Sorry for the delay everyone. We had a good weekend but now it is over.
Here is the post you've all been waiting for...ok maybe not all of you, but a couple of you. This is a summary of animals we saw at various times in the past two days from our perfect savannah view room at AKL. We were on the 4th floor, which was a good distance to be above any trees or obstructive foliage. There were times we felt SO CLOSE to the animals.
These are a couple of our favorites, red river hogs:
We saw these many times our first day. We later discussed it with our guide for the Sunrise Safari, and we found that they don't often release the red river hogs when other animals are out, because they don't necessarily get along with others. I think he said they "annoy" the other animals. We thought they were just about the cutest thing, especially when they were out with the guinea fowl. Everybody was running every which way!
Here is a photo without any zoom at all, to give you a sense of just how close these pigs were:
Some of you might be thinking "Pigs? Really? They were excited about pigs?" but we were! We love all animals, and while we would have been excited to see regular pigs, these were red river hogs.
Then we spotted this guy off in the distance:
A giraffe! This is a pretty close zoom shot...we were prepared for this to be it, because we'd read so many criticisms from people who paid for an animal view room and hardly saw more than a bird. We were still happy...total tally one giraffe and two pigs.
And then the flood gates seemed to open...over the course of the next day and half, here is a selection of what we saw:
I'm fairly sure this is a roan antelope.
Several antelope, some "tommies" and a few giraffes!
The giraffes kept doing this funny thing where they'd spread apart their front legs in order to get down low enough to feed off of something on the ground:
It was silly and generated lots of "oohs" and "ahs" from us as we watched.
An ostrich!
Guinea fowl; these guys were awesome. They were very active most of the time, they'd run around in a little flock...or gaggle...I don't know, and they'd make little noises, and the feathers alongside their bodies would wiggle and jiggle like they had saddle bags. It cracked us up. None of the other animals seemed to love the guinea fowl, but we sure did! This is a picture of them rooting through some poo...I guess they have quite a taste for it.
A giraffe doing what giraffes do...
Feeding time! You can spot some zebras back there. They tended to hang out more in the back of the action most of the time.
A whole bunch of them!
Another antelope
These birds were there perched like this pretty much the entire time, but in the mornings they'd jump down and walk around a bit. I think they were pelicans. We saw several different species of bird, including cranes, storks, and a vulture. We didn't get pictures of most, but if you love exotic birds, you'll love this view.
One of the best things about the Arusha savannah view was that we were able to watch the animals in a somewhat natural environment exhibiting normal animal behaviors. It was nothing short of miraculous. At one point, the giraffes all started loping around the savannah, while the guinea fowl chased them around making their warbling bird sounds. It literally took my breath away, and I wasn't even the one who really wanted to stay at AKL...
We got countless more photos, but I won't bore you with them here, since this is a dining review.
You get the point, though. If you are staying at AKL and can splurge on an animal view room, do it!
Ok back to the food...all that animal viewing made us hungry for dessert. Personally, I was a little too wiped out from my overindulgence in chardonnay, so I forced DP to go down to the lounge to grab some desserts for us:
She came back with a small plate for us to share, as I'd warned her I was not about to have a repeat of the night before!
Yummy yummy! Tonight they had chocolate covered strawberries. These were awesome. There was also a chocolate cup with peanut butter mousse in it, and the same selection of cookies as the night before. I decided to try an oatmeal raisin. This was good, but it was just a cookie. Nothing like those white chocolate macadamia nut cookies from the day before.
We enjoyed our small selection of desserts. She mentioned they had more than what she brought back..I think brownie bites again, rice krispy treats, and maybe the banana trifle again? Or the panna cotta? Either way, there was more to go around than what we ate.
Earlier in the day, when I was hungry and it seemed like a good idea, I'd also stopped in the quick service store to purchase this:
A chocolate cupcake with vanilla icing and zebra white chocolate decoration
We couldn't very well let that go to waste:
So we didn't! This is an inside shot. There was a little bit of filling, but it still didn't really help. This was prettier than it was good; it was just kind of dry and not as good as a chocolate cupcake that you'd make from a cakemix at home. Maybe ours was old.
It didn't matter that we ate the cupcake out of obligation and that it wasn't that good. We had a spectacular evening, watching all the animals frolic, savoring all those yummy treats and bites from the CL...this is exactly what vacation is supposed to be!
Coming up next, our last breakfast in the lounge and then it's on to Epcot, Beach Club and Cantina de San Angel!
I hope Yak & Yeti's food quality isn't declining because I really love that place. 
).
and we are about to meet a new potential dogsitter who can stay with our dogs when we leave for our coming DL trip!
not the kind of oiliness that makes you go 
. At least not right away, or when consumed in the proper portion.
Glad there are vegetarian and vegetable lovers out there enjoying the non-meat photos!
but we live very close. 
