Serengeti con't.

The Serengeti offered so many things and places to see. When we were there the short rains that had finished prior to us arriving lasted longer than usual which made for a nice green lush Serengeti. A great thing happened while we were in the Serengeti. My luggage finally arrived that was a happy day. Yes, if you recall from an earlier post my luggage missed the connecting flight from London to Nairobi.

One of our first drives in the Serengeti brought us to this.

This leopard was hunting in this thick brush. Soon after we stopped our vehicle I looked around and counted 18 vehicles. Some of these vehicles were little mini buses that hold about 10-12 people. After about 5-10 minutes the other vehicles started to leave. People were talking in them and disturbing the leopard so it was a good thing that they left. As a safari participant you have to be quiet in the vehicle or you will disturb the animal(s) you are trying to watch. While driving around go ahead and jabber all you want but when you are watching something as magnificent as a leopard hunting which is so rare, shut up!. Most of the other people in the vehicles were saying things like they had "seen enough", "lets go", or "its not doing anything this is boring". Well, no its not going to try to hunt while you are being Ms. Gabby pants! This isn't the zoo people, if you wanted to be able to walk up stand there for 10 seconds and then move on to the next animal why did you come to Africa.

We stayed there for well over and hour and half. During that time all the other vehicles except maybe one left. At that point we were able to see the leopard jump for the impala. Unfortunately for the leopard the impala got away.

This one didn't get away from whatever was hunting it though...

Notice the Maribou stork. They love to hang out with the vultures.
We saw this hyena scavenging this wildebeast. For some reason whenever we came upon a kill it was right before lunch, it was odd, but it certainly kept the appetite in check!

The size of the herds in the Serengeti was amazing. You hear the numbers and you watch it on television but to really see it is something else.

This was one of rivers we had to drive across. The rains had raised its level over the road.

During one of our afternoon game drives we came across two mother lions with 3 cubs. One mother had one cub and the other mother had two cubs who were 2-3 weeks younger. The one mother was cub sitting...

This cub is lying in the shade of the vehicle. It is unusual for a lion to have only one cub. We noticed a little blood on this guy. And the first mother had both sets of cubs while the other mother was busy with this guy.

Yes - we nicknamed him Scar (from the movie Lion King) males will kill cubs to get the female to go into estrus again. We relized that was what had happened to the other cubs of the mother that was currently mating with the male (Scar). We went back to the same place early the next morning to find them again. But we only found the two mothers. One mating with Scar and the other walking around calling for her cubs that were obviously gone. It was very sad but a very real and normal part of life in the wild.

When I went to Tanzania I wanted to get a picture of a giraffe's eye lashes. They are so beautiful. Well I got plenty. Giraffe's were plentiful and I was overjoyed every time we saw a Twiga.

Push-Me/Pull-Me anyone?

We were lucky and saw lots of cheetahs too.

We came upon these two young cheetahs who had killed a baby wildebeast.

They took turns watching for scavengers. First the left one would sit up while the other ate, and then the right one sat up while the other one ate. It was great team work down to the last morsel.

We also saw this mother with her three babies. They were watching wildebeasts off in the distance.

The Serengeti has various types of vegetation in it. It is not all scrub brush. We found these elephants in a

marsh.

This mother and baby were not far away.

These two juvenile male lions were just hanging out together on a overcast drizzly day. They were very photogenic and looked like they had just come out of a beauty parlor.

This Caracal Cat was very hard to see. It was excellent at camouflaging itself.

Radio collared lions from Craig Parker's Serengeti Lion Project sunning themselves on the kopi's.

One night in the Serengeti I awoke to what I thought was the sound of rain. But then....I sat up and listened more closely and thought to myself - that isn't rain, those are hooves. And the sound was getting louder and louder. Right through camp came a herd of wildebeast and zebra. What are you going to do. All you could do was lay there and think, well, I hope they see the tents and go around us. The tent next to mine had a baby wildebeast rub up next to it. It made for great breakfast conversation.

We saw so much during our stay in the Serengeti. The full week there really made a difference in what we could see. This is just a taste of what we saw and did.

Our next stop after leaving the Serengeti was Karatu Lodge. It is a flower and coffee plantation. Luxury accomodations after 7 days camping with beautiful rooms, hot showers, grounds for leisure walks and a fancy dinner. A great way to end this half of the trip. Next stop will be Tarangire and Ruaha National Parks.

The Serenity of the Serengeti

The Serengeti Plain is amazing. We were supposed to camp at Naabi Hill, but upon arrival we found out that they had inadvertantly given our campsite to another safari group. Not to worry we would camp at Ndutu instead. This actually turned out to be a terrific campsite and I am glad that we ended up there. It was more isolated from other campsites and closer to where we would travel each day on our game drives.

Upon arriving at camp our tents were all set up and there was champagne and hors d'oeuvres waiting for us. Our days would start with a friendly "Jambo" from one of the camp staff sent to wake us. We would have breakfast and then head out for our morning game drive. It was usually quite early as we would try to catch some good sunrises and get some interesting light, great for photos. We also wanted to see the animals early in the morning while they were moving around. During the mid-day heat most of the animals were not very active which made it hard to find them and also for not very interesting photos. Of course this being my first safari any photo of an animal was interesting to me.

Late mornings we would head back to camp for lunch. Then we would siesta around camp for a few hours during the high heat of the day. Late afternoon we would head out on another game drive. We would return to camp to hot water waiting for us to shower and get ready for dinner and a campfire afterwards.

There are many things that I liked about this safari tour company. First, since they were native owned they were giving back to the community in which they lived. Second, they really understood photographers and were concerned and watched the light for us and understood that it was important for good photos. Finally, they cared about and understood the animals. They were genuinely concerned with the animals welfare and would go out of the way to drive past an animal to give it its space and then allow it to come to us if it chose to do so, thereby causing minimal stress to the animals as we were in their home and as a guest it was only right to do so.

They also really understood the habits of the animals and exactly where to find even the most elusive animals. Each day they would ask us what kind of animal we would like to see. We would tell them a couple of new animals we would like to see and they would find them for us.

As a reminder my slides are thirteen years old, and my scanner is nine years old. So it is no wonder that the quality of photos is not the best. Really people - these photos were taken on all manual cameras including no auto-focus, with a camera with a broken light meter. But at least it gives you an idea of what you will see.
These were the first lions we happened upon once entering the Serengeti. Notice the half eaten zebra in the background. It looks like someone just sliced it in half.

This was a mother Cheetah and her cub walking to a nice shady spot to lay down for a rest during the afternoon heat.




















We came upon a couple of elephants and parked the vehicles to sit and observe and take photos. Soon we were surrounded by a group of about 20 elephants, they just kept coming down this trail from an embankment nearby. Aparently, this elephant felt our vehicle did not belong in the midst of the herd nor did she like the sound of the cameras and so we were given a blind charge. A blind charge it may have been, we left just the same.

More on the Serengeti later as I have to get some sleep before a day of herding tomorrow.

Ngorongoro Crater con't.

The colors in the crater are amazing. There is the bright blue sky, with white puffy clouds floating around. On the ground there is various shades of green grass and when the shadows from the clouds dance around on the ground it comes alive. The crater is about 12 miles wide and is the world's largest intact caldera. Before its collapse the volcanic mountain may have been taller than Mount Kilimanjaro. The rim of the Crater is roughly 7,600 feet elevation. The only animals that you will not find in the Crater are Cheetahs, giraffes and female elephants. Only the males go down into the Crater. They use the same roads as the tourists take. If you recall the roads in and out are one lane and if you meet one, he has the right-of-way.

The first day in the crater was amazing as has been every part of this journey. A list of animals I saw here and this is not a complete list but to give you an idea:
rhino
3 kinds of jackels: striped, golden and silver backed jackels
Thompson's gazelle
hartebeast
zebra
cape buffalo
grants gazelle
hippos
wildebeast
crowned eagle
crowned crane
ververt monkeys
ground hornbill - which was flying
black kites
yellow billed stork
spoon billed stork
flamingos
stilts
spotted hyena
maribou stork
cattle egret
leopard in a tree
lions
egyptian vulture
egyptian goose
abdim's stork
hydidas stork
Kori bustard
secretarybird.

We got picnic lunches from the lodge both days and ate in the Crater. There were Black Kites(birds)that flew around at the picnic area and would swoop down and try to steal the food. We ate lunch rather quickly.

I have to say this was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

Ngorongoro Crater

After we left Lake Manyara we were soon on a dirt road. Not just any dirt road, it was gutted and torn up from the previous rains. People had then driven on it causing the big ruts and holes we had to bounce through. The drivers went slowly as the entire wheels of the Landrover would go into the ruts of the road.
We got to the Crater Lodge that sits on the rim of the Crater. This would be our home for the next couple of nights. It was beautiful. The Crater is one of the most beautiful places I have seen. There was a main lodge which had a dining room sunrooms that overlooked the rim of the Crater in which to sit and have drinks, write in your journal etc. There are no rooms in the lodge, instead there are small one room cottages with private bathrooms that you stay in.

This is the view from the lawnchairs while sitting on the edge of the Crater
The next morning we had breakfast and headed out on another game drive. It is about a 2 mile drive down to the bottom of the Crater. Everyone enters the Crater on one one lane dirt road that switchbacks down the side. Everyone exits the Crater on a different one lane dirt road that switchbacks up the Crater.

Once in the Crater these are some of the things we saw:
Elephants
Flamingos
Lions - these guys remind me of Clarence the cross-eyed lion that was on the old Daktari television show.
Hyena, this guy made me think of my Jessie girl, my golden retreiver that was at home.
Here is a Kori Bustard just strutten around chillin'
Here he is again but this time it's, "Hey Ladies, where are you!!"
Buffalo
Ostriches run just like the roadrunner cartoon. Very fun to watch in an all out run.