Full time safari duty

It is hard work being on full time safari duty! Since the day we arrived in Tanzania we have been leaving camp at first light and familiarizing ourselves with the famous national parks that are practically our next-door neighbors. All day we stick our heads out the sunroofs (safari hats, binoculars and all) and do a variety of research exercises on various aspects of the parks as well as the incredible diversity of mammals. One morning we spent 3 hours recording all the social interactions in a troop of about 50 baboons. As far as I can tell the drama in a baboon’s life is extraordinarily similar to the drama in a human’s life. Africa may be getting to my head, but they seem to love, gossip, play, show off, etc. and have a variety of emotions and personalities.
On election day the streets were almost empty because everyone had traveled to the voting booths. Unfortunately the same party won with about 60% of the votes, but it was by far the closest election Tanzania has ever had. The current president will remain in office and will hopefully be discouraged from his plan to build a highway right through the middle of the Serengeti (which would undoubtedly ruin the entire ecosystem).
One day we went to an incredible volcanic crater called Ngorongoro that is approximately 100km2 and has the highest density of megafauna in the world! The huge walls of the crater create incredible scenery for this tiny ecosystem and made me feel like I was living in prehistoric times. There is also an extremely dense carnivore population and throughout the day I could hardly keep up with the lions we drove by!
By the end of the week we were all exhausted to the point where people were falling asleep in their dinners. It was a bad time to be exhausted because we had to prepare for our weeklong excursion to Serengeti National Park – which is known to be the most thrilling adventure of the semester. The great Serengeti spreads throughout Tanzania and Southern Kenya and is where the great migration takes place. Every year 1.5 million wildebeest (along with zebra and gazelle) follow the rains of east Africa in a race to survive. This flow of energy has created one of the most incredible bionetworks on the planet and makes it feel timeless. As one scientist put it “the only living things which look as if they really belong to the Serengeti are the wild animals. Between the animals and Africa there is an understanding that the human beings have not yet earned." Also, the top research on lions, cheetahs, giraffe and many other animals is conducted in this area of Africa. I could hardly wait for the adventure to begin.