Tarangire National Park, Tanzania

Boundary Hill Lodge...owned by our safari group. After four nights of camping…this was just what we needed. Each “cabin” has its own private hilltop location…and looks out over the plains of Tarangire. The bank of floor to ceiling windows allows you to watch an incredible sunrise each morning. I think we have found heaven.

Yes…this is the bathroom. Makes you want to drink lots of water. At night, the stars light the room.

This is the first accommodation to get three photos in the blog! Our second patio has a functioning bathtub as well as a private outdoor shower. Oh, and did I mention the fact that everything is solar powered? Luxurious and eco-friendly.

The next day we headed into Tarangire National Park for a game drive. James was quite surprised when we found these, as apparently they are quite rare. I find it amazing that on every single game drive we see something new….

Tarangire is arguably the best park in Africa for elephants with a population of over 3,000. You see them around every bend…but their favorite spot is down by the water.

We sat and watched this group have a pool party. They sprayed mud, flopped down in it, rolled around and generally had a blast! Somehow they avoid sitting on the babies…but barely.

We got to spend a morning in a masai boma. The walls of the hut are made of mud and cow dung…very water repellent. This young girl is one of the wives…they do not get a choice as to who they marry….and it can be a very young girl with a very old man. The more prosperous the man, the more wives he has.

We are sitting on one of the beds, which is a ledge covered with a cow hide. We sat around some coals and talked all about the masai culture with James and a masai warrior that works at our lodge. The boys are circumcised anywhere after about twelve years of age, and can NOT make a face or cry during the procedure. The girls are also circumcised so that they do not “feel pleasure and become prostitutes”.

Dean said that the young girls could not take their eyes off me. Perhaps because I am twice the size of them! They live on a diet of milk mixed with blood, porridge and red meat. If a “warrior” passes through the area and needs a place to sleep he gets one of the beds. He puts his spear across the door so that the husband knows not to come in. Hmmmm. I'll have to try that at home. (Kidding!)

Our last activity was a safari walk. We went with our masai warrior, who would protect us with his spear. Did I mention that each night at dark a warrior meets us at our door with a spear or bow and arrow and a lantern to walk us to dinner? (As we were leaving James told us the reason for the escort after dark- a lion killed a zebra right in front of OUR unit a few years back.) We only saw small creatures and zebra, but had a lion appeared I was ready to witness some warrior prowess. On to Zanzibar! It is beach time…

Lake Manyara, Tanzania

On our way to Lake Manyara we stopped off to hike the rim of the Norongoro Crater with a ranger. Note the machine gun slung over his shoulder….in case we encountered buffalo, lion or elephant. Hmmm…..He taught us what to do in case we came across said animals. We never did, but now I have some strong life skills. Add that to the old resume. The best part is that we didn’t get attacked by a lion, however I almost got shoved over the rim of the crater by a mating Masai bull and cow. Typical.

A Masai boma. The houses are built by the wives, and made of wood coated with mud and dung. In the middle is a stick fence enclosure for all the cattle. The masai walk with spears in case they encounter lion, elephants or buffalo. All very possible, as many of them live within the National Park.

Our Lake Manyara campground. Easily our least favorite accommodation during the safari. We drove down a dusty 4WD road for an hour only to find a sandy barren wasteland. It was dry season, so the lake had shrunk to miles away. I had the pleasure of showering in the outdoor bucket shower with a fence that went up to my belly button. Leave your modesty at home.

The good news? The sunset was pretty and the stars were out in full force….and we were only there one night!

Lake Manyara…..thousands of pink flamingos and pelicans. When they all took flight it sounded like an airport.

Who can find the small deer-like creature in this picture? I made James back the truck up. “I swear I just saw a gazelle IN the tree!” Turns out it is a “rock climber” that has decided trees are just as fun.

We hit the local market in town to pick up some fruits. I got to look at all the different varieties of bananas…and have tasted them all! We stared at the produce, while all the villagers stared at us! Now on to Tarangire National Park.

Serengeti National Park, Tanzania

The Masai people are everywhere…driving their cattle and goats, selling jewelry, walking in the village and living in their boma’s (villages). Both men and women wear elaborate jewelry, short hair and colorful clothes. They are polygamous…most men have multiple wives and many children. Our guide told us that one Masai man had 8 wives, 25 children and 45 grandchildren!

The road coming into Serengeti National Park, arguably the most famous National Park in the world. Note the dust coming off of each car….it is like that every time you pass someone! No air conditioning….so windows open. Hard on the lungs and your laundry (especially when you pack light like we do.)

At this point we hit the “Big Five”….we had seen lion, buffalo, elephant, rhino and leopard all by day two. We could go home now….Doesn’t the leopard look comfy? They even drag their pray up into the trees.

This was our highlight of the entire safari. We had tracked a group of lioness as they made their way through the grass. This female then began stalking….and came right by our truck…heading for a group of giraffe. James said that lion rarely hunt giraffe…but she was going to give it a go…alone. While she was stalking we noted that the people in the truck ahead of us were staring at our truck. The second lion had moved forward and was sitting RIGHT behind our truck…with us all innocently looking in the other direction! We could have pet her as she passed by us. The first lion did chase the giraffe….but to no success! (Thank goodness…) Oh, and we caught it all on video!

Our camp for three nights. Incredible….at one point we could see giraffe, elephant, zebra, baboon and buffalo all from where we sat. No fences around us. At night we had all kinds of animals sniffing the canvas of our tent…and lions roaring in the background. Our tent was pretty luxurious…king bed, pit toilet and bucket shower all included. Each night we sat around the campfire naming the various animal sounds we could hear. We also had the pleasure of meeting a great couple from Syracuse, NY to share our adventure with!

Baby giraffe on the camp driveway. The giraffe are very curious, and we could usually get pretty close.

Lion cubs! There was a huge pride of lions on a bluff overlooking a watering hole. We saw them nearly every day. They were the same lions we saw stalking the giraffe. A pride is one big family…lots of snuggling and face rubbing going on.

I think this was taken with night vision...as it was after dark. Another leopard…we were lucky with the cats. We watched this one climb down from the tippy top of the tree and eventually get on the ground. We hoped he would hunt…but instead he got face to face with a hyena! Lots of growling and hissing….and the hyena eventually slunk away.

James said we would be lucky to see one cheetah, we saw SEVEN. We watched these two walk across the grass, scaring all the zebra and gazelle half to death. They then plopped down in the shade to wait for an unsuspecting animal to come from upwind. Sure enough…a herd of gazelle came merrily through the meadow. The cheetah gave the gazelle quite a chase….but ended halfheartedly. James thinks they weren’t very hungry, but typical of cats they can’t let the ball of yarn go by without a swat!

The Serengeti ecosystem is defined by the annual migration of over 1,500,000 million wildebeest, zebras and associated predators. We were lucky enough to witness the very beginning of this migration in this area. Difficult to see in this picture…but those are wildebeest running across the road….and it looked like the line never ended! On to Lake Manyara!

Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania

We flew into Kilimanjaro, Tanzania after about 24 hours of hard travel which allowed for about two hours of sleep (flights in Africa are not only expensive, but not well thought out). After one night in Arusha at a nice lodge recovering, we hopped in our Land Rover with our guide, James, and started out on a 10 day safari!

We drove for hours passing villages, donkeys, and the Masai people. Bananas! It was not only fun watching them be transported (on bikes!) but also eating them. It’s amazing how good a fresh from the tree banana tastes….

Ngorongoro Crater…a natural amphitheatre created by 600 meter high cliffs and full of an amazing cross section of wildlife. Our first day of game viewing would be in this crater. The white in the middle is soda lake….full of pink flamingo. A remnant of the once volcanic crater.

Zebra…not afraid of us at all! Even with a baby at her side. Herds of wildebeest in the background. The zebra and wildebeest tend to hang out together...safety in numbers.

The Wildebeest herds are huge! The most amazing part is that this is a small herd. Our guide said that in the migration there are millions.

The critically endangered black rhino. We were EXTREMELY lucky to see some. They are being poached to extinction for their horns which are worth more than gold. The horns are used by the Chinese as an aphrodisiac. These animals are so protected, that if they want to leave the crater they are given an escort until they reach another protected park. The poachers are getting more high tech- now using helicopters, darts, guns, etc.

All the safari trucks that arrive when an “exciting” animal is spotted…such as a big cat or Rhino. The guides all have radios and they definitely put the word out! Luckily, this was only the case in Ngorongoro as it is a smaller area.

Our first lion spotting! He basically played “King of the Mountain”….rolled onto his back, slept, surveyed his land. Not a bad life. Turns out the males don’t even really hunt. The female lion is the huntress.

The crater is so picturesque….tall grasses and Acacia trees…and a ton of animals!

A view of the crater from our window at the lodge. We cracked open a bottle of wine and watched the sunset…after a much needed shower. Safaris are a DUSTY affair. On to the Serengeti!

Livingstone, Zambia (Victoria Falls)

We arrived in Livingstone, Zambia with the intent of visiting Victoria Falls, the Seventh Natural Wonder of the World as well as being a Unesco World Heritage Site. This has been a dream of mine for MANY years, ever since I saw a video of the falls on my friend Tina’s camera! This is our little bungalow at Green Tree Lodge…a property running with bunnies and Guinea Fowl and owned by a Scotsman. Seriously.

Our first night we decided to have cocktails at sunset on the deck of the Royal Livingstone hotel. The hotel is stunning. It shares property with the Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park…so on the drive in we passed a herd of Zebra. The mist in the picture above is the edge of the falls.

As the sun set we watched hippo’s play in the Zambezi river. One of their favorite things to do is open wide and yawn! They also make the most unbelievable sounds…very distinctive. They provided entertainment every time a boat went by, as the big male would lunge at it!

The next day we headed to Chobe National Park in Botswana. We decided to do a day safari; boat safari in the morning and land safari in the afternoon. This is the border crossing…the ferry boat can only carry ONE truck at a time. The line of trucks was unreal….some sit there for a week at a time! They are planning to build a bridge…someday.

The boat safari was amazing…we saw birds, warthogs, buffalo, elephants, crocodiles, antelopes (all kinds), hippo’s….One of the most exciting moments was when this herd of Cape Buffalo decided to stampede. They ran along the shore and then into the water…where crocodiles attacked…they then ran back onto shore and got stuck in a huge mud pit. One did not make it out.

We viewed many hippos in the water…and were lucky enough to watch these guys get on shore. They normally only graze at night as their skin is actually very sun sensitive. They do secrete a “sunscreen” from their skin….it looked like big beads of sweat.

We saw herds of elephants..bulls, females and babies. The day before was the first rain of the season, so apparently many of the elephants had left the river with the idea that their waterholes would soon be filled again.

Our land safari was not nearly as interesting…but we did get to drive by the river…it is amazing to see all the different animals living together. In this picture alone there are warthogs, baboons, hippos, antelope and birds.

Victoria Falls! Not what I expected…as it is currently dry season. In the wet season this is all flowing water, however, the spray is so great you can barely see! We were lucky enough to take a tour out to Livingstone Island. This island can only be accessed 6 months out of the year.

We walked out to the very edge of the falls….they lose one person every year over this very edge. Yikes. Our guide kept close watch! One million liters of water fall per second, down a 108 meter drop.

We were lucky enough to be able to swim in the Devils Pool. I had NO IDEA that we would be swimming on the edge of the falls. In order to take this picture, our guide stood on the lip of the falls. You can see the river at the bottom of the gorge. It made my heart pound just watching him!

And then we joined him. You could jump straight into this pool…and swim right up to the edge of the falls. There is a shelf of rock that keeps you from going over….but to the right of us…no shelf. This ranks among the top ten of crazy things we have done this year. Can you imagine anyone letting you do this in the United States? Ha ha! Now on to Tanzania for our 10 day safari!