had to use our binoculars to see them clearly, but we were able to watch them for a while, they were trying to decide whether or not to chase a nearby gazelle. The one would stand up and walk a few feet towards it and then just lie down again. It did this a few times and then I suppose it decided it was just too hot out. Or it wasn't hungry enough...who knows what goes on in the mind of a cheeta?

We also saw 2 lions in the distance, we had a hard time seeing them clearly even with the binocs, but we were happy to see them none-the-less.

We saw all manner of odd birds from starlings to lilac crested roller birds to oxpeckers that sit on the backs of the Cape Buffalo. One buffalo had 3 white egrets just sitting on his back.The egrets just sat there like they were observing something very serious.

We came across baboons and waterbucks at a waterhole along with a black-headed heron, a bastard bird and some Egyption geese.

Then, and this is the best, we rounded a corner and saw 2 parked vehicles and we noticed a large male lion sleeping under a tree about 12 feet away. Just stretched out, not a care in the world. Then we saw a female coming down the road towards him. We all stood still, hoping she would keep coming, and she ambled down the road, not even looking at us; she walked over to the lion and rolled over in front of him and then walked closer and rubbed her face against his neck. By this time he was awake and looking at her with interest.She walked in front of him and over to our truck and he got up and followed her. She lay down about 8 feet in front of us and he came over and did his "lion duty." It only takes seconds, and he bit her neck and gave a roar and then he wandered away. We were all astounded at our luck in seeing this. The female is only in heat for 7 days, so we picked a good time! It was incredible to see a lion that close. My pictures turned out pretty good. Nicole and I just looked at each other, we could hardly believe it.

We then headed back to the hotel for lunch and a rest. The game tends to hide out in the early afternoon, so we did the same thing and then went for a late afternoon drive. Nicole wasn't feeling great so we didn't stay too long, but we saw loads of buffalo, a beautiful herd of Topi, some mountain reed bucks, some bush bucks (which look like little tiny whitetail deer) and of course gazelles everywhere. We sort of saw a leopard-our driver saw a bunch of vehicles around a tree and he said whenever you see more than 5 or 6 vehicles in one spot, you know there is a leopard there as they are very rare and hard to spot nowadays. So we all raced over there, 14 (14!!) trucks in all. Needless to say the poor thing refused to show itself and all anyone could see was the flicker of an ear in the deep grass. It could have been anything down there, so we just left.

Back at our room we freshend up and listened to the monkeys and baboons running over the roof. You can hear their little feet thumping across the roof and then silence...they sit at the edge and peer over at you as you pass by, and sometimes they holler at you, it's a little scary. Nicole had one race right by her as she was walking up the path..

As I wrote this in my journal I was watching a Cape Buffalo grazing outside my window, and this morning a family of warthogs went running through, they make the most noise...piggy screams and all sorts of thrashing and rustling and it makes the gazelles leap with fear. Yesterday it was zebras out back and there are always hundreds of the hyrax running about as well. It is a miracle place for sure!

Hamisi's name means Thursday, as that's the day of the week he was born.

Yesterday he was going to take us to see some crocodiles, but he was talking to another driver who said that there were a lot of tse-tse flies over there and Hamisi decided it wasn't a good idea to take us there-when your guide wants to stay away, well, I think it's probably best to stay away. We have no innoculation for sleeping sickness (which is what you get from the bite of tse-tse fly)

The drivers all know each other, at least most of them do and we have seen, oh, about 12 different company vehicles driving around and the drivers all wave to one another and will stop for a quick chat in swahili. I like to think they are telling each other what animals they have seen, and where the good spot to go today is, but I imagine they are talking a little bit about their customers. I know that Nicole and I are always in awe of Hamisi's sighting abilties and his knowledge of everything Tanzanian, and we tell him that too, so hopefully he only has nice things to say about us.

We are so happy to have a driver and a vehicle to ourselves, we see other people crammed in, sometimes 8 in a truck, someone is always stuck in the dreaded middle seat and there is never enough space in the open top roof for all 8 to get a good picture. We can move all over and stop whenever we please to take a picture of whatever silly thing strikes our fancy, and we can leave early if we feel the need as well, without offending another couple. If I were ever to do this again, I'd spend the extra money and have another private vehicle, it's SO worth it.

Hamisi has been with Sunny Safari for 5 years now and he says he really likes his job. The guides take a course before they are certified, anywhere from 2-6 months, I guess it depends on how much you already know.