Well, if you have ever wondered what it is like when an elephant takes a piss, I have a first hand account for you right here. I would most liken it to a fire hydrant exploding, but it may have actually been one of the most impressive thing I've seen since I've been there. At the same time, maybe the memory is skewed because shortly after the elephant finished pissing, he and several others became very mad at us and decided to mock charge our jeep, which had a flat tire, and as Lucas our guide was trying to get us away, we noticed that the elephants had also recently pulled a tree down across the road. anyways, we made it around the tree, through the woods and away safely, but let me just note that whoever made Dumbo such a nice character was either full of shit or had severe problems.

Other than that, things have been quite tame. We have been on safari in Tarangire, Ngorongoro Crater and the south of the Serengeti for the past week. I must say that I never expected to experience some of the things we've seen, and it has already been an incredible experience and I'm only a week in to the Africa part of my trip. Yesterday we followed a cheetah for 45 minutes while it walked around and gave the eye to some gazelles, which was almost as exciting as when we watched one actually chase down and kill a gazelle. The day before that, watched a leopard in a tree and hippos playing in a pool, etc... The people here are great though, always big smiles. Numerous times our little flights from park to park havent showed up at all, so they usually just send us with a different airline (imagine how great that would be in north america). Of course, in one incidence that "other airline" was a guy named Matthew with his own 4 seater plane who happened to be hanging around the airport. Midway through the trip he told us he was actually the janitor but had always wanted to fly, and then pretended to fall asleep a few times. I think that breaks some sort of international law, but what the hell I liked him the minute he told me the inflight movie would be "snakes on a plane."

There have been many mixups with learning Swahili words. I recently learned that the word rafiki, which i thought meant beer, means friend. So for the first 5 days of the trip, I kept asking if "I could please have a friend?" The person would usually look at me with pity and then usually bring me a beer, i think mostly because they felt so sorry for me. Oh well, couldve been worse, I could have been asking for something much more embarrassing.

We stayed in the definition of the middle of nowhere in the south of the Serengeti for the past 3 days. I'd be reading out by my tent and look up and 4 warthogs would be eating grass 5 feet away,then I would have to dive into the tent because I would hear African (i think killer) bees coming. Every night you have to be walked back to your tent by a Maasai warrior so that you dont get impaled by a buffalo, although I dont really know what they would do with their tiny ass spear. We thought we heard one heading back one night and I was about to trip him and run, but at the last second it wasn't a buffalo, just some monkeys. You also had to lock your tent zippers together because babboons come up every night and try to unzip it and come in, which they are actually capable of doing.

anyways, another week in kenya with my folks and then i start my big overland trip which goes to uganda first to see the gorillas of the impenetrable forest (how good is that name). send some messages, hope all is well.
dunc