This Thanksgiving Holiday Was a Little Different Than the Others

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As promised, I’m going to start typing up an account of our 5 day safari, though it might end up taking me almost 5 days to finish typing up the thing.  We’ll see.  All in all it was absolutely astonishing.  It didn’t take me long at all to realize that this is one of those things people should add to their bucket list of things to do before they die.  I mean, I’ve seen pictures of a bunch of other young people around my age who go on safari and it seems like they just always end up taking the same photos, seeing the same animals, doing the same things, etc.  I get it, whatever, you took pictures from a car of some animals.  It’s not the same to see the pictures because they’re your memories.  I could go through 60 photos in maybe two minutes.  This was what I would think when I would see other photos from people’s safaris in the past and this is probably what you will think when you see my pictures.  I’m sorry for this because pictures clearly do not do the experience justice.  I was absolutely amazed and it was so awesome, especially the initial excitement of being in such an active national park.  Hopefully I’m able to convey a better reality of what safari actually was like for me better than just showing some pictures that look like anyone could have taken them.  You should be able to tell by now that it wasn’t just like any other trip out of town.

To begin with, let’s do some vocabulary.  “Safari” in Kiswahili just means like a trip or journey, so if you see something like “Safari njema” it’s like saying “have a good trip.”  “Habari za safari?” could basically just mean “how was your trip”, not necessarily that you went on what we traditionally think of as a real African safari.  So we started our safari on Wednesday morning where our cool safari SUVs picked us up outside of the administration building.  It was awkward carrying a suitcase across campus and sitting in an area of heavy foot traffic on Wednesday morning with a bunch of white people and their luggage so I was eager to get moving.  I sat next to Jessy who unfortunately goes to Oregon State but it was a good ride because we got to practice our Swahili and talk about some other things too.  It seemed like we both had some other stuff on our mind and it was hard to be as excited as we should be about doing something so cool or even just getting to go on a five day trip.  I kept trying to think about eating awesome food for free and that was working for a while but when something’s troubling you, no imaginary buffets or animals can keep you distracted for long enough.  The real thing, however, can.  The main road out west towards Zambia and western Tanzania actually runs through Mikumi National Park so even when you’re not in the reserve part that you have to pay to drive through, you can still see a lot of animals along the side of the road during this 20-40 kilometer stretch.  We saw a lot of antelopes around but they weren’t that impressive.  We drove slowly though and pulled over often on the way to check into our hotel which was just outside of the other end of the park.  The roof on the safari vehicles pops up so we could stand and take photographs or get a good 360 degree view.

Nothing will compare with the first giraffes I really saw maybe 50 yards from the road.  I don’t know why and I can’t really explain it, but it was just so cool for me.  I still remember there was one standing and one kind of laying down or something but the one on the ground was still so huge.  I thought it had to be fake because it was just monstrous and I had to laugh because it was just unreal.  With that sight in mind, we continued driving and now I was definitely excited that we would be going out for an evening game drive.  We got to the hotel, checked in just fine, ordered lunch, and relaxed for a little bit.  It was a pretty nice room actually and we were excited to find two separate, decent sized beds in each room as well as an actual shower that wasn’t just a shower head in a wall with the drain hole somewhere else across the bathroom.  The only downside was that the menu wasn’t quite as impressive as we had all hoped and there was no buffet.  Also the power had been out for about a week in this town because something major was busted and they needed to get a replacement or something important like that.  They had a generator to turn on at night for lights and stuff, but if I was wiser, I would have thought twice before ordering prawns masala from a place several hours from the coast without working refrigerators.  It was still alright though and we didn’t have to worry about the buffet because Dylan and I took the role of garbage dumpster, clearing everyone else’s plates at the end of each meal.  Every meal at these hotels was several courses too, a very nice surprise.  Lunch and dinner came with soup before the main course then fruit or a dessert afterwards with tea.  I’m definitely starting to appreciate being spoiled in hotels now which I wasn’t comfortable with before.

Our evening game drive brought us into the actual park where we had a very quick trip through the “museum” while our guides were figuring out our permits or whatever.  Ken rushed us along so we weren’t even able read anything though they had a nice display case, complete with photo evidence and bar graphs, describing road kill incidents in the park.  Fascinating (not really).  Everything was cleared and we were on our way.  They allowed a few of us to climb out and sit on roof of the car with our legs still dangling inside the car.  It was really cool just to take in the scenery and to actually be there.  It was so scenic and just like all of the pictures you’ve ever seen though except you have the liberty to focus on different things and get a full view of every direction, feel the bumps of the road, watch the animals in motion, and feel the heat of the evening sun.  The sky is so big, like when you drive through parts of Montana or the west where it’s almost like there’s more sky than earth.  Everything just looks so awesome that you can’t stop looking in every direction.  There will be more antelope on the left or zebras on the right.  You can see giraffes in the trees and elephants not far from that.  There were many water buffaloes, some wildebeests and even a few warthogs.  Not only that, but the nature, trees and such, just looks so cool and it’s all hitting you at once.  These animals aren’t very shy either and they just walk right across the road in front of you or are hanging out right next to other animals.  It’s so different than seeing them all isolated in a zoo.  They actually are able to take as much room as they want and they aren’t completely separated from all of the other species of animals.  Just really awesome to watch the interaction for real with their environment.

Once again, I was most impressed by far by the giraffes.  Finally I found another gangly, awkward creature that’s tall.  They were everywhere too and they seemed to watch us just as much as we watched them.  Like I said, I don’t know what it is about them but I just really liked them.  I can’t even describe their demeanor but they don’t seem to fuss or worry or be as uptight as the other animals.  Our guide and driver can’t even recall hearing them ever make a sound before.  You just need to be in their presence to feel it.  This one girl in our program has been excited to see giraffes since she got off the plane and everyone knew this.  I won’t mention her name, but she was in the other car taking photos and she got so excited when we first started seeing a bunch of giraffes that she shouted “This is my dream!!!” and we’ve been kind of making fun of her sense but it was just the most pure expression of joy and excitement I’ve heard here and she couldn’t even hold it back, even if she wishes she could now.  They are just awesome.  You have to experience it and then you’ll know.  I actually don’t know if everyone else thought they were as cool as I did, but it was still pretty sweet.

So now I’m at the part of the story that the photo from my last post is from.  We stopped the cars on the road near a tree where three young male lions were just napping and lazing around.  We were about 30 feet from the closest one to the road and they’re telling us to play it cool, just relax, and not make a lot of movements or noises.  I snapped off so many pictures and was just thinking it was crazy to be sitting almost entirely outside of the car this close to three sleeping lions.  They were pretty full, we supposed because they just hung out, rolled around, and yawned the whole time we were there and weren’t too interested in us.  The giraffes were interested in us though and they kept congregating off to the side, a respectable distance from the lions.  At one point there were about 40 of them I’d estimate – no joke – just a little ways away watching us watch the lions.  I swear they were watching us, waiting for us to make a mistake, and they got their chance.  I had already been told not to move around so much because I was pissing off the close lion, but things were cool.  I leaned back on the roof with my sunglasses resting in my hair.  As I got about level with the roof of the car, the sunglasses start to slip.  They slide from my head, slowly down the back of the car.  Everyone can hear this and all eyes turn my way as they take an eternity to fall off the back off the car, hit the spare tire or something on the way down, and finally crash to the ground.  Oh shit.  I’m sure a few eyes bugged and jaws dropped, but I was too busy covering my face in shame.  “Scott,” says Ken, our director with disappointment in his voice, “you need to get back down into the car right now.”  I slide back in and plop down, ashamed, happy to not have been pounced on, but still disappointed that the sunglasses Quinn gave me might be lost forever.  Everyone keeps looking at me, at the lion, down at the sunglasses.  What comes next?  They were free for her, so it shouldn’t be that big of a deal.  There’s probably no cooler way to lose sunglasses either, right?  Also, nobody should have to get mauled over a pair of plastic shades.  I’m too busy dreading the ridicule from Ken that I will surely have to endure forever from this point on to even take photos anymore.  To finish the story, the next five minutes or so were torturous but the driver from the other car decided that he could pull around and reach out his door to grab them.  It got the people in the other car even closer to the lions so they probably got even better photos and it got the sunglasses back, though now I can never lose them or break them because they’ve just been through too much.

The rest of the night wasn’t as eventful.  We were just tired from travel and just wondering what was in store for tomorrow, Thanksgiving.  It most definitely wasn’t my typical gray morning in Oregon.  We were set to just do one long drive through the park today and it is most definitely much hotter with more intense sun when you drive around, hanging out the car during the middle of the day.  Things weren’t as exciting the second time around and to kill time we sort of just stayed in one place with the engine off for a while watching all around us.  It was still alright though.  We went to the hippo pool where you just see all these huge things sitting in water, trying to stay cool.  They just randomly start snorting really loudly sometimes too but they aren’t the most exciting or majestic creatures.  There were some pretty big crocodiles in the pond with them too and I felt like I should probably watch my step around the edge of the pool.  We drove around from there a little more though, saw some more animals.  I like zebras too, by the way.  Their fur is actually pretty cool and a little trippy to stare at it.  Giraffes are still cooler though.

Our lunches were packed by the hotel, I think, and there was a little gazebo place for us to eat lunch, use the bathroom and wash our hands.  My Thanksgiving lunch consisted of a banana, a hard boiled egg, a butter sandwich (I think they just buttered bread, put it together, and cut it like a sandwich – not that good) and some old fried chicken that was in saran wrap.  We did go around the group and say what we are thankful though and talk about a few other topics.  The second thing they asked was what everyone missed most and when it got to me, I just said “I think just about everyone here already knows my answer for this one.”  “Oh, Quinn,” they say.  Yeah, they know her name here and everyone’s had to listen to me and all my troubles in the last month.  I’m sorry to embarrass you, Quinn, but I’m still madly in love with her and I miss her like crazy.  Just about every time you read that I’ve got other things from home on my mind in this blog, it’s her I’m thinking about.  It’s not easy to not have available internet to communicate with or a near end in sight to this trip and that’s been by far the hardest thing I’ve had to deal with and am still dealing with everyday.  You learn what you really appreciate though when you no longer have it and I’ve realized that I can live without almost all of my possessions but nothing’s been harder than being without her.

We came back in the early afternoon from our daylong drive around Mikumi National Reserve or Game Park, I’m not sure which.  I had taken more photos in the last two days with my camera than in the entire two years that I have had it, so awesome.  The rest of our day would be spent relaxing and eating dinner eventually.  I took a nap which may have been what kept me from sleeping well later that night (that and the mosquitoes buzzing right by my face and the heat without power to run the fan).  There was also a “snake park” in the same parking lot as our hotel which was fun to check out.  It wasn’t that cool except they had a black mamba that could easily destroy me.  If you walk along the snake pens long enough though, you end up at the place where they have little bunnies and stuff for them to eat and it gets really depressing really fast.  The next time we came back, there were just dead little birds scattered around all of the snake cages.  They also had some uninteresting turtles and tortoises and some very obese crocodiles.  I almost touched this huge one the second time I came around and I feel like I could have gotten away with it, though that’s probably what the croc wants you to think.  I got out of there before I did it, though I still wonder if this was the right decision.  Speaking of decisions, I thought it would be good to order the most Thanksgiving-like dinner I could so my original order was fried chicken and mashed potatoes.  I didn’t feel like fried chicken though after lunch because it was just too greasy and I’d already tried the potatoes so I decided to get the most original dinner I could think of: Spaghetti Bolognese and Samosas.  Unfortunately, the spaghetti noodles arrived without any sauce, I guess “Bolognese” doesn’t mean meat sauce like I was told.  Overall, it was… interesting.  I’ve definitely had better Thanksgiving dinners though… as in every other Thanksgiving dinner.

People were getting calls all day and same with the next day from their families.  I caved and called Quinn even though I don’t have a calling card and left her a message.  She called back in a couple minutes, doing the same crazy thing and we got in a rushed two minute conversation.  I love that woman.  My parents did eventually call later and my aunt Janice did call the next day too so I was feeling a little loved.  Our days in Mikumi were over though and we had a 60 kilometer ride out to the Udzungwa Mountains in Mang’ula ahead of us where we were going to do some hiking.  We loaded up the cars and set off towards our new home for the next two days…

End of Part I