August 23 and 24 - Longest Travel Day Ever

Today began the longest travel day that we have had thus far on our trip. For those of you wondering how long it takes to get from the middle of the Serengeti to a little village nestled in the alps, the answer is about 36 hours:

Here is our adventure:
8:30 – Land Cruiser, Lodge to the Grumeti Airstrip (dirt runway...watch out for the wildebeest and baboons)
10:30 – 12-seat Sesna Airplane
11:35 – Land Cruiser, Arusha airport to lunch
14:00 – Land Cruiser, lunch to afternoon day lodge – REI scheduled about 3 hours of down time for all of us at the day lodge in case of early flights out or late flights into the local airports
17:30 – Land Cruiser, day lodge to Kilimanjaro airport
19:45 – ATR 72, Kilimanjaro to Nairobi – say good bye to all our new friends...quite interesting, this plane took off 40 minutes early, good thing we were there early. Upon inquiry found that it's normal for this flight to leave that early
22:20 – 747, Nairobi to Amsterdam – Sat next to funny Dutchman
6:03 – Starbucks at Amsterdam airport...ahh a mocha, a taste of home
6:44 – Train, Amsterdam to Utrecht
7:29 – Train, Utrecht to Frankfurt – free chocolate
10:54 – Train, Frankfurt to Mannheim
11:36 – Train, Mannheim to Interlaken – So cool that they have Belgian beer for sale ON the train, also more free chocolate...We like German trains!
16:00 – Train, Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen
16:30 – Cable Car, Lautebrunnen to Grutschalp
16:45 – Train, Grutschalp to Murren
17:30 – Laundry in a real laundry machine (woot).
19:00 – Fondue made with swiss cheese by swiss people...yum!
21:00 – Sleep

August 22 - Serengeti

Today was a full day with two game drives in the western corridor of the Serengeti. The morning drive took us to the Grumeti River, famous for it's many freshwater crocodiles. But along the way we were delayed by an encouter with a newborn Topi which had stumbled into the road. It couldn't have been more than 10 minutes old -- the umbilical was still attached and bright red, and it could just barely walk (our guides told us they take 10-15 minutes to learn to run and keep up with Mom). We were pretty worried that the baby would become Hyena chow, because Mom was nowhere to be seen, but there was nothing we could do about it; that's just the way life goes in the wild.

At the river we saw dosens of crocodiles. We even saw one move :p. The crocodiles were large, but some were hiding in the tall grasses of the riverbank, so we had fun competing to spot the most (we topped out at 11). A couple of them look fierce with their mouths open, but it turns they were asleep and that's just how they cool off. We had a real treat when we saw four black and white Colobus monkeys, which our guides told us really only live in that area and tend to be more elusive than they were today. They were beautiful, with shiny black coats, white stripes, and a long black tail with a puffy white end. It was fun to watch them eat and move around the trees.

On our way back to the lodge, we had our eyes peeled searching for the baby Topi, hoping beyond hoe that it hadn't become Hyena chow. Incredibly enough, we saw an adult Topi in the treeline near the road, and baby was right there alongside her! As our cars approached, they trotted away from the road, but we were happy to see that they had been reunited.

We had a nice lunch back at the lodge, and some time to explore the grounds and send a few emails. Yep...satellite internet service deep in the Serengeti.

Our afternoon game drive was all about finding a leopard. One hour forty minutes into the drive, our truck hadn't seen any leopards, but we had seen quite a few elephants, zebras, warthogs, wildebeest, ostrich, buffalo, baboon...the usual but exquisite fare :) Then we heard the radio call from the other driver, and they had found the leopards. We sped along "I-5", the less-bumpy main road of the western Serengeti, until we met the other truck. Then, at 5:41pm (credit to Margaret for writing down times!), our drivers switched and we took off even faster. After 40 more minutes we were at the spot of the leopard sighting, and sure enough a leopard was asleep in a tree branch about 200 meters from the road. Even the bazookas had a hard time getting recognizable pictures. We caught a glimpse of another leopard, long enough to snap off a picture or two, but then it hid from us in a culvert under the road.

So, during the final moments of our final drive, we completed the "big five" animals of safari fame. The term comes from classic hunting safaris (Englishmen with muskets, not assault rifles) and describes the five animals which, if you attack, but don't kill, will without a doubt kill you.

We were maybe just a tad behind schedule after seeing the leopard...so Ndasekoi gave us a really fun, white knuckle, rally-race-winning demonstration of the land cruiser's high-speed dirt road cornering capabilities. The Serengeti rangers are pretty strict about returning to the lodges by nightfall, so we were in a hurry. It was fun to see the animals sort of "heading to bed" along the ride back, and made for a very memorable end to a very memorable week.

Tonight at dinner we had the treat of eating with our guides once again. We learned a little more about their lives and shared some about our own. At one point Ndasekoi was telling us about the way the Maasai hunt lions as retribution for taking the easy kills of Maasai cattle. He was giving a lot of detail about the tactics of hunting. For example, when you are encircling the lioness you have to keep eye contact (stare her down), because if you glance away she will think of you as prey and attack; when you throw your spear, you run immediately behind the person to your right. So Margaret asks him "have you done this?" and he responds with this "yeah, of course!" like it was silly to ask at all -- as if we had asked "Is the sky blue?". We were pretty stunned that this was part of his upbringing as a Maasai warrior.

August 21 - Transit to Serengeti

This day was a very long drive, punctuated by three of the best experiences of the whole trip.
In the morning, we toured a Maasai village (they must rake in the dough for this, at $20 US/pp) and joined them in their warrior dance (basically, it's quasi-rhythmic throat singing and a high-jumping competition; I didn't win). Margaret joined the ladies for their welcome dance. Video's will be posted on You Tube.

By just after 3 pm we had entered the Serengeti. It is clearly the inspiration for the movie 'lion king' complete with the 'pride rock' where the lions like to hang out. We drive out around a popular water whole to see if we can find any lions. We saw two females with about 5 cubs hiding in the tall grass so we decided to stop and watch a while. Then we realized that there was a big male lion, and another female. All of a sudden another male appears out of no where and starts walking towards us, clearly the 'let's go' signal, as two other male lions, his brothers, approximately 5 female lions, and 7 cubs start moving in the grass, and passing our vehicle both in front and in back to congregate on the other side of the road (the cubs stayed hidden in the grass). It was incredible being surrounded by lions!

In the afternoon, just as we were giving up on seeing a cheetah or leopard while transiting the central Serengeti, we came upon a couple trucks who were watching a leopard chew on a gazelle up in a tree (leopard drags his kill up into the tree before eating). We saw the leopard run down the tree just as we approached, and hide in the tall grasses and scrub nearby. We waited and waited, and searched with our binoculars. After about 20 minutes of waiting, a troupe of baboons wandered into the area. They immediately checked out the fresh kill, then spread out in a slowly expanding circle, searching for the leopard, hooting and hollering their status. It took the baboons as long as it took me to find the leopard, about 10 minutes. When they found it, all the big male baboons chased the leopard out and down a creek bed. The leopard was visible and gone in such a flash that nobody captured a picture, though we all saw it flash by. It is very rare to see the baboons team up on a leopard, and our guides were so excited to see this rare occurrence that they jumped up and down in their seats while waving their arms and shouting fragmented exclamations! We watched the baboons track the leopard for another 15 minutes or so (we never saw the leopard again – probably hiding under another bush), before leaving out of necessity to reach our lodge by nightfall (85km distant).

The rest of the drive was beautiful. We drove through grassland and forest, full of zebra, baboon, elephant, giraffe, gazelle, topi, waterbuck, wildebeest, impala, and various birds.

We arrived at our lodge just before 7 pm, it is the Best. Lodge. Ever. Seriously, it's the nicest 'hotel' I have ever stayed in. Imagine from an old Indiana Jones movie, or Tomb Rader movlie the 'rustic' safari tents that they stayed in, complete with lanters, book cases, four poster bed, etc. Our lodge was kind of like that. We had our own chalet in the Serengeti park, two of the walls were canvas with mesh windows. The lights were old english style lanterns with modern light bulbs in them, wood floors, gigantic bathroom with old claw foot style tub, it was incredibly luxiourious (in the middle of the Serengeti, go figure).

After dinner we were walking back to our chalet and we shined our flashlights down the hill towards a noise we had heard. A set of BIG eyes about a foot apart from each other stared sparkled in the dark back up towards us. Fear crept over us as we realized that it was a cape buffalo, and that we had no land cruiser to protect us. We didn't dilly dally as we picked up the pace back to our chalet, but we sure did feel better as the cape buffalo went back to eating bushes with his buddy.

August 20 - Ngorongoro Game Drive

This morning we met the rest of our group at 6:30 am so we could have a full day in the Ngorongoro crater. We made box lunches, and piled into the cars and made our way to the gate of the park. The Ngorongoro Conservation area is actually adjacent to the Serengeti, but don't let that fool you, both areas are HUGE. At the gate we learned that we learned that the crater was formed by what used to be a volcano. The volcano erupted, and lost so much mass from inside itself that it collapsed inward, making it technically a 'caldera'. Ngorongoro is the largest fully in-tact, not full of water, caldera in the world. This is t,he area (not the exact park), where the skeleton of Lucy was found, as well as many other very old ancestral human remains.

As we descended into the crater around 8:35 am the biggest thought that went through our heads was “If Jurrasic Park could exist anywhere, it would be here”. There were so many different types of areas to see and explore for animals. There were grass plains which were so thick that a cape buffalo could lie down and be hidden from view. There were jungle like twisted trees and vines along the edge of the crater, a lake inside the crater (with a fun view of some flamingos!). And many marshy areas filled with hippos.

By 8:50 we had seen our first new animal of the day, called a jackal. After lunch we saw a cheetah stalking a group of gazelles (or as Donald likes to call them “Cheetah Chow”). As the cheetah grew closer, the gazelles caught sight of him and all ran away. The cheetah didn't pursue because, according to our guide Ndasikoi he was already a little chubby from already having eatten. However the cheetah experience made us realize that safari's have a lot in common with deep sea fishing. The drivers (sea captains) call each other to let each other know when they have found a unique animal (a place with fish), and then all the drivers (sea captains) go there with their land cruisers (fishing boats) so that their passengers can take pictures (catch fish).

We soon found ourselves at a pool of water with many hippos in it escaping the heat of the day. There was a baby hippo, so tiny...well by that I mean roughly the size of Mom's dog Fea, who was trying to climb up on the momma hippo, it was impossibly cute!

By 4 o'clock we were beginning to be a little disappointed that we hadn't yet seen a rhinoceros. As we approached the rim of the crater our driver spotted one off in the distance. Our camera's couldn't quite take good pictures, but we were all able to see them with our binoculars! We were so excited, we have now seen four of the BIG FIVE. The reason that the lion, leopard, elephant, cape buffalo, and rhinoceros are called the big five, is because if you shoot one and don't kill it...it will kill you. So here is our picture of the rhinoceros, we hope you are able to find him ;).

Today was a great day, and was marked by seeing lions, lots of cape buffalo, herds of wildebeest, and more along with the animals mentioned above. We climbed out of the crater in the evening (I think Sean left permanent dents in the arm rest with his white knuckles) and headed back to our hotel for dinner.

On the road to Ngorongoro - August 19

We started off today by doing a wee bit of shopping en route. The first store we stopped out had all the profits go to support a local orphanage. However the prices were absolutely ridiculous for a third world country, we quickly had trinket overload and ended up getting nothing at all even though we did want to help the orphanage.

After our overload we went to a lodge near where we were staying for our hike. The hike turned out to be more of a mild nature walk led by the head gardener of the lodge/plantation through barley fields (see pictures) and the coffee plantation. Interesting, but not what we expected.

We arrived at coffee plantation where we will be for the next two nights, had some time to relax. Sean and I went on a run, but then got nervous about lions hiding in the grass, decided that we were wimps, two miles were enough, and turned around back through the fields, the lush gardens, and arrived back at our beautiful duplex.

Transit to Lake Manyara and Game Drive - August 18

Today we went for a drive on “Toyota Road” to Lake Manyara built by Toyota to save the company money, the original road was in such bad condition that it would break all the vehicles still under warranty. We made our way along "Toyota Road" through villages, and through the area we would soon be exploring called 'Mosquito Creek'. At first we were a little bit nervous about driving next to 'mosquito creek', but we still didn't see any...beginning to think we won't come home with yellow fever...caused contemplation about why prostitution, and marijuana are legal in the Netherlands, but not Permethrin, a chemical we put on our clothes to protect us from diseases like Malaria.

We had lunch at Serena Lodge atop escarpment of Great Rift Valley, the views were stunning, we could see forever, and our lunch was wonderful. After lunch our drivers picked us up and we headed out on our game drive through Lake Manyara National Park. There were so many white butterflies, about 2 inches big, that in many of our pictures it looks like it's snowing. There were hundreds of them in each picture we took, it was magical! The farther we went along in our day the more we felt like we were in a zoo designed for grown-ups, so many animals, so many birds and plants. The afternoon ended with us arriving at the famous Hippopotamus pool where we watched for 20 minutes as hippo's yawned, entered and exited the water,and played.

After the Hippo Pool we headed to our lodging for the night. We drove through several Maasai villages on the way. Our lodging for the night was also Maasai themed, stunningly beautiful, it's very nice...surprisingly they have a website MaasaiVillage.com. We also had our first good look at the way Maasai people dress. Women have shaved heads and white beaded earrings which go down to their shoulders, and wear more blue than the men. Men wear up to three square pieces of clothing tied in knots over their shoulders, and they have a beaded belt and beaded ankle bracelets, and wear more red than the women. The area of the Great Rift Valley was very lush and tropical compared to the somewhat dry tarangire

Tarangire Game Drives - August 17

We saw so many more animals and wildlife today in beautiful Tarangire Park. During the dry season Tarangire is second only to Ngorongoro in concentration of animals because of the fresh water springs in the park. Today we had our first giraffe sighting. We also saw a Whistling Acacia; a particular type of acacia which has a symbiotic relationship with a type of ant. The tree has large thorns which protect the ants from birds, and the ants keep giraffes from eating the tree (I'm not sure how, that's what the guide said).

We continued to see lots of birds, zebras, impalas and gazelles. We had a special treat seeing an entire pride of lions that just ate a zebra and dragged it under a tree to guard while they snoozed. As the afternoon wore on we saw playing baboons, gigantic cape buffalo, and rounded out the day with a great sunset. We took hundreds of pictures with our 'bazooka camera' as our guide Donald calls it.



One of the best highlights of the day was seeing a baby elephant, approximatly 6 months old, weighing 500 pounds. And yet even with 500 pounds that baby elephant FROLICKED in the grass, just like a puppy or kitten, it was the cutest thing EVER! Our entire Land Cruiser let out as simultaneous sigh as it skipped towards us.

After sunset we headed back to the lodge and had dinner. While we were walking back to the tent tonight, we shined our flashlight down the hill and saw a dozen set of eyes looking back up at us (why did we have to do that?), and after freaking out determined they were the small deer-like animal called dik-dik.

Margaret has self-determined that she is a Tse-Tse fly killing machine. Tse-Tse flies are known to carry Dengue fever, a disease that one of Margaret's co-workers has, and we are determined not to get ourselves. Today's kill list = 9 Tse Tse flies, 1 bee and 1 house fly. Good thing Donald had fly swatters in his Land Crusier!

During the night an elephant went by our tent and woke us up, it trumpeted lightly to find the rest of it's herd. When you are sleeping in only a semi-permenant structure with canvas and mesh sides it can be pretty creepy!