Today was one of the most richly experiential days of my life. We arrived at Tarangire Treetops hotel in Tanzania last night in pitch black darkness. We could sense that we were in a special place from the solicitousness of the staff, the polish and shine throughout the main lodge, the extravagance of the dinner, and the amenities, but it wasn't until I awoke this morning that I realized how other worldly this place is.
Meet "my" tree. This is where I sleep. It's a room nestled in a Baobab tree. Showering is like standing under a waterfall. There is mosquito netting everywhere as we are in malaria country and the bugs are as plentiful as the cattle being herded here there and everywhere by the Maasai.
Each person gets their own tree, and we are not allowed to walk from our tree back and forth to the lodge after dark, because large animals, such as rogue Elephant Bulls are known to frequent these parts. Apparently you don't want to run into those dudes on your own. So a kindly Maasai tribesman or a Treetops worker escorts you to and from. It feels pretty hard core. Pretty on the edge. Pretty "this is the way people have always lived until very recently." I guess what I'm saying is, I feel pretty darn human out here in the Bush, and it's wonderful to get acquainted with that piece of myself.We embarked upon our safari at 8:30am, leaving Treetops for what would be a 3.5 hour drive through the Bush. At first we only saw small animals -- an astonishing number of which were familiar to me from The Lion King (hornbill, warthog), in addition to a rock that looked like THE "pride rock" from the movie. Go figure. Anyway. Soon we began seeing the big guys. A family of mother elephants and babies only feet away from us, for instance.
And when one mother crossed the road to get away from the cars, her baby started to trumpet his displeasure or distress and the other mothers immediately swooped in to protect him, and his own mother came crashing back across the street. So of course the mother that I am had a lump in my throat watching. Our guide Ndosi told us that elephants stay in their mother's care until between 15-18 years of age, which humanized them in our minds even more. In the photos, the baby elephant is here first, followed by about a third of the whole the herd, taken with the car in view so you can see the proximity of them to us. After a day like today I don't know how I will stand seeing these magnificent creatures, or any animal for that matter, in a zoo. After the elephants we came up a recently killed zebra, with a lioness nearby. She was resting in the shade, presumably tired and full after her kill and meal. Oddly, the zebra had not been devoured, not by a long shot. As you can see from the photo, only the hind end had been eaten. We couldn't see any other lions around but knowing they travel in prides we were sure they were there -- perhaps watching our every move as intently as we were watching for them. The lioness appeared to be taking a nap -- using a tortoise as a pillow, to boot -- when a herd of zebras came walking through, single file, from the watering hole. The zebra appeared oblivious to the presence of the lioness, but the lioness must have sensed their presence because she perked up. We knew she was not hungry -- she had practically an entire zebra she'd just killed about 20 yards away, but she sat up and watched each and every one of them walk by. Then, once they had passed, she notice a vulture had landed and was about to snack on her kill, and she got up and bounded over to the kill with a low growl, causing the vulture to immediately take off into the air. All of this played out about 20 yards from our car, if that. These pictures don't do it justice! Notice in the third one that the lioness is in the far left corner, bottom, and the zebra are walking by in the far right/top of the photo. Oh criminey, I can't get that photo to load, so you're just going to have to take my word for it until I can try again.
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