Hey all!
We rose early for a game drive today. We were to be ready at 6:30, so I set my alarm the night before for 5:45.
I was awoken at 5:30 by snorting hippos from the river outside our room. Luckily, I was able to get 15 more minutes of sleep before my alarm woke me up.
I got up and started the shower to let the water warm up, but it took so long that I settled for a not so cold shower before leaving right on time. When walking to the Land Cruiser, I kept hearing this loud whooshing noise and couldn’t place where it was coming from. When I reached a clearing in the trees there was a massive hot air balloon not more than 40 feet above me. As we left for our game drive we saw many hot air balloons across the horizon in the park. I then piled into a Land Cruiser with Ashton, Rhett, Briggs, Alyssa, and my mother (Dr. Peterson). Our seventh, Ashleigh, was unfortunately bedridden with a fever, but we pressed on in her honor.
We were immediately spoiled by finding a pride of lions stalking a herd of Cape buffalo. We watched intently as the heads and tails of lionesses would pop up from the tall grass every few yards. However, we did not see the action we had hoped for. When the lions sat down and let the herd pass over the horizon, our driver, Elijah, told us that a hunt can take several hours to several days and would most likely occur at night.
As we were moving on from the pride we noticed there were several juveniles and even a small cub not much larger than a medium sized dog. I’d say he wasn’t much bigger than a corgi. We oohed and aahed as the wee thing trotted to catch up with his family whose easy steps were equivalent to five of his.
We then got out of our Land Cruisers and had a boxed breakfast under a lone acacia tree (plenty far from the pride of lions, don’t worry). Breakfast was a cheese, tomato, and cucumber sandwich (why? I don’t know, but it tasted like you would expect), two boiled eggs, two sausages, a bag of chips, a banana, and a small slice of watermelon. Some girls even took a short nap under the tree. The scenery was beautiful, the meal was delicious, and the air was calm. I’d say if you were there you might be surprised at how at ease we were being in a savannah full of lions, but relaxed we were.
As we loaded up after breakfast, my group grabbed some long grass out the window and put it in our teeth and began speaking in gruffy hillbilly accents. Ashton even pulled out the two Barbie’s that he will donate in a few days and began speaking as if they were named Barbara and Shannon. We were quite the sight to behold for the rest of our group.
Soon after we left the breakfast spot, we stopped abruptly. One of the Land Cruisers behind us had stopped working properly and the passengers were being divided among the remainder. We picked up Sen, who was surprised by our antics but by no means put off, and went on out way in our scruffy hillbilly voices. (We went on with it for over an hour…seriously.)
The rest of our game drive was rather uneventful until we were nearing the resort around lunch time. Maybe 150 yards away was a herd of giraffes. I had never seen so many at once. I counted sixteen of them. We were about 5 minutes out when we saw two Cape buffalo close to the road. Elijah told us earlier in the day that when you see lonely Cape buffalo, they are bulls exiled from the herd for being too old. Still, they are full of testosterone and very aggressive, more dangerous than younger males. As I was pulling out my phone to take a close up shot, one of the bulls charged at the Land Cruiser ahead of us! He charged full speed from around 25 feet away, but it stopped before it made contact and backed away. Elijah thought we was trying to protect/warn his friend who had not seen the Land Cruiser behind him.
After we finished our morning game drive, we ate a lunch buffet and got some time to swim in the pool. Ashton, Rhett and I decided to make a strategic triangle around the sides of the pool to splash the girls sitting on the pools edge with maximum efficacy. We succeeded in our task and were applauded by the girls. Briggs soon moved his pool chair to the edge of the pool to catch some more sun. Rest assured, he was the next victim of our strategic cannonball antics.
We resumed for another game drive at 4pm where we saw a cheetah, meerkats, wild dogs, two antelopes fighting, and two gazelles fighting. We also saw elephants, giraffes, and many deer-like safari animals.
We got back at 6:30 and had a short reflection before dinner. We were distracted by a few monkeys during reflection, but the freshman safari group put on quite the performance when they sang a rap song they wrote about the safari animals and their names in Swahili. The most memorable line of the rap/pop beat was “Kiboko is a hippo, we saw him take a dip-o!” Sen explained our hillbilly antics to the group and we did a demonstration as well.
We heard Dr. McLean and Dr. Diamond’s pretend late night radio show from their safari van. The station was 95.7. Delilah from St. Louis (Dr. McLean) was answering a phone call from Sandy from North Carolina (Dr. Diamond). Delilah had a midwestern accent and Sandy had a higher pitched southern drawl – a little too southern for North Carolina. Sandy was calling to ask for a song to help her and her husband stop arguing. Delilah pointed out Sandy’s interesting accent for someone from North Carolina, then suggested the song The One, by Brian Adams.
We wrapped up our day with a nice dinner buffet and I’m now sitting by the pool with August, Paul, and Hannah, enjoying some snacks and Kenyan pop music.
As the night winds down, I’m reflecting on the natural beauty of God’s creation. He paints the animals so perfectly and created the hills and plants that sustain them. His glory and creativity is in every blade of grass, every animal, and the smiles of every child across the globe.
To my sister, happy (belated) 24th birthday.
To my father and my girlfriend Sofia, I love and miss you both dearly.
-Tyler Peterson
