A Night To Remember

This past weekend we went on our first safari with the team that was here visiting. It was a one night and two day deal where we camped in the middle of the game park-quite the experience! We saw most animals, but were upset we didn't see any lions or leopards (especially when we heard that some of our friends saw them at the same park the very next day!). However, we weren't too bummed because both our families will be visiting over the next month and we will be going on many more safari's and are hoping to see our share of wild animals. 

This time we took Micah with us camping-which we don't think we will do again for a LONG time! He actually did a great job throughout the whole safari and even went to bed with no problem (which was my main concern). However, at about 12:30am, Micah rolled over and hit his head on a pole inside our tent...and for the next 15 minutes he just wailed and wailed. Paul and I immediately woke up (along with the other 17 people that were with us) and tried to sooth him by doing anything and everything we could think of...but, nothing worked. He only got louder and louder, and we began to think about how a lion, leopard, hyena, etc. could hear him and come eat us. Before we had left, we had heard horror stories about how the wild animals often follow babies cries-so, I'm not gonna lie, we were pretty terrified. Finally, we found some juice and a little snack and that did the trick. Both my boys went back to sleep pretty quickly, but I stayed up until morning. That night may have been one of the longest of my life as I was trying to make sure Micah stayed quiet and also was surrounded by wild animal noises of hyenas and wart hogs. I could hear them digging into our trash too, so I knew they were literally right outside our tent. Paul woke up around 4am to these lovely noises as well, but thankfully they didn't phase Micah as he slept until 6:30am. All in all, we had a great time and were proud of Micah, but also made a note to ourselves to never again camp with a baby in the middle of a game park in Africa! :)

At the Rift Valley with our teammates

These are flamingos that surround the lake-it was beautiful.

Since we didn't see any lions or leopards, our biggest excitement consisted of a rhino fight we saw up close and personal. One of the rhinos ran forward and jammed it's horn into another ones leg. The horn remained in the leg for about a minute or so as they ran around in a circle and the hurt rhino whined-it was quite sad! Finally, the horn was disconnected and they went their separate ways.

Cape Buffalo-we saw hundreds of these

Zebra love :) If you look closely, you can see baby zebra feet behind the one on the right.

These monkeys were there to welcome us to our campsite. They stayed close by all night and the next morning there was 43 of them right there when we unzipped our tent (and yes, I counted them!). Micah loved them and kept chasing them and calling them "cats". 

Our campsite for the night (our tent was the blue one at the end on the far left)

Our cute "little camper"-he had so much fun rolling around and round on these sleeping bags. I think he was a little confused that he was zipped up in a tent. Oh, and there is that stupid pole that Micah whacked his head on in the middle of the night!! Gotta love camping :)