Birds of East Africa

From the tiny bee eater, which is my favorite bird because it looks like it’s wearing turquoise eye liner to the brightly colored lilac-breasted roller and from the hornbill to the crowned crane, the birds of East Africa are magnificent.

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Local Market, Tanzania

Once a month the villages near Ngorongoro Crater gather together to have a large market and auction where people can trade or sell their goods.  The market is intended for locals only and we were very lucky to get a small glimpse into this amazing market.  People walk miles and miles to reach the market some carrying their goods on their backs or perched atop their heads.  Everything imaginable is sold from clothes (including Obama underpants), to Masai shoes made of tires, to cooked meat, to live goats and cows.  It was an exciting, bustling and aromatic event.  There is also a well at the market site, one of the only for miles around.   We watched as locals filled large buckets with water and carried the very heavy buckets balanced on their heads for incredibly long distances.

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Timon and Pumba

Further fulfilling my Lion King fantasy I wanted to find my very own Timon and Pumba.  Unfortunately Timon was a meerkat which aren’t found in East Africa, but we saw mongoose, which are similar so I declared them a nice Timon stand in.  I also couldn’t get a photo of them together, because they don’t actually hang out together in the wild and break into choruses of hakuna matata.  I was able to photograph them both with their families though.  So I present to you Timon and Pumba 10 years after the movie when bachelor life has ended and they’ve settled down and had families and gone their separate directions….

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