Safari Pictures

Real Life, by Ananda Ellis
Monday, December 24, 2007

Safari Pictures

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The views of safari! Here. we're staring out from Oldonyo Sambu in Tanzania.

Here's a picture of our monstrous trucks (they used to be for military purposes). Yet, our huge trucks are dwarfed by this tree, known as a baobob. If you're familiar with the lion king, this tree is the one that Rafiki lives in in the movie.

Impala running away from us.

Twiga!!! (twiga is swahili for giraffe)

This is a typical safari scene. All the trees are acacia and you can get pretty close to the wildlife. Here, we're in Tarangire National Park in Tanzania.

Zebra... we saw them a lot and they're always in fair sized groups.

Ummmm... so are you beginning to see why I loved safari so much. This is what we did for class, for a month. Can't ask for much more than that.

We were so excited when we got to see our first lion. The next day, we even saw a lone lioness take down a wildebeest and then drag it into the shade to eat it. It was amazing to be able to witness that.

These guys are so weird to see up close. It's just odd to think that a bird as large as an ostrich could exist.

A group of baboons, just chilling under a tree in the heat of the day.

Just an example of how close we get to the wildlife at times. As long as we're in the truck, the animals aren't as scaried of us. The second you get out of that truck, they see an outline of a human and run.

One day we hiked down to a waterfall where it was lush greenery everywhere. You wouldn't really expect to find that in Africa, would you? We were so hot by the time we got down there, that we stripped down and ran into the freezing cold water. It was a great treat.

A sunset from Yaida Valley. This is the campsite where we met the Hadza and had the opportunity to hunt with them (wher my group killed a baboon).

Cool!

These are the hippos we saw in Ngorongoro Crater. They we just chillin in the water, sleeping. The seem to not care about personal space to much. I'm surprised they could all breathe.

Chris up in a huge!!! tree.

Me staring out over the Serengeti. It was towards the end of safari and I was really sad it was coming to a close, we all were.

Toward the end, we each had a Maasai family we stayed with for three days. Most of our familes didn't speak Swahili and non spoke English. It was a lot of pushing us for us to understand what we were supposed to be doing. This is my Maasai family. My mom is the one in the middle, she looks like she could be my sister, which she could. She has three kids and couldn't be a day over 28. The house behind them is our boma, the place they live and I stayed in for my duration with them. It was a lot of hard work.

To end off the trip, let's camp under this active volcano that happens to be in the process of errupting. See all the smoke and ash spewing out of the top. It was safe, but we sure didn't feel like it was. I thought we were going to wake up and have to run for our lives.

Hey!

If you haven't read my latest blog (posted a day before this) then read that first before going through these pictures. The latest blog includes accounts of the last month of my trip in Africa... so basically I talked about safari! I downloaded half of my pictures too, but my computer battery died before I could get my safari pictures up. So, here are the safari pictures to the right of this text.

And again, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me at aellis@lclark.edu.

Have a great winter break!

Ananda

Ananda Ellis
Class of 2009

From:
Boulder, Colorado

Major:
Biology major, Art minor

Lives:
Odell

Previously...

Two Truths and a Lie
Well, I’m all done with my semester. Actually, I have been for… three weeks now. We ended on Decem...

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