Tanzanian Trip: There and Back Again, Chapter 5

I woke up at 6:30 and kept hearing noises like someone was tearing branches off a tree.  Once we got ready for breakfast we walked out our hut and saw monkeys in the trees above our hut.  

The Game Reserve is 50,000 km  in area, so it wasn't guaranteed that we would everything that we wanted to see. 

We ate breakfast and met our guide, Silas, at the jeep for our Game Drive.  We drove for about ten minutes to the entrance of the Game Reserve, but before we made it to the actual entrance we had to stop to let about 50 baboons (and some warthogs-just like Pumba) cross the road. 

We saw giraffes everywhere.  The giraffes were pretty scared of the jeep, or in Silas' words "Shy". 

They stayed still if we were still, but walked away if we started to move again. 

Some zebras hanging out behind the giraffe. 

We were driving through some pretty thick green jungle-like trees and plants and all of a sudden this popped out:

We stopped the jeep and then the elephant put his trunk up in the air to smell us!  He walked back in the trees and went around us the long way.  

We had just seen a lot of hippos, giraffes, and birds in a watering hole and then this little troop of elephants popped out of the trees.  I can't get enough of the little bitty one!!!

This one was scared of us, and walked over to the tree and started trying to intimidate us by brushing back and forth in the trees. I started to get a little nervous that it was gonna get brave and come too close, but he ran behind us pretty fast. 

We stopped for lunch under a tree, and our task for after lunch was to try to find the lions. 

We passed a few other jeeps and they told Silas that they had seen lions down by a watering hole.  Silas drove us over to that area, and we came upon this:

That is a dead water buffalo on the left side of the picture.  The ground is extremely muddy as you can tell by her legs.  She is panting so hard, and looks exhausted. (cue yawn)

 Hello Jungle Book.  Under the tree are 4 lions and a dead wildebeest, and the vultures are waiting at the top of the for the lions to move away from the food. 

 I'm trying to smile, even though this is a little too close for comfort!!!  The lion was getting up to move to the other side of the water buffalo because a vulture was on the ground trying to get closer to the buffalo. 

These animals are tuckered out!!!

I was very thankful that we were able to get out of the mud.  I was about to panic. 

On our way back to the camp we saw some other jeeps looking at something under some trees, so we followed them over there.  We had been looking for the Wild Dogs because it's the only place they are, and we found them!

 Just a few more zebras before we made it back to our camp.

It was an awesome day! It's so surreal. It's hard to believe that the animals just happen to live there, and it's not a setup.