Last Game Drive
As most of you know I have arrived back in the states safely. The last few days in Tanzania were so busy I never got the chance to post some pictures from my last game drive. SFS allows students to schedule one non academic game drive a semester. The students have to cover the cost of getting into the park which is about $30 a person, however it was so worth it. We decided to go to Tarangire National Park for the day. This was the park that we spent a few days in back on our first expedition.
Tarangire is a dry season safe haven, meaning that many species flood inside park boundaries during the dry season usually to stay near the Tarangire river. However, during the wet season species tend to expand their ranges farther outside the park or leave it entirely. For example, the zebra and wildebeest migrate every year north to Lake Natron near the Kenyan border during the rainy season. When we first went to Tarangire earlier in the semester we were able to go during the dry season and this most recent trip we came at the end of the short rains. It was startling the difference in the number of animals. There were so many less!
It certainly was a bittersweet day as it was the last game drive I would have in Africa. However, certainly not my last ever as I will return one day. This game drive was more relaxed as the initial excitement and typical impatience that one feels on their first game drives had subsided. Instead of being in a rush to see as much as possible I was able to enjoy the animals we did see much more thoroughly.
One of the highlights was getting to see our last lion. Unfortunately but also fortunately my car was the only one to see a large cat that day. I have been coined the "game drive good luck charm" by some fellow students as I am typically in the car that has an exiting sighting that unfortunately other cars are unable to see. Whether this was actually true or not I cannot say, but I have had uncanny luck when I have my camera around. Anyways, this particular male was quite beautiful. I found his eyes to be remarkably striking. He was wearing a radio collar, which told us that he was part of our center director's lion project in the park. It turns out that this male had been collared only a few days before. We quickly realized this male was in pain. We noticed blood on his paws and rump. His body was also covered in healed scars. The extent of his pain became apparent when he struggled to get up and walk. We weren't sure if he would even be able to stand but he did eventually get up. I posted some videos below. We did tell our center director about his lion so the people on his project were going to check on him. He assured us that he probably got into a fight with other lions and he will be just fine. We were certainly glad to hear this news.
Another part of the day that was rather comical was watching a hungry dik-dik eat its food. As we watched her chew she swallowed and then a few seconds later, up her food would come again. I took a video of this as well. It is rather gross but also kind of funny so enjoy I guess!
I hope you enjoy some of my last photos from Tanzania. They are not as amazing as some of the ones from other game drives but there are a few of them that I am excited about. My plan is to hopefully get one more post up in the next week or so reflecting on my experience as a whole and touching on any reverse culture shock I experienced. Eventually I will be posting a photo gallery to my website of my favorite shots of the semester. Stay tuned!
