Zebras are Blocking My Picture
Ngorongoro crater, Tanzania
04.02.2005 - 04.02.2005
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Tanzania 2005
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The final day of safari, Ngorongoro crater. The crater is a 600 meter high crater, and many animals stay in the crater for it’s constant water. It’s a great place to see all the animals except the giraffe, who can’t climb the steep crater walls.
We saw a lot of Impalas. Impalas are like the Maasai, in that they have multiple wives. A buck who asserts his dominance in fighting will get to have multiple does. Losing bucks get no women. Big winners can have many does. We saw one buck who had around 35 does. He was a happy looking buck. I could almost read his mind, “I’ve got does, I’ve got does in every area code!”
Now on day 5, some of the animals I am starting to get sick of. Zebras are everywhere. The first time I saw a Zebra, I thought, “wow, cool a zebra.” Zebras, though, are not really like striped horses, they are more like striped donkeys. By the end of the trip, I wanted no more pictures of zebras. “Damn,” I would say to myself, “that zebra is totally ruining my picture of that stand of grass.”
Buffalos are everywhere too. I’ve realized that buffalos are nothing but cows with Viking helmets on.
I have dubbed, Claus the German “the Sour Kraut.” He is constantly complaining about stuff. “Joseph, can we close the roof, I am cold?” “This campsite is ugly and has no hot water.” “I can’t believe that the facilities here are so bad.”
Claus is also very German. If anything is 2 minutes late, you can see him start to get very upset. “We should be setting up the camp right now before it gets too dark.” “We should stop drinking this beer and eat dinner before it starts to rain.” Dude, relax.
Overall, my favorite animal was the cheetah. Lions, which most people get excited about, don’t do anything. They lie around and sleep. They are really just really large house cats. I am sure if a door was around somewhere, they would stand in the middle of the door not sure to go in or stay out. Cheetahs don’t do much more than lions, but they look quick.
A final picture of me snapped at our last stop in the Ngorongoro crater. I had to re-take this 5 times. Zebras kept walking in front of the camera and blocking the shot.
