Melissa Biggs Bradley, Indagare
"Mom this is like Planet Earth but better," gasped my 9-year-old son when we came across a huge herd of giraffe in the Serengeti. "It's a journey of giraffe," my daughter announced, "that's what they call a group of giraffe." We had been on safari only three days, but we were all collecting animal facts. "And it's a troop of baboon and a dazzle of zebras," my son chimed in. We hadn't seen a TV or computer in days and none of us was missing them. Why would my son need Indiana Jones, when he was allowed to sit in a tracker seat on the hood of a Land Rover and scan the bushes for animals himself? I went on my first safari at twelve and had wanted to take my kids as soon they were old enough. "It's good that you brought them young," one of our guides told me, "because what they see and learn will grow with them." From our first stop at Giraffe Manor in Kenya, where the majestic beauties craned their necks in the window of the breakfast room for kibble, my kids were hooked. They peppered the guides with questions and soaked up the answers. When we had to wake early for game drives at Klein's Camp in Tanzania, they didn't grumble like they do on school days. They were dressed, binoculars and cameras slung around their necks, and eager to go in minutes. 
I expected them to thrill at the sight of the Big Five (elephant,
rhino, buffalo, lion, leopard), but they were equally fascinated by the
little five (elephant shrew, rhino beetle, buffalo weaver, lion ant,
leopard tortoise). "Maybe I'll study birds when I grow up," my daughter
declared, one morning after we had watched a pair of secretary birds
parading in the plains. On our drive through the Serengeti National
Park to our second lodge in Tanzania, Singita Sasakwa, we watched a
young male lion stalking a warthog and her babies. She was trotting
straight toward where he lay hidden in the yellow grasses, then just
before he was about to attack, she veered out of his path. "Game
viewing doesn't get better than that," I said after the drama passed.
But it did, as my kids reminded me, when we found lion cubs tucked into
the branches of an acacia tree; watched a hippo charging lions;
followed an elephant herd with young calves and spotted bush babies,
hyena and a rare caracol (kind of like a lynx) on night drives. We ate
breakfasts and lunch in the bush among the zebras and one evening spent
a half hour on a hilltop watching a spectacular lightening storm in the
distance. "It's like a fireworks show," my daughter said. Only better,
and since a safari is really about spending time in awe and celebration
of nature, it was a fitting finale to our stay. 
Read more about..
Post A Comment
Comments
Archived Comments (2) [Click to expand]