We've all been waiting to see a cheetah since our expedition in Serengeti, where we were told that we had the greatest chance of seeing one! The other group of students saw about 4 cheetahs, and even saw one hunt an impala down, but we finally got to see our own!!
We saw it at Amboseli National Park yesterday on our non-program day. We passed by another safari car that stopped us and told us where it was, very nice of them.
It was just hangin out in the shade of a little bush, getting up every once in a while to stalk a herd of impala a couple hundred yards away. It was amazing. I feel kind of bad though because I think we scared off its meal.. But by scaring the meal we got to watch the cheetah walk around a bit
Today was our 6 day of data collection for directed research. On Thursday we finally finished with our local community interviews!! It was interesting to hear the views of the locals on tourism based industries, but after 5 days of 12 interviews a day, it started to get reallll old. Today we went to lodges to interview tourists, drivers, and lodge managers. By far the best day of data collection so far.
Sateesh and I were assigned to go to Mada Lodge, right at the entrance to Amboseli NP. Right when we walked in a worker gave us warm towels to wipe away the dust and ice cold glasses of juice. The receptionist told us that the manager was currently in a meeting and directed us to the buffet by the pool to eat until he was done! the buffet was great and the pool was by far one of the coolest pools I've ever seen. It was a giant shallow pool with a raised deep pool in the middle of it, with bridges that lead into it. The dessert at the buffet included cream puffs and a real chocolate cake!
While we waited after we ate, we interviewed a few drivers but got no interviews from tourists (they were too busy relaxing to let us interview them..) There was also this big spiral staircase in the middle of the dining room that went to the top of the building. It gave us a beautiful view of Kilimanjaro and Amboseli park.
We then met with the lodge manager to ask about the lodges involvement with the local community. He said that all of their staff is local, and they occasionally buy local products from farmers when they run low on produce. Also, the owner of all of the Mada lodges in Kenya is an Indian family that has lived in Kenya for years. Pretty interesting.. Our interview with the manager was cut short when he had to return to his other meeting. So it was a pretty bad day data collecting wise, but a great day of relaxing!
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