Our African Summer/Winter Vacation
My name is Micah Swanson-Mwamasika, and I am 10-years-old. For a long time, my older brother has influenced my love for mammals and so has the Mammal Watching Podcast. Now I’m inspired to write my first trip report about our summer/winter adventures. For better or worse, I will do so along with my older brother.
And my name is still Moses Swanson-Mwamasika, and, yes, I am, for better or for worse, also still Micah’s older brother.
At any time in our house, now in Harare, Zimbabwe, we might be discussing Japanese anime, Dungeons and Dragons, international soccer, and, most importantly, mammals. And because we are brothers, we also have become highly competitive. And sometimes we fight — even over species identification and who did or who did not see what and when and maybe once or twice some shoves, fists, bad words, and tears were involved.
Over our school break, technically “winter” in southern Africa while it was summer in the northern hemisphere, we had the opportunity to travel to western Zimbabwe, Botswana, and our other homeland, Tanzania. In total, across those three countries and four protected areas, we saw 33 mammal species and that included 11 lifers for us both. The absolute top highlight was hiking off trail in Udzungwa Mountains National Park to see the endemic and endangered Sanje mangabey. But we will get to that in a bit. Let’s start in the Matetsi Safari Area.
3 countries, 4 protected areas, 2 trips (June 2024, August 2024), 33 species, 11 lifers
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Moses Swanson the XVI
I know it was Bush Hyrax but the lodge says that they are Rock Hyrax. I just wanted to put it down as it impacts all members who want to go there.