Thoughts from Keith: Home Safe and Sound

So we made it home safe and sound yesterday and after downloading over 1,200 pictures from Amy and I's camera last night and I am going to be working on a slide show of the highlights of the trip. I was able to get some pictures saved down in lower res for the blog. So over the next couple of nights I will be posting pictures from the different segments of the trip. First and probably the best part of the trip was the 5 days/4 nights we spent on safari at Tanda Tula.

Below is a picture of Amy & I with Allister our ranger beside the Land Rover we rode around in the back of for 5 days. As you can see there are no windows doors or a roof. Keep in mind when viewing the animal pictures below as you can see how close we were and how easy it would be to have a lion leap into the truck with us.

Below are a couple of pictures of the "tent" we stayed in while on safari, as you can see not shabby accommodations.

And finally some of the animals we saw. And this is just the beginning, we saw not only all of the "Big Five" but we saw all five multiple times each, as well as many other very amazing and cool animals.

Baby Elephant- probably about 4 months old we were told.

Another couple of Elephants, we must have seen nearly 50-60 over the 8 game drives - very cool creatures and so different in the way they act vs. the ones you see at the zoo, which always seem to move so slowly.

Cape Buffalo - does not look like you should be afraid, since it kind of looks like a cow, but one killed a worker at another camp the week before we got there - very dangerous.

And this is one of the coolest things we saw, a leopard with an impala she had killed two days earlier in a tree.

And here is a White Rhino close up - this shot is without the zoom lens.

This one uses the 300mm lens. That bird is a red billed ox pecker.

And here is a family of warthogs that came walking up the road one afternoon as we were driving along.

We did see 2 prides of lion, here are a couple of shots. As it turns out lions for all thier fame as King of the Jungle, sleep about 22 hours a day. So catching some of them awake, even if they were laying down was pretty lucky.

And we did see Zebra, they might have been the most skittish of all the animals we saw in the bush.

And to leave Tanda Tula our first plane was on Chili Pepper Air, a 6 seat Cessna plane, Amy actually did quite well on the flight even through Ian, the pilot was text messaging during the flight.