tanzanian safari part 1

ANIMALS!!!!

I'm in heaven looking at these photos and experiencing the safari all over again. It was amazing. I could just sit and watch these animals all day. I was tempted to try to take home a baby of each kind. But alas, there were hang-ups with the process. #1 being that the moms were not willing to part with them.

So I still have too many photos to show you to fit into one post. So part 2 is coming in a matter of hours; at the latest tomorrow morning. Hang in there for that. It includes zebras, elephants, lions and baboons.

I have to say up front that I was so jealous of the boys on our team at different points throughout the trip. They could walk off on their own and shoot photography in the villages while I had to stay close to the group. And many of them had these mongo lenses that they pulled out for the safari. Check out Mike Colon with his 200mm 2.0 with a 2 or 3 times converter on it (making it a 400mm or 600mm or something ridiculous like that).

Mike let me hold his camera with this lens on it at one point and even if I HAD the lens, I don't think I could take more than 10 or 20 photos with it before my arms would give out! Craziness. I'm so jealous of boys sometimes.

All that to say, all of my photos I'm going to share with you here were taken with my measley 70-200 2.8 lens. BUT, I'm still pretty excited about what I got. We were able to get SO CLOSE to the animals at times.

First up, here's a shot of some vultures and a stork trying to make friends with them:

A vulture in flight:

Stork in tree:

And my most favorite animal of all -- giraffes!!!

Check out the colors in this shot -- gorgeous!

I was surprised to find out that my other favorite animal to watch is the warthog. God had a sense of humor creating these little guys. The photos just don't do them justice. It's the way they move that cracks me up! They run so fast and have these squatty little legs. I was thrilled to catch this guy in mid-air running across the road in front of us:

Next up are the impala. These were the most plentiful animal we saw on the safari. They are so soft and cuddly and graceful looking until you look at the horns on the males. I would hate to be on the wrong end of those: