{"id":7399,"date":"2014-08-10T21:36:51","date_gmt":"2014-08-11T04:36:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/?p=7399"},"modified":"2015-09-29T22:42:38","modified_gmt":"2015-09-30T05:42:38","slug":"magic-bus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/2014\/08\/10\/magic-bus\/","title":{"rendered":"Magic Bus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today was set up to be exceedingly great – we arranged to reunite the Magic Bus, including Safari Stephen driving, our lucky passenger Kitty<\/a>, as well as the always-fun Mike & Steph. Wake up was at 5:45, breakfast was at 6:00, and then I returned to the room to grab some things before heading out. And when I went to leave, the door wouldn’t open. Turns out that there is no way to open them from the inside once locked, and my roommate didn’t realize I had returned and left with the key. There was no phone in the room that I could use to call reception, but since there was no way I was going to miss an amazing morning I took my seat in the Magic Bus after exiting the room by climbing out of the front window.<\/p>\n

Today would have been a horrendous day to miss – the Magic Bus juju was flowing strong. Mid-morning we got a call on the radio and Stephen took off at an astounding speed given the road conditions – another van had spotted a pangolin<\/a>, which is an exceedingly rare animal to see. It looks sort of like a three foot long dinosaur, with a tiny head and scales all over its long body. Stephen last saw one of the normally-nocturnal animals ten years ago, and for the first time on the trip every one of the Tanzanian drivers who stopped brought a camera and got a photo.<\/p>\n

Following the pangolin we headed to a different area of the park, and Stephen spotted a lesser kudu, which looks like a gazelle but with amazingly effective camouflage; Stephen said he last saw one three years ago. Shortly thereafter we found an eagle owl in a tree, and then it got really<\/i> good. In a tree right<\/i> next to the road a leopard was sprawled out sleeping in the highest branches. We sat underneath the tree watching her for perhaps ten minutes, at which point she woke up, did a bit of grooming, then clambered down the tree, past us, and off into the bush. Light for photography wasn’t exceptional, but I’ve still got a few photos from the experience that will make me happy for a very, very long time.<\/p>\n

The afternoon drive was less exciting – how could it not be? – but did include an elephant snacking on acacia pods in the parking area, making lodge traffic a bit trickier than normal. We’ve got a short, two hour game drive tomorrow, and then it will sadly be time to drive back to Arusha and say goodbye to our friendly, exceptional, beyond-hard-working drivers from Wildersun Safaris<\/a> as we head off for phase two of the Africa trip in Kenya.<\/p>\n

\"Leopard<\/p>\n

Leopard post-nap, about thirty feet up in a tree.<\/div>\n

\"Leopard<\/p>\n

Leopard descent.<\/div>\n

\"Leopard<\/p>\n

Leopard dismount. It was at this point where I believe the phrase “best day ever” was uttered repeatedly.<\/div>\n

\"Leopard<\/p>\n

Leopard exit, stage right.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today was set up to be exceedingly great – we arranged to reunite the Magic Bus, including Safari Stephen driving, our lucky passenger Kitty, as well as the always-fun Mike & Steph. Wake up was at 5:45, breakfast was at 6:00, and then I returned to the room to grab some things before heading out. … Continue reading “Magic Bus”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[23,30,19],"class_list":["post-7399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","tag-2014-world-tour","tag-photography","tag-tanzania"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7399"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8180,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7399\/revisions\/8180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}