The Animals

THE REASON WE WENT TO AFRICA WAS TO SEE THE ANIMALS AND WE DEFINITELY WERE NOT DISAPPOINTED!!!!


We saw the Big 5 and the Big 10.  Larry told us the way to remember the Big 5 -BELLR, which stands for the Cape Buffalo, Elephant, Lion, Leopard, and Rhino.  We made up a pneumonic device for the next 5 in the Big 10 - CHEZGiraffe, which stands for Cheetah, Hippo, Eland, Zebra, Giraffe.  In addition we saw hundreds of other animals!

In just one game viewing we saw the following:  bush bucks, zebras, wildebeests, Grant gazelles, abdims storks, warthogs, spotted jackels, cheetahs, hyenas, Thompson gazelles, white storks, flamingoes, great crown cranes, bull elephants, spotted hyenas, lions, eland, silver-backed jackel, caracal cat, fowls, black rhino (mother and baby), white rhino, yellow-billed black kite, tons of other birds, and hippos.  Whew, and that was probably in about a 4 hour game drive!  Many of the animals, like the lions, were within 10 feet of us, some lying practically on the wheels of our vehicles.

Although we viewed game all along our driving routes and even outside our lodges and tented camps, much of the more densely viewing took place in the following areas:  Lake Naivasha, Amboseli National Park, the Ngorongoro Crater, and the Serengeti National Park.


Lake Naivasha is a freshwater lake in Kenya's beautiul Great Rift Valley which we followed for many days.  The Great Rift Valley extends from Lebanon in the north to Mozambique in the south.  It is home to crashes of hippos and more than 400 different bird species.  


Amboseli National Park is located on the border of Tanzania and lies in shadow of beautiful Mount Kilimanjaro.  Amboseli shelters more than 400 different bird species, including pelicans, flamingos, kingfishers, and ibis.  Amboseli's elephants, which are said to be among the biggest in the country, are fond of the swamps, where they share the cool waters with the hippos that hide beneath the papyrus.  Amboseli is also home to a very large resident population of wildebeest and Burchell's zebra.


Rising high above the plains west of Arusha, Tanzania, Ngorongoro Crater is a UNESCO World Heritage Site home to a uique and delicate ecosystem.  The largest volcanic caldera in the world, (at nearly 13 miles across, with steep walls of over 2,000 feet), Ngorongoro Crater was once a volcano the size of Mt Kilimanjaro, with a rim set 7,500 feet above sea level, the highest altitude we reached on our trip.  Because of a permanent supply of water and a precise balance of predator and prey, most of the wildlife remains in the crater year-round.  In Ngorongoro Crater we encountered thriving populations of animals that, decades ago, would have been destroyed by the skin and ivory trade, such as cheetahs, rhinos, and in the crater's forested areas, older elephants with magnificent tusks.

The Serengeti, which means "endless plains" or "endless land" in the Maasai language, is without doubt one of the most famous locales in all of Africa.  The Serengeti stretches over 5,700 square miles of plains, riverine bush, and acacia woodland.  In this huge protected area, the multitude and diversity of wildlife species are unrivaled anywhere on the planet - especially during the migration season, when over 200,000 zebra and 500,000 wildebeest thunder across the plains in pursuit of the rains.  This region also contains clues to our own origins.  It was here in 1959 that scientists discovered the oldest known specimens of humanity in Oldupai Gorge (more familiarly known as "Olduvai" Gorge) in the Eastern part of the Serengeti.