Hakuna Matata: The Giraffe Was SO Close to Us!!

Two Saturdays ago (the 21st), our house (minus Karina since she had already been) went to Arusha National Park for the day. Our driver (Kabelela) picked us up at our house in the Green Monster (picture later in the post). Kabelela is a paid driver by the hospital, and Nate and I actually met him the weekend before when we went to the Maasai send-off. We drove about thirty minutes to get to the park, paid our entrance fee, and then immediately saw giraffes (Swahili = twiga) at the entrance. This was the view greeting us as we entered the park:

Good morning Twiga!

We got to stand up through the sun roofs in the Green Monster!

Just the usual water buffalo and warthogs...

Lots of baboons!!

Black and white Colobus monkeys

We drove up for a while (wasn't always so confident the Green Monster would make it up some of the hills, but she did!)...then we hiked a few feet up and looked out over this crater. It was beautiful. We couldn't see any animals from so far away, but supposedly they were there.

Flamingos far away...our driver said they are usually much closer, but that day, they decided to go to the other side of the lake. Pole for us! (pole - pronounced po-lay - is an sympathetic or empathetic "sorry")

In case you can't read the sign, it says "YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO WALK AROUND THE LAKE".

For our picnic lunch, our driver took us to this look out point where you have a great view of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Wait, you can't see it?! It's right there behind ALL the clouds. :) Kabelela was an awesome driver. He could spot animals way that we could barely see.

The Green Monster

Then, we drove under a fig tree.

Then through the water...the Green Monster can do anything!

We found this big open area with all these zebra, buffalo, warthogs, and one lone giraffe. Here, he was drinking water.

All the animals hanging out together. Oh yeah, we saw two baboons mating. Then another male ran up and chased the other male away. It was quite the dramatic scene.

When we were on our way out of the park, there was a giraffe in the road. We drove up very slowly, and shut off the engine just a few feet away from the giraffe. I don't think I could have reached out and touched it, but Nate probably could have since his arms are so long. He just hung out for a while until some other cars drove past not so quietly.