We stayed at the Hilux Hotel in Morogoro friday night (about an hour outside of Mikumi National Park) and dragged ourselves out of bed at the crack of dawn to ensure we had an early start on our Safari. We arrived at the entrance to Mikumi greeted by a small group of Baboons (Nyani)! It was as if they knew we were coming and insisted on a proper greeting (we did not see any more Baboons until we were leaving wierdly as if to bid us adieu...Great marketing technique!). Once we entered the Lodge entrance area we were able to see various herds of animals in the distance (African Buffalo (Nyate), impala (swalapala), elephants (Ndovu - also a fine Tanzanian Beer!). After the initial shock of this sight our next surprise was realizing that a family of elephants was drinking from a small pond about 30 feet from where we were enjoying a cup of coffee!
Our heavy duty safari jeeps arrived shortly thereafter and off we went exploring the rest of Mikumi for the remainder of the day. We saw several other wild animals like Giraffe (twiga), zebra (punda milia), wildebeast (nyumba), hippopotamus (Kiboku), crocodile (mamba) and of course Simba (lion)! We also had the pleasure of seeing giant millipedes (they tickle when they crawl on you...ick!) and a very colourful bird called a lilac breasted roller. The landscape was amazing and we saw many Baobab trees - in fact we were able to climb one and took some really fun pictures of the team.
We spent the night in the Mikumi lodge and had the experience of hearing a lion roar a couple of times and an elephant trumpet...it was very surreal going to bed knowing that such wildlife was literally in your backyard!
In short Mikumi was an awesome experience...
No comments:
Post a Comment