Hi blog. Day 3 was definitely a doozy for me. I woke up, had breakfast, and immediately felt sick to my stomach. We had breakfast at 6 am after max 5 hours of sleep, so when we drove that morning to Ngorongoro and I felt sick, I figured it was because I had not slept. As we were waiting ~2 hours to actually get into the crater, I took a little nap because I felt like I was going to vomit otherwise. A lot of my time throughout the whole day was spent sleeping to avoid vomiting, and I will definitely be expanding on that throughout this blog post.
^Me in the safari car with my red barf bag.
As we were driving past the entrance to the park, Carina and I started talking about the human mind’s capacity for art and culture as well as our physical adaptations. Carina argued that we had invested so much into our brain that we were no longer fit for any sort of environment due to our lack of survival knowledge and our impractical physical forms. I argued that we were now fit for every sort of environment because our brains were so complex that we would be able to find a way to survive anywhere by using tools and structures instead of solely our physical forms. This conversation got us both very excited for the work we will be doing with biological anthropology and archaeology during this trip.
^Me as we were ascending the escarpment. There was a heavy fog at the top, so the crater was not visible from the viewpoint we were standing on in this photo. It was very humid in the forest around the crater.
In the crater, we spotted elephants, lions, wildebeest, gazelles, zebras, and a whole bunch of cool birds (such as the endangered crested one). Because I felt so sick, I slept in between each stop, and then would people would yell excitedly about an animal, I would wake up, take a peak, and then immediately fall back asleep. Carina also felt bad, so we listened to music together between stops in order to calm our stomachs. We saw a pride of lions, which was one of the highlights of the day. There was a big male, who seemed a lot stronger than the solitary male we had seen earlier in the day, and about seven females rolling in the grass and dirt.
^Mangled lone male lion.
^Crazy flipped over safari car in the crater.
After leaving the crater, we spotted a couple of herds of Masai giraffes in groups averaging 7 individuals. It was cool to see them so close to the car, and I shared my love of Masai giraffes in particular with the group. At Olduvai Gorge, we set up our tents and got a tour, but due in the tour I felt extremely sick. I thought if I ate food, I would vomit, so I asked Scott if I could skip dinner. He was very receptive to it, which I appreciated. I skipped dinner, and afterwards I visited the camp doctor and she checked my vitals and had a discussion with me about my health. She told me to skip breakfast, so I plan on doing so.
Avoiding breakfast,
Kacey
