Africa

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Africa is home to just about all of the world's most magnificent animals. When people think of Africa, they usually think of lions, elephants, and rhinos. This entry in my African Stories will be about my safari on the Serengeti. There are a TON of pictures, so this will be broken up into several entries.

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^{Photo taken by me @derangedvisions}

Road to the Serengeti

As we got off the paved road and began to drive on the dirt road towards the Serengeti, I was grateful for the comfortable seats of our safari vehicle. We must have drove on the dirt road for about 5 bumpy hours before we stopped for the night.

During that time we passed many different villages near the road. We stopped to eat lunch, these two Maasai women were gathering wood to bring back to their village. I could only imagine how strenuous it must be to gather and carry that wood on your back like that. So many things that we take advantage of back here in the US.

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^{Photo taken by me @derangedvisions}

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As we were eating, more of the villagers came out to see us. I really love the different colors and patterns of the shukas that the Maasai wear. I bought 3 of them for myself and was given one as a gift.

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^{Photo taken by me @derangedvisions}

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I have said it many times before, but the people of Tanzania are what makes it such a special place for me. I am a big bearded guy full of tattoos and back home people are either scared of me or just flat out ignore me, but the Maasai are the most welcoming and genuine people I have ever met. They welcomed me with open arms as one of them.

Animals on the Horizon

The first animal we saw was a giraffe. There were a couple of them off in the distance, but then we saw some walking right towards us. It is a pretty weird feeling to see one of these animals up close in their natural habitat just walking around doing its thing. It is almost like you don't really believe what you are seeing. The crazy thing is that these Maasai that live so far out here away from civilization see this every day, so this is a normal occurrence for them.

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^{Photo taken by me @derangedvisions}

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Soon we started seeing Zebras as we got closer to our destination for the night. We got to our hostel for the night shortly after and then prepared for a long day on the Serengeti.

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^{Photo taken by me @derangedvisions}

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Serengeti National Park

Before we could enter the park, we all had to get our passes for the two days we would spend inside. While we waited, I explored around outside of the entrance. I found some pretty sweet looking lizards hanging out on the walls of a building. Their colors were so awesome in the sun.

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^{Photo taken by me @derangedvisions}

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After we crossed into the park, we had to drive for a while until we got to a clearing and then it was like a scene from The Lion King. It was just a massive plain and in the distance I saw a few giraffe walking up to a tree to grab a bite to eat. Then an ostrich came running up to the side of our truck.

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^{Photo taken by me @derangedvisions}

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As we were driving, our driver stopped the vehicle and pointed up at one of the trees. At the top of the tree was a large vulture that was standing tall with his wings spread wide.

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^{Photo taken by me @derangedvisions}

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He told us that the vulture had spotted a kill and was claiming ownership of it and warning the other vultures in the area by showing off his chest. The vulture must have stood there for about 30 seconds with his wings spread like that and was turning his body around, showing his chest to all the others that were nearby. Then he took off to go eat.

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^{Photo taken by me @derangedvisions}

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If you look closely, you can see the head of another vulture poking up out of the tree, so most likely there is a nest there and the bird was going off the gather food for the babies. One of my favorite subjects to shoot in wildlife photography is birds in flight because of the challenge that it takes, so I had a great time tracking this vulture in the sky as it flew towards it meal.

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^{Photo taken by me @derangedvisions}

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When I look at birds flying I always wonder if some of them fly around just for fun, like how some of us humans like to go on runs for fun. If I was a bird, I would probably go fly super high and then dive bomb down as fast as I could and then open my wings and glide back up.

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^{Photo taken by me @derangedvisions}

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It started to get closer to lunch time, but then we got a call on the radio that some of the other vehicles had spotted some lions, so we rushed over to see them. When we got there we were a little surprised on what we found.

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^{Photo taken by me @derangedvisions}

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At first the lion was just laying next to her, but then after a few minutes the mood must have gotten just right, so he hopped on and started going to town.

Lion sex doesn't last very long at all, and I was trying to make adjustments on my camera to my shutterspeed so that I could get a more crisp picture because he was moving pretty fast, but he finished a lot faster than I expected, so the next picture is a little blurry. You can tell she probably isn't too happy with his performance either.

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^{Photo taken by me @derangedvisions}

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Once the lion was done he rolled over and went to sleep, then we headed out to get lunch. We had a long day in the sun ahead of us as we tried to find more of these amazing animals. The rest of the adventure will have to be for the next entry in my African Stories series.

Thank you for taking the time to read about my safari adventures. I hope you are looking forward to the next entry. If you are, make sure that you are following me so that you will know when the next one is out. If you liked this, upvotes and resteems are always appreciated. Thank you for stopping by, YOU ARE AWESOME!

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