Serengeti - Part 2 - The big scene

In the middle of the day, we had an unforgettable encounter. After seeing a lone lioness resting under a tree we drove a little bit and saw a lone jeep staring up at a tree. We encouraged our driver to go check it out. When we got there, this is what I first saw...



Needless to say I was quite excited. A lion cub in a tree! How cool! I felt pretty good but then suddenly there was another cub trying to climb the same tree and join the first one...

This tree climbing sequence is a multiple photo layout to show you the steps as I saw them...











Pulling back, I saw there were many lion cubs already in the tree. I quickly counted and saw there were 11 cubs hanging from the limbs of this small tree! It looked like this...



After taking a group of photos, I began to spot more lion cubs heading toward the tree. Some trying to climb and others just laying in the tall grass around the tree. The lion cub count reached an outstanding total of 17 individuals. Needless to say, I was in photo heaven, just trying to make sure I didn't mess anything up.

These were the best of what I took...















too much traffic on the tree...









Then, suddenly all the cubs were trying to climb out of the tree as fast as possible. I was pretty sure there was no predator headed toward them, but turning around, I saw five lionesses, the proud mothers of this group, on the other side of the road wondering why there were ten jeeps surrounding their young.



Here's the lookout lioness...



The mad dash and scramble to find the right mother looked like this...



Finally, a few ending shots of the cubs belonging to the lookout lioness including the endearing closeup of the young looking to mom for approval...





Whew! I'm tired!

The Serengeti

We transitioned into the Tanzania countryside, greeted by views of Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak. We camped near an area that seemed as poor as the others we visited.

In the morning, we visited a school that our trekking company donates money to. We walked uphill for one hour to reach a plateau where there were schools, libraries and a small computer center. The town below relies on these schools to help educate the children who seem pretty happy in their surroundings and look to be trying hard to produce usable products in their shop classes with minimal tools and equipment. The computer center is run by a young man who recently relocated from England and has turned around a crummy, dingy run down computer center in short order and is now repairing laptops for the townies.

This area suffers from the same problem I’ve previously noted with lack of consistent power. The power was out when we were there too. We had lunch in a local house before cruising down the hill and back on our way to the famous Serengeti to game drive for animals. I did meet a lady who curiously, just flat out asked me to give her my camera and she refused to have her picture taken. I did sneak one though…



On the way in, we observed many Masai people who have lived in this area a long time. Their standing allows them to keep their cattle in the protected Serengeti area to graze and keep their homes. The Masai are unwilling to have their photos taken unless you pay a fee. Of course, if a Masai warrior happens to walk the photo when you’re looking at wildlife, they can’t complain too much…





We proceeded into the park, passing the famous Ngorogoro Crater because we would return to explore that area on our way out. As the above photo shows, we were greeted by zebra but they didn’t hold much interest for us since the entire group had seen many in our travels to date. However, we then came upon our first hyenas which made for some interesting photos.



Then, we saw a leopard in a tree in the distance. After a while watching the actions from a distance, we moved on but found another leopard in a much closer tree.






After the leopards came a parade of fun and interesting animals including several lions and more leopards. There was an amazing highlight to the day but that animal interaction will get its own blog following this one. For now enjoy the free roaming animals (and birds).

A bat eared fox...



a bird



an eagle



A marabou Stork



A close up of one of my favorite animals, just before they charged our jeep...



Who says a 500mm lens can't be a good landscape lens? (Ask a camera friend to explain.)



An unhappy hippo out of the water...



An finally a mom making sure her young one got to wherever she wanted it to be...



and here's the one i forgot; this is fully as i saw it with no cropping so you can see how close i was...

Malawi to Tanzania

Since we raced through Mozambique travelling across the short east to west highway in the north, I can’t really claim to have seen the country. Two bathroom stops and two border posts were all we saw. Doing this fast trip was going to allow us to pick up an extra day in Dar Es Salaam to relax at the beach.

We entered Malawi in the evening. Malawi is a long narrow country that is unfortunately known more for its Aids/HIV rate than anything else. The people were very nice but also needy. There doesn’t seem to be many sources of income. We did pass beautiful landscapes where farmers are adapting to the hillsides they live on and figuring out how to make something grow. The first night, we arrived late and camped outside the capital city of Lilongwe. The next day we went to see the city before moving on. We should have just moved on. There was truly nothing there except a lot of people standing around, which has been a common theme in most of these less developed countries.

Malawi is long and narrow country because Lake Malawi occupies around 50% of the land mass. The lake is long, stretching from the southern border to the northern border and has lots of beautiful scenery. We camped at two different lakefront locations. In the first one, where we would be staying for two nights, we decided to upgrade to a beach hut rather than use our tent. The night was peaceful until around 3 AM when the skies exploded into a massive thunder and lightning storm soaking all the others in their tents and leaking into our truck too. The campsite was very nice and the next day was a relaxing day spent reading and listening to books on tape (iPod actually). We then traveled north to another Lake Malawi site for a single night which featured beautiful skies, a nice setting and a local craft market where we purchased a few goodies.

Here are some scenes from our drive through…








Malawi does have some beautiful teak carved products that are inexpensive. We found something for Marissa that will help her know she “will never walk alone”. You have to be a European football (Soccer) fan to get this.

We woke early and headed to the Tanzanian border, passing more remote, spectacular scenery. The crossing was uneventful as was the evening. The crossing did bring some immediate changes. Houses, which are clay or mud brick, now had metal roofs, not straw. People were making products for sale that required some manufacturing like furniture.. The next day, we headed to Dar Es Salaam, a large city on the Indian Ocean. We drove through to a ferry which took us to a campsite on a nearby island which offered free wireless internet connection which didn’t work. We headed into the city the next day. Again, lots of people, more buildings and economy than we saw in Malawi, but with it lots more chaos, crowds, congestion, traffic, smog, etc. Most people wear shoes here. Not a joke, but a common theme we have encountered is lack of footwear. Some people on our trip tell us that this is one way to quickly rate the relative prosperity of the people. Many people in Zimbabwe approached me to offer things for trade and they didn’t want expensive camera equipment, they wanted my New Balance walking shoes.

We left Dar Es Salaam and took a two hour ferry to Zanzibar. A little history lesson for most people. There used to be two countries, Tanganyika and Zanzibar, who merged into one called Tanzania in 1964. Zanzibar has been the home for many conquerors over time but the Arabs and Persians had the most success as the country is 96% Muslim. There is an old town area where we spent one day and then we traveled to a beach resort for two more. In the old town, called Stone Town, the streets reminded me of Venice since they were winding with few easily identifiable landmarks where it was easy to get lost in the maze. The best thing there was a night food market where the make “Zanzibar Pizza”. This would be a small tortilla with some vegetables, a choice of meat or fish and an egg that is fried on a grill. Very tasty and not hard to make. You can probably Google this and find some recipes.
At the beach resort, we ran into a constant African problem, unstable electricity. On our full day, we lost power at least 5 times. The internet worked really well when the power was on. We found out that our youngest fractured a bone in his hand and then found that someone in Staples messed up and canceled my insurance, so he could not get immediate medical help. It got quickly resolved but trying to help him make the right decisions from this far away is hard.

The climate is hot and humid but our room had a ceiling fan and air conditioning, which made for great sleeping. Susan went snorkeling while I chilled out at the beach in the almost 80 degree water. The sunsets were beautiful and it was pretty relaxing, but as you might guess, all this chilling out is leaving me a little cold. I want more action! Today, we leave the beaches and head to Kilimanjaro where we will be camping in 55 degree temps, it sounds very refreshing. The best part is we head from there to see the annual animal migration in the Serengeti. This part of the trip ends next Saturday and our final two weeks, part three of the trip, heads to Rwanda and Uganda the next day.

Zanzibar sunset...

Victoria Falls onward….

We left Chobe and headed to Victoria Falls which would mark a point of a lot of changes. Since this trip is really three individual trips merged together, for some people this would be the end of their experience and we would also be picking up others ready to start their adventure. Six people left and two joined so we now had 11 paid customers plus our cook in 12 double seats. This meant each person had their own space to stretch out in, very nice!

Victoria Falls is in Zimbabwe our 4th country visited. It is also where Robert Mugabe runs things in a pretty corrupt manner. Zimbabwe, despite the highest literacy rate in Africa, has 80% unemployment and little outside investment due to the government. On the other hand, they have just discovered one of the largest diamond fields in the world, but it seems to be feeding the corruption machine, not the people. Also, I remember years ago, my mother telling me about relatives who fled Nazi Germany and moved to Southern Rhodesia where the capital city was called Salisbury. Today, that country is Zimbabwe and the capital is renamed Harare. Northern Rhodesia is now the bordering country of Zambia, which we will not be visiting. These areas had the typical African issue, minority whites held all the land and the money and it was only a matter of time until the local tribes would take over the government and repossess everything. Farmers are still being removed from their lands today and they are being redistributed to friends of the government, but the issue is, the new owners aren’t willing or able to work the land so the once productive farms are now producing nothing. Another thing is the flight of all young educated people (black and white) who can’t find jobs or social security. I’m told this is happening in South Africa too.

Everywhere we went in Vic Falls, there were street people hawking goods and looking to trade for our shoes. One of the popular things to sell is one trillion dollar bills printed by the Zimbabwe government. When that failed they converted to the U.S. dollar which makes it easy to buy things. Also, the town is maybe 5 streets in total and not very impressive. The falls, however, are spectacular but not safe for our cameras. This photo was taken with a small digital point and shoot we carry, thanks Chris D.! I took the time to get a haircut. I got a clipper cut with the #2 fitting so it’s really short.

Here's what Victoria Falls looks like...



We left Victoria Falls and headed to another camp in a park called Hwangi, where we had an exceptional local guide who took us on two game safaris and educated us on local people, plants used in the bush, animal activity, etc., quite an amazing guy. We saw lots of animals and birds but mostly different views of ones we had already seen, pretty nice viewing with close looks at elephants, giraffes, baboons, etc. We got a better view of a cheetah than before too.

We found a sable antelope there...



A young elephant



This is a cheetah resting on a huge termite mound. We have seen some mounds of amazing size...



A zebra up close...



A lilac breasted roller



Leaving Hwangi, we headed to another camp where we would stay two nights in Matapos National Park. The guide from the prior day pinch hit for the guide who usually does this part of the trip. Our goal was to see some ancient wall paintings done by the “bushmen” and then try to find rhinoceros in the park. The paintings were interesting and we were told there were at least 3,000 more caves like the one we visited.



We then went into the park and drove around looking for rhinos or hippos. After three hours of searching plus a stop for lunch, our guide had us dismount for a walk through the bush to track rhinos. Imagine walking through tall grass where you can’t see 10 feet ahead in land inhabited by rhinos, hippos, hyenas, lions, etc. I’m no hero so this was scary to me, too. The only reason any of us took even one step was the ability of the guide and his knowledge of the land, plus he was carrying a rather large rifle. This man is a very capable, well adapted fellow who knows what he’s doing. We walked through the brush for two hours and were hot and tired while he told us he was tracking a rhino and we just wanted to get back to the vehicle and have a drink and a rest. Well, sure enough, he found two white rhinos, each weighing around 2,000 pounds. We proceeded to track them until we were as close as twenty yards away. These animals are huge!. The sad thing is, to keep the rhinos alive; they have to cut off both of their horns. Otherwise, poachers will kill them and cut off the horns for sale in Chinese markets. It seems the rhino horn has some specific uses in Chinese medicine and for some, there are aphrodisiac qualities too. So, these rhinos have been darted and tagged (in the ear) and had their horns removed. Now poachers won’t kill them.







Finally, a hippo showing his open mouth as a warning...



We then headed to Harare for an afternoon to tour around. There was not much to see. The typical big city attractions like botanical gardens, National archives and galleries have been neglected and allowed to fall into disrepair. We walked toward the Presidential residence and had lunch in a sports club at a cricket field where everyone was watching the India-Pakistan match. Then back to the city center where there wasn’t much to do. Our group decided to make an early start and try to cross two borders in one day plus drive over 400 miles. This was going to cause a 15 hour travel day, but it would allow us one extra free day in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. We got to the Zimbabwe/Mozambique border and had a two hour wait while they manually wrote up our visas.

I don’t know much about Mozambique except they were a Portuguese colony at one time so the language is still used here. We drove across one section of the country and arrived at the Mozambique/Malawi border at 6:30 PM. The Mozambique exit office looked closed but it turned out they were using candles to work from due to lack of electricity. Since the border closes around this time, we felt lucky to get through. Then it was the Malawi border entry office for another stamp before driving 90 minutes to our camp where we upgraded to a bedroom for $2.50 per person.