Mikumi is a much smaller park than others we've visited so far. Opened as a national park in 1974, the park is only 3,240 square km, and features pretty much every animal you might see at larger parks, except for rhinos (which are located more in northern Tanzania).
Pretty much every game drive we've been on thus far has featured a wide variety of animals, while each day seems to have had a specialty. In the Masai Mara, there was a day of cheetahs and a day of lions. In the Serengeti it was mostly lions. In the Ngorongoro Crater it was mostly zebras and wildebeests. Today was my favorite day so far...because today was elephant day :).
We saw TONS of elephants in our four hour drive. And not just tons of elephants, big herds with over 10 elephants who came right up to our trucks as they were grazing!
So! Some fun facts about elephants:
- Elephants are a matriarchy, with herds usually led by several females, although one is the main matriarch.
- While females and babies will travel together in a herd, older male elephants will usually travel alone, until they are ready to find mates.
- When male elephants are looking for mates, they will make a specific call to females, which is such a low register that humans can't even hear it!
- Elephants eat roughly 300 kg of grass/plants and drink over 100 liters of water A DAY.
- The gestation period for elephants is 22 months long (imagine that?? No thanks.) and babies usually are born weighing around 100 kg!
- Elephants are born with 6 sets of teeth which fall out during their lifetime. Elephants in the wild (who are not killed by poachers or other animals) can naturally live until their last set of teeth falls out, after which they can no longer eat grass. This is usually around 60 years old!
Man I love elephants :)
In addition to elephants, today we saw LOTS of baboons, including many adorable babies being carried by their mothers! We also saw zebras, gazelles, hippos, crocodiles, wildebeests, and giraffes, in addition to a gazelle which (unfortunately) had been killed by a PYTHON! (Although we couldn't find the python. Bummer.)
While in the park, we made a quick stop at a Baobab tree (HUGE trees that grow throughout Eastern Africa).
And we got to climb it!
The tree is so much bigger than you could imagine (unless I suppose you've seen Giant Red Woods in California...) Our guide was telling us that long ago, locals would carve out the insides of the trees and make them their homes (and that apparently they were great protection from lions!)
After our time in Mikumi, we went back to our hotel for a quick lunch of rice with eggs and veggies before starting back on the road to Iringa, Tanzania, our last stop before Malawi tomorrow!
The drive was nice, relaxing and COOL, both since we were heading slightly up into the mountains and also because IT RAINED! The rain felt SOOOOOOO nice and really helped to make the drive so much more bearable than expected! During the drive we mostly read, slept, and listened to music.
We arrived at the most adorable bungalows earlier than expected, around 5 pm. The farmhouse is still a 2,000 acre working farm, with converted stables as rooms, so we had an adorable room with two twin beds...that used to belong to...a horse :). After settling in (and taking some of the best HOT showers we've had in Africa thus far in outdoor, shared washrooms!) we went to the bar for a quick drink and then to a beautiful, candlelit dinner for 11!
It was so lovely! We ate a DELICIOUS meal of beef stew, freshly grown spinach from the farm, ugali (not sure if that's how it's spelled but it's basically a mixture of ground corn and water), beans, and sweet potatoes. So good! Immediately after dinner we all headed off to bed...since we have a LOOONNNGGGG driving day tomorrow and need to head out at 5:30!
Jess' and Jon's highlight of the day: ELEPHANTS!!!!!!!!!! (always elephants for Jess :))
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