Our First Flat tire--left the Adventures begin!

From Mwanza we drove quite a few hours to enter the Serengeti National Park for our Safari.  We stopped for a quick bathroom break and when we pulled over we accidentally ran over some acacia thorns.  Woo-hoo!  Our first flat tire!  (These breaks turned out to be some of my favorite memories with friends.) Since we had some time to kill while they changed our tire we had some time for adventures...

These are the thorns...

 That flattened our tire...

 Which made us play hide and seek...

 ...and discover the weaver nests

 ...which lead to some"snake fruit"

..that I picked

...and dissected only to feel a little poke

 ...through my shoe!

..to "tickle" my toes

...and attack my friends' shoes too!

Yikes!  You don't want to mess with the acacia bush or trees!  However here are some fun facts i learned about the acacia:

-Despite the thorns, giraffes still eat leaves off this tree.  In fact, they love them!  Their lips are pretty thick and their tongues navigate carefully around the thorns too grab the leaves.

-Ants have a symbiotic relationship with ants.  Some have hollow thorns and stipules (like the whistling acacia) which the ants live in.  In return the ants guard the acacia against other invading pests, keep down other vegetation near the acacia, and drink the nectar!

-There is a variety we saw called the yellow acacia--it's bark is yellow and it's leaves are also lighter in color.

I also learned these trees make wonderful pictures with sunrises and sunsets!  (It's the tree I visualize in my mind whenever I think of Africa.)  You may want to share these pictures with your parents, because my parents went bonkers!