David's Safari Experience

Hey! This is David from Senegal! We've been doing a lot on our trip so far and the adventure has just begun. One of the things we did on our second day here was go to a safari, the place was called "Reserve de Bandia". It was incredible, and also a great opportunity to take some pictures. We got to the gamepark, got our tickets, a truck pulled up, we piled into the seats in the back and we got taken off into the park. We ended up sharing the truck with a french couple but we didn't talk to them much mostly because none of us spoke very good french. Our tour guide obviously spoke french too but he spoke a little english as well; with the little english he spoke he was a funny guy. We got into the park and started on the trails, the first animal we found was the hyena. There was only one and it was the only animal locked in by a cage because otherwise it would eat some of the other animals since it is a carnivore. Surprisingly, it was bigger than it seemed to be when watching movies like "The Lion King." Then on our way to the next stop of the trip we spotted a monitor lizard in the crevice of a tree nearby. Jim told us that they get to be as big as 4 feet long! After that we went along and saw a whole group of monkeys going across the path in front of us; everybody went "Awwww." as we saw a couple of them had little baby monkeys clinging to their bellies. Then down the road a little bit we saw a wild boar off to the side who starred at us as everyone took photos of him. Next on our safari we saw a lot of antelope. After seeing antelope for a while we ran into a couple of zebras, but they were they only ones we saw the whole time. The water buffalo came next, followed by the rhino who we found resting in a sand patch. Then as we drove down the road we chased some guinea hens in front of us. Finally we came to the part that the girls had been waiting for... the giraffes! When we saw the first giraffe the driver drove off the path and circled around right in front of it about 20 ft away, so we got some great close up photos. Next we went to a baobab tree that they found had the bones of a dead shaman in it, and the skull was layed out at the opening in the tree. Later on we saw a bunch more giraffe and were acutally allowed to get out of the truck to look at them from a safe distance. This was unlike any zoo anyone had been too. On our way out we saw a couple more animals including an ostrich, a hornbeak bird, and a beautiful bright blue bird. The last stop of our trip was seeing the giant tortoises and crocodiles. But it was hot and we were tired from taking lots of pictures, so we went to a tourist hotel for dinner. Well thats all folks, seeya later on David's Awesome Blog!=)


Joyce's note: Justine is our main photographer :) She took the pics above. More to come later when they don't take forever to download.