When Baboons Attack.....

On Friday afternoon, we headed out on our African Safari!  Something I never imagined I’d have the opportunity to do!  It was amazing!!!

We did our trip through Bushmen Expeditions, and they were great!  We had 2 large Land Rovers for the 9 of us from CCS that went on the trip.  Our first stop was the Mzunga supermarket in Arusha.   The Bushmen guides were providing us with all meals, but gave us the opportunity to by additional snacks (and beer) for the weekend.  After stocking up on Kilimanjaro beer, chips, and chocolate, we were headed west!

We made it to Mosquito Village (not the most welcoming name of a village if you ask me) and set up camp.  Well, the guides and porters set up camp.  We watched.  I felt bad not setting up my own tent, but reminded myself that we paid for this! J

On Friday evening, we were able to visit a Maasai Village.  Usually the Maasai do not allow group visits or pictures, but this group has started to embrace capitalism!  They know if the Mzungas come in, they can sell their jewelry and make money for carbs! (corn, millet, etc).  The basic diet of the Maasai is meat, milk, and blood.  The ability to buy fruit, vegetables, and grains have helped quite a bit with their health and well being.

The Maasai welcomed us with traditional dancing and singing, and even placed their jewelry on us and pulled us into the group to dance with them.  We were given a tour of one of the huts…..well, we walked in and our guide pointed to everything.  Each hut is probably 80 sq ft. max.  There was a fire pit in the middle, and leather beds on either side of the pit.  One bed was for the wife and children, and the other for the husband when he actually stayed in the house.  Most of the men have multiple wives.  We learned that both women and men are circumcised at age 18 or 19, and that when a woman gives birth, she stays in the hut for 3 months (other than going to the bathroom) and the other women in the tribe wait on her hand and foot.  The new baby is welcomed into the tribe after those 3 months with a large celebration.  It was pretty amazing to interact with these people that I have such a different culture.

On Saturday, we headed to Lake Manyara for our first day of Safari.  Lake Manyara is made up of both forest area as well as large plains around the lake.  We drove into the park a couple miles and ran into a bunch of crazy baboons.  The baboons spend their day cleaning each other (picking bugs out of fur), and playing with themselves (yes, in that way). 

As we moved through the forest, we turned a corner and gasped when we saw a giraffe standing in the middle of the dirt road.  This was probably the most exciting part of the safari for me.  The first BIG animal.  While taking pictures of the giraffe and its family, we heard the trumpeting of an elephant.  Another 1/4  mile down the road, we found the elephant with its mate!  Loved it!

As we headed through the rest of the park, we saw blue ball monkeys (see picture), zebras, wildebeests, warthogs (Puumba!), vultures,  jackals, and hippos. 

After the safari, we headed to Ngorogoro Crater.  Our plan was to spend the night on the rim of the crater (in the park), and then wake up for an early morning start into the crater.  After a 2 hour rainy drive to Ngorogoro, we made a stop at the Conservation Area gates so our guides could get our park permits.  The five of us in the car had all been napping and had no desire to head out into the rain at this point, so our driver/guide headed to the office on his own, leaving his window half open.  About 5 minutes after he left, Brando saw a baboon heading straight for the car and warned us.  He immediately closed his window.  Before we could reach the driver’s side window, the baboon had jumped in the car.  We all screamed with thoughts of getting our faces torn off and contracting rabies.  Brando reopened his window, somehow squeezed through it, and climbed on the roof of the car.  Chris and Sara were in the first row of seats and pushed their way through one of the doors.  Marcia and I were in the 2nd row of seats, and could not get out of the car before the baboon headed back from the front sheet, so we held our pillows out and got ready to fight with our feet.  Luckily the baboon found some cookies in the front seat, and that was enough for him to grab and keep him satisfied, so he headed out the open door.  We survived!

This whole incident lasted about 15 seconds, but felt much longer.  Our guides rushed back to the car when they heard our screams, and were genuinely worried.  Baboons are not nice animals!  By that time, we had broken into nervous, hysterical laughter.  Welcome to the jungle, right?

We finally made our way to our campsite on the crater rim, where the rain was falling quite steadily.  We opted to stay in the car as the porters set up our tents.  As the rain slowed, we caught glimpse of an elephant in the brush, about a football field away from where we were parked.  ON OUR CAMPSITE!  Too cool…but a bit scary too. 

Sunday morning started with a 5:30 am rooster crow from Abbas (our guide).  We were on the road by 6 to head into the crater.  As we headed down, the fog started to clear, and we were treated to an amazing view of the sunrise over the entire crater.

As luck would have it, we ran into one of the big 5 right away (The big 5 are Lions, elephants, cheetahs, leopards, and rhinos).  We spotted 2 cheetahs lying on a hill.  We waited a bit to see if they would get up and run, but they were enjoying basking in the morning sun a little too much.

As we reached the crater floor, we saw hundreds of wildebeest and zebras scattered about.  Deeper into the park, we finally spotted the black rhino.  It was a bit of a distance away, but with my good zoom lens, I got a decent picture.

Unfortunately my 2nd camera battery died around this time, so save for a few shots, the rest of the safari was documented by my video camera.  Luckily, my CCS friends were able to take some great pictures that I’m sure they will share.

We stopped for breakfast at the hippo pool, and then started our hunt for lions.  As we reached another open plain, we saw a couple of safari vehicles stopped ahead.  They spotted some lions.  We drove up and turned off the car for at least 1/2 hour.  There were four lions…a mother and her three almost grown cubs (2 females, 1 male).  The four of them formed a line, each about a football field away from the other.  Slowly, they would walk, one at a time, towards the safari vehicles on the road.  Three of them walked directly past our car, and then sat down less than 10 feet away from us.  So cool!

 After spending some time with the lions, it was time to head back to the campsite to eat lunch and pack up.  We spotted four more lions near a pond as we drove, one of which was an older male with an amazing mane.

As we left the campsite, our elephant friend came back for a few photo ops!  Crazy that this thing could have greeted me as I walked out of my tent the night before!

After a quick stop for camel rides, we were on our way back to Moshi.  Dirty, tired, but so thrilled about our first safari experience.