Safari!

I have spent the past week living at the Jesuit Novitiate. I decided to
come out here to Arusha for a little bit of vacation. Well, I seemed to
have plopped myself down right into the middle of more research. I am,
however, taking it at a relaxing pace. I think the only way I'll ever
get a true vacation from the research is if go to a mzungu resort or if
I go to a Muslim country. Well, I am going to Zanzibar next week!

Anyways, while out here I did make a trip to Ngorogoro crater and Lake
Manyara. It was a two-day safari. I booked it the day before and ended
up leaving with two Japanese girls. Our drive was a man named Joshua who
was from Bukoba. As we were leaving we stopped by his home to leave some
money for his brother, who suffers from HIV.

Lake Manyara was a wonderful jungle. I saw elephants, monkeys, baboons,
giraffes, gazelles, hartebeests, hippos, and wildebeests. At Ngorogoro
crater I also saw buffalo, lions, zebras (living and dead) and hyenas.

Ngorogoro Crater was truly something else. It is the inside of a
mountain about the size of Crater Lake. There are two small lakes inside
and the rest is savanna. You can see animals from a great distance away.

I don't know who has more herding instinct, the wildebeest or the
tourist. Whenever there was a suspicion that one of the big five might
be in an area, we swarmed. Soon you had a line up of about 10 tour cars,
all trying to get their glimpse of the lion.

Such seemed to be the case when we saw about 15 cars stopped in the
road. We drove over to see what the occasion was. Well, it seems that a
truck had gotten stuck in the mud and was half submersed in the water.
Pretty soon there were 20 cars stopped in the road, all blocked in by
the cars behind them. I warned the people in the back so that they might
turn around. What happens? One tourist says, oh neat, I'm going to go
take a photo. It was very much like the scene of an accident. Everyone
standing around, no one doing anything. None of the trucks had wood or a
shovel to dig them out. They tried dragging it out with a chain, but to
no avail.

I also got to see a pack of hyenas feasting on a dead zebra. I guess
they eat everything, including the bones.

After two days of standing out of the sunroof of a truck, lips burned
and face a nice shade of pink, I returned to lovely Arusha.

Pics will be up on facebook soon.