Hi blog. Today, we left the EcoScience Lodge for the Ngorongoro Forest Lodge. I really liked the EcoScience lodge so it’s sad to go, but the new lodge is extremely luxurious as well. We’re definitely on a more touristy path right now, as evidenced by other people staying in the lodge with us now, and it was very clear as we were driving through to the lodge because there were many more tourist traps and advertisements. We went to a view point as we were heading up the escarpment, and the view was gorgeous.
After we got settled at the Ngorongoro Forest Lodge, we went hiking in the Ngorongoro forest. The hike lasted 2 hours, and we all became short of breath extremely easily due to the altitude. It was very interesting to learn about different plants and animals as we were hiking along, especially since ecology is not something I’ve historically been super familiar with. We dodged a whole lot of buffalo and elephant dung on the trail, and we tried our best to avoid the enormous fire ants on the path.
While walking through the Ngorongoro forest, we came across the elephant cave, which is their home base. There were tons of elephant-sized holes within the base, which the elephants that were present climbed in and out of. There were maybe around 4 African Bush Elephants there, with one being a young baby. The elephants would hide their heads in the holes with the back halves of their bodies sticking out, and although I don’t exactly know the purpose of this behavior, I figure it might have something to do with sun or heat. In addition to elephants, we got to see the largest banana leaves I’ve ever seen. We walked under them, and it felt like we were in a prehistoric landscape. I did not see any members of my taxonomic group today, but it was a lot of fun to see the elephants instead.
^Carina walking next to the enormous banana leaves
^The elephant cave with elephants in it
That night, we talked to Professor Prendergast about how chemistry-oriented archaeology can be. My method is biomarker analysis in soils, which involves a lot of techniques I’ve used in my organic chemistry lab such as GC-MS and separation of layers. I’m very excited to hear the methods presentations because this type of science interests me.
One thing that was extremely memorable about the hike was the high elevation that caused all of us to lose our breaths within seconds of moving. I’ve lived at sea level practically my whole life, and losing oxygen so fast was a terrifying new sensation. I tried taking as many breaths as possible in the littlest time possible, and Carina tried taking long, super deep breaths — both in an effort to get the most oxygen out of our breaths. We debated later that night which method was better for breathing the most oxygen, and we have not come to a decision.
Catching my breath,
Kacey
