Saturday, January 13th
Howdy Y’all! It’s Jake again, here are the last three days of blogs from the safari group.
Devin: 1/11/18
Gear up for my second blog! This is Devin again, but this blog will be much shorter than my first. We traveled to Tarangire National Park today, about a 2 hour drive, to start our 3 day safari. Even though it rained most of the day, we saw a ton of different animals, starting with a black faced velvet monkey outside the park’s restrooms. We took plenty of great pictures to share. Derek’s favorite part of the safari today was seeing the lions and the zebras. Rachael really enjoyed when we opened the top of the Jeep. She said you could see for miles and miles across the land. Her favorite animals were the zebras and elephants. Hailey’s favorite animals were the giraffes and elephants. She especially found it entertaining watching them eat. Julius’ (our first safari driver) loved seeing the cute little baby black faced velvet monkeys playing. He also enjoyed seeing the “honeymoon lions” because it is unusual to see the lions mating. Ryan also enjoyed the honeymoon lions and he also liked all of the small, pretty colored birds. Mikayla’s favorite part of the day was seeing the elephants and how close they got to the jeeps. She also thought the baby warthogs were super cute. Jake liked how close all the animals got to us, especially the elephants, lions, and zebras. Laizae, our second safari driver, enjoyed the rain we had to today and he was grateful that the roads weren’t slippery. Crystal like the little baby monkeys, being close to the elephants, and the baboon we saw on the side of the road. Dr. K’s highlight of the entire trip were the lions we got to see today. Our safari guides were really, really great. They are so knowledgeable and you can tell that they love their jobs and sharing their interesting facts. Look out for the blog about our travels tomorrow as we head to Ngorongoro Crater Park and we hike to Elephant Cave.
Hailey: 1/12/18
Hello everyone! It’s Hailey again. Today we travelled to the Ngorongoro Crater. According to Julius, it is one of the seven natural wonders of the world. As we made our way there, we were greeted by a bunch of baboons. Then, we had to drive around the outer rim for about 25 minutes. I know everyone in my car was a little bit scared because we didn’t want to go over the rim. On the rim, we stopped at an outlook to look down into the crater. It was hard to see, though, because of the fog. It was also really cold compared to what we had seen the last few days. However, it probably wasn’t as cold as it is back home.
With the crater there is only one entrance and one exit. As we went down the exit, we started to see zebra intermingling with the cattle. We also saw a few Mosi homes. Another thing we saw were giraffes, which could only be seen on the outer sides of the crater because that was the only area with trees.
Once inside, we saw tons of animals. It was amazing how many we saw. You couldn’t go a few meters without seeing a wildebeest or antelope. One of the neatest things we saw was the aftermath of a pride of lions killing a buffalo. It was amazing to see God’s creatures in their natural habitat. The lions were finishing up, while the hyenas started to circle around for their turn at the buffalo. We also saw a rhino, one of the big five, right after that. I could barely see it just by looking at it, but I was able to observe it with binoculars. More animals that we saw included hippopotamuses, warthogs, storks, elephants, and various types of birds and antelopes.
After we left the crater, we made our journey to elephant cave. We had a 45 minute hike to the area, where we saw two elephants in the river. We had to let them pass before we could see the cave. The elephant cave is known to have pregnant elephants come to it because of the calcium and other elements that aids the pregnancy. After that we hiked a little farther to look over the top of a waterfall. Then, we made our way back to the entrance. The team was very tired by then and we were all ready to go back to the lodge and eat. It was all worth it, though, being able to see some of God’s most amazing creations.
Jake: 1/13/18
Today we saw two local tribes near Karatu.
Hadzabe Tribe
The first tribe was composed of hunters and gatherers. The men use bow and arrows to hunt, and the women gather edible plants as well as make beads, bracelets, and other things. The boys begin training with a bow and arrow at 5 years old with smaller training bows. At 10 years the boys have to construct their own long bows and begin hunting with the men. Along with their bows, each hunter makes his own arrows. Each hunter has a unique pattern for his arrows so they can determine who the arrows belong to during the hunt. There are four types of arrows that are made by the tribe. 1: sharpened wooden arrow, 2: sharpened wooden arrow with a barb, 3: metal arrow head, 4: poisoned metal arrow head. While we were with them, they killed 2 birds. We then watched how they prepared the birds to eat, and we ended the visit watching a traditional dance of the tribe.
Saturday, January 13th
Howdy Y’all! It’s Jake again, here are the last three days of blogs from the safari group.
Devin: 1/11/18
Gear up for my second blog! This is Devin again, but this blog will be much shorter than my first. We traveled to Tarangire National Park today, about a 2 hour drive, to start our 3 day safari. Even though it rained most of the day, we saw a ton of different animals, starting with a black faced velvet monkey outside the park’s restrooms. We took plenty of great pictures to share. Derek’s favorite part of the safari today was seeing the lions and the zebras. Rachael really enjoyed when we opened the top of the Jeep. She said you could see for miles and miles across the land. Her favorite animals were the zebras and elephants. Hailey’s favorite animals were the giraffes and elephants. She especially found it entertaining watching them eat. Julius’ (our first safari driver) loved seeing the cute little baby black faced velvet monkeys playing. He also enjoyed seeing the “honeymoon lions” because it is unusual to see the lions mating. Ryan also enjoyed the honeymoon lions and he also liked all of the small, pretty colored birds. Mikayla’s favorite part of the day was seeing the elephants and how close they got to the jeeps. She also thought the baby warthogs were super cute. Jake liked how close all the animals got to us, especially the elephants, lions, and zebras. Laizae, our second safari driver, enjoyed the rain we had to today and he was grateful that the roads weren’t slippery. Crystal like the little baby monkeys, being close to the elephants, and the baboon we saw on the side of the road. Dr. K’s highlight of the entire trip were the lions we got to see today. Our safari guides were really, really great. They are so knowledgeable and you can tell that they love their jobs and sharing their interesting facts. Look out for the blog about our travels tomorrow as we head to Ngorongoro Crater Park and we hike to Elephant Cave.
Hailey: 1/12/18
Hello everyone! It’s Hailey again. Today we travelled to the Ngorongoro Crater. According to Julius, it is one of the seven natural wonders of the world. As we made our way there, we were greeted by a bunch of baboons. Then, we had to drive around the outer rim for about 25 minutes. I know everyone in my car was a little bit scared because we didn’t want to go over the rim. On the rim, we stopped at an outlook to look down into the crater. It was hard to see, though, because of the fog. It was also really cold compared to what we had seen the last few days. However, it probably wasn’t as cold as it is back home.
With the crater there is only one entrance and one exit. As we went down the exit, we started to see zebra intermingling with the cattle. We also saw a few Mosi homes. Another thing we saw were giraffes, which could only be seen on the outer sides of the crater because that was the only area with trees.
Once inside, we saw tons of animals. It was amazing how many we saw. You couldn’t go a few meters without seeing a wildebeest or antelope. One of the neatest things we saw was the aftermath of a pride of lions killing a buffalo. It was amazing to see God’s creatures in their natural habitat. The lions were finishing up, while the hyenas started to circle around for their turn at the buffalo. We also saw a rhino, one of the big five, right after that. I could barely see it just by looking at it, but I was able to observe it with binoculars. More animals that we saw included hippopotamuses, warthogs, storks, elephants, and various types of birds and antelopes.
After we left the crater, we made our journey to elephant cave. We had a 45 minute hike to the area, where we saw two elephants in the river. We had to let them pass before we could see the cave. The elephant cave is known to have pregnant elephants come to it because of the calcium and other elements that aids the pregnancy. After that we hiked a little farther to look over the top of a waterfall. Then, we made our way back to the entrance. The team was very tired by then and we were all ready to go back to the lodge and eat. It was all worth it, though, being able to see some of God’s most amazing creations.
Jake: 1/13/18
Today we saw two local tribes near Karatu.
Hadzabe Tribe
The first tribe was composed of hunters and gatherers. The men use bow and arrows to hunt, and the women gather edible plants as well as make beads, bracelets, and other things. The boys begin training with a bow and arrow at 5 years old with smaller training bows. At 10 years the boys have to construct their own long bows and begin hunting with the men. Along with their bows, each hunter makes his own arrows. Each hunter has a unique pattern for his arrows so they can determine who the arrows belong to during the hunt. There are four types of arrows that are made by the tribe. 1: sharpened wooden arrow, 2: sharpened wooden arrow with a barb, 3: metal arrow head, 4: poisoned metal arrow head. While we were with them, they killed 2 birds. We then watched how they prepared the birds to eat, and we ended the visit watching a traditional dance of the tribe.
Datoga Tribe
The second tribe we visited makes the arrowheads used by the first tribe. They are primarily blacksmiths and raise cattle. They showed us how they grind up corn, melt metal down into different shapes, and how they create knives from the metal.
The last group we visited were the Massai. Here we all took part in a traditional welcome dance, saw their homes, and visited their kindergarten class.
Overall the trip was a success! We all had a lot of fun and saw a lot of new things.
Datoga Tribe
The second tribe we visited makes the arrowheads used by the first tribe. They are primarily blacksmiths and raise cattle. They showed us how they grind up corn, melt metal down into different shapes, and how they create knives from the metal.
The last group we visited were the Massai. Here we all took part in a traditional welcome dance, saw their homes, and visited their kindergarten class.
Overall the trip was a success! We all had a lot of fun and saw a lot of new things.
