By Mirabelle

After almost being eaten by a lion in Ngorongoro we were off to the Serengeti! This national park is one of my new favorites in the country of Tanzania because of its beauty, animals, and wide-open landscapes. After a 2-and-a-half-hour drive, we found ourselves with hospitality and fresh mango juice at the Kirurumu tent camp getting ready to unpack our suit-cases. The next day we headed off into the wild in hopes of finding cheetahs, zebras and a warthog

After waking up, getting dressed, and eating some breakfast (which included these veggie frittatas with onions and peppers that were decadent) we met up with our amazing tour guide Lesikar who drove us around until we found a herd of elephants which were apparently very revolting to Caroline but they weren’t what we were looking for. Later in the day as we were laying around being bit by mosquitos,we spotted a couple of cars in the distance so we crept up behind them waiting to see something miraculous – we spotted five cheetahs. Did you know all cheetahs are identical!

On the second day I was the one with unfortunate luck seeing as I threw up before we even started to drive. But as we started our luck began to pick up as we saw two more cheetahs laying down by the shade, however that did not last long as they tried to race after Deric the warthog who definitely had no hakuna matata based on how fast he ran. He thankfully outran those cheetahs.

After that first game drive we headed back to chill out for a while and have lunch. The second game drive was much different seeing as no cheetahs were found (and Deric was in peace) but the one thing that was found interesting enough, was lions… the lions weren’t alone THEY HAD SOMETHING … SOMETHING DEAD. It turns out that a pregnant wildebeest had been taken down, not eaten but taken down. why pregnant… well apparently the lions were not in need of a meal, they were in need of a tiny, unborn, wildebeest chew toy.

Jules was excited to write about our lion encounter in Ngoronogoro, but I wanted to share a bit more about the place. We stayed at the Serena Lodge which was perched at the edge of the crater. It was a beautiful old lodge with gorgeous wood and stonework. The views were just insane. We loved seeing the sunsets and sunrises over the crater. We also saw a water buck (large deer like animal) crossing just feet from our balcony. We enjoyed the big buffet breakfasts and dinners, and I got a massage after our game drive, which was a treat.

The other cool thing they had each night was entertainment. The first night we got to see people from the Masai tribe do some dancing. The second night they had musicians and acrobats. It was very impressive!

The crater itself was gorgeous – so lush and green! All full of awesome animals. We saw 2 black rhinos, but only from far away. Saw elephants, zebras, wildebeests, water buffalo, hippos, warthogs, cranes, ostriches, gazelles and as Jules wrote about, lions! No giraffes down in the crater because they can’t get up or down the steep hills.

By Julian

The second safari place we went to was Ngorongoro Crater. Ngorongoro Crater is a crater that was formed by a volcano blowing up on itself. When we went there we saw giraffes, elephants, zebras and much more, but I will be mainly focusing on the lions. 

After we arrived we saw lots of cars gathered around one mountain and our tour guide said there must be something big, he thought it was a lion. So we drove all the way over to the hill where all the cars were and we saw that they were three lions! We stayed there for a very long time looking at all the lions who were just laying around. After we were done with that we saw a couple more cars down the hill. So we went down there and saw that there was a young male lion. 

As we were all looking at it in amazement, it started to get up and walk towards us. Dad started recording a video. Eventually it came all the way up to our car and sat underneath it where all the shade was. So Mom slowly closed her window and we all started taking photos. At first I was scared, and then I thought it was really cool to have a lion so close to us.

Lion video

by Caroline Niebauer

Baboons, giraffes, zebras, and elephants what do all these animals have in common?  They all can be found in the Lale Manyara National Park famous for its tree climbing lions which we sadly did not see.  We saw many other amazing animals like as mentioned before but I’ll be focusing on 3 the of them. Baboons, giraffes and elephants.

First baboons, we saw 100s of these interesting creatures and they are cool for many reasons but here are just a few fun facts about baboons. First they do not have hair on their butts and they are some of the worlds largest monkeys and they can grow from 27-30 inches tall (60-86 cm) and their tails can reach from 16 to 23 inches, that’s more than 50 inches in total and they can weigh about as much as a human child!

Next are giraffes, these tall creatures are very graceful despite their long legs and necks. We saw many of these at all the parks but we saw the biggest tower (group of giraffes) here. Giraffes are the tallest land mammal on earth and their legs can be more than 6 feet tall. Some other interesting facts about  these tall creatures is their tongue is a foot long and purple! Lions usually don’t go near them because if they feel threatened they will kick said lion and one kick can kill the lion.

Lastly I will be focusing on elephants, they are the largest land animal on earth. Some interesting facts about these animals is that they are targeted by many poachers because of their ivory tusks. Interestingly the way to tell African and Asian elephants apart is that African elephants ears are shaped like Africa and the adult African elephants are typically larger.

To conclude safari was very fun and I am very happy to have had to had this experience and to have seen all the animals.