Hakuna Matata

Hakuna Matata, what a wonderful phrase…
Hakuna Matata means no worries for the rest of your days, that is how we were feeling when we were in Arusha. We were relaxed and ready for some fun!

We were very, very excited to go on our first game drive ever! Our driver and guide, James picked us up at the Korona Villa (the place we were staying) and we were on our way. We were about three hours away from the park and it was really hard not to start jumping up and down with excitement in the car. We drove in huge four-by-four that was so awesome because the roof could pop up and you could stand while moving!

We were especially excited when we saw the first few animals……. cows, goats, and sheep! 🙂 MOO!

Since there are no fences around the parks, the animals can walk freely around the area. Aside from the cows, sheep and goats, the first animal that we saw before we arrived at the main gate of the park (that are wild) were….

Guess, I will give you some hints… They have four legs… a mane… a tail… white and black stripes… look a little like a horse… You guessed it – A ZEBRA! Our first wild animal we saw was a zebra.

(Zebras are now one of my new favourite animals. I plan on getting one, naming it Marty like the one in Madagascar and riding on it to school. First, I need your help to convince my parents).

The next animal we saw was as exciting as the zebra. We saw a giraffe! Our game drive was off to a fabulous start!

We went into a national park called Lake Manyara. It is a very scenic part of Africa and is famous for their elephants and tree climbing lions. It is 330 sq km or 127 sq miles.  It is full of Acacia trees which are great for looking for tree climbing lions because the leaves are mostly on the top.

When we arrived at the main gate, I was so excited, I think I could have jumped more than 200,000,000 meters in the air. (Well, maybe not that high but you get the point)! 🙂

We popped up the roof and officially started our game drive in the park.

We wanted to see the “Big Five” animals which are:

-Lions
-Buffalo
-Elephants
-Leopards
-Rhinoceros

They are called the “Big Five” because during colonial times hunters considered them to be the hardest animals to hunt on foot in Africa

Our first animals we saw in the park were BABOONS!

Still eating

BABOONS!

Crossing the street

We stopped the car to take some photos and guess what! One jumped onto the front of our car and started to try and eat the antenna!

Here are some of the other animals we saw:

Zebras

many zebras grazing

A zebra grazing

So cute!

We were able to see two zebras either playing or fighting which was really neat. We also saw a big group of them right beside our car!

Giraffes

This giraffe is eating

Look at the giraffe

Thse giraffes are also posing for us

Can you spot the giraffe?

Here it is!

The giraffes are so tall! Did you know that giraffes have blue tongues?

Hippopotamus

We saw the hippos grazing which was really interesting because hippos don’t eat meat and they are so large! I think that if you look at a hippo, you think “Those hippos look harmless.” Well actually, a hippo is one of the most dangerous animals in Africa and more people are killed by a hippo then any other animal. (I don’t want a hippo for Christmas).

Monkeys

A monkey hiding in a tree

A big monkey!

A baby monkey!

The monkeys are so cute, we saw a lot of different species such as baboons and blue monkeys.

Elephants

I like elephants! They seem a lot smaller than they were at the zoo many years ago… Or maybe I was just small…

ELEPHANT

Look at how big the elephant is compared to the car

Impalas

You may not have heard of Impalas, but they are like deer except with twisty horns and a more orange colour to their fur. They are very graceful animals, and really remind me of deer.

Warthogs (Pumbaa)

Hakuna Matata, who sings this song in Disney’s famous movie The Lion King with Simba and Timon? PUMBAA, THE WARTHOG! 🙂

Here he is:

Wildebeests

Wildebeests look like a mix between a bull and a horse. A bull because it has horns and a horse because it has a mane.

Buffalo

Buffalos are huge animals that are mostly hunted by lions because they are so big. They are also one of the most dangerous animals in Africa.

At home, at the Toronto Zoo, there is a section for each continent of the world with the animals who live there. In the African section, there are a lot of the same animals we saw while on our game drive like baboons and giraffes. There used to be elephants but it was much too cold for them so they were moved to California.

It was a very successful game drive! We saw two out of the “Big Five” so far…

Kwaheri! Goodbye!