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Traffic Jam to the Airstrip
(Or It’s Not Over ‘Til It’s Over)
June 9, 2024
We awoke this morning knowing that we’d soon be shaking off the dust (literally) from a month of riding in safari vehicles. Many (most) bounces resulted in a puff of dust to settle on us, and in particular, if a vehicle passing in the other direction left a serious cloud of dust in its wake that we’d have to pass through. (Thank goodness most camps take care of laundry for guests.). Innocent was and many other guides were good about letting the dust settle a bit before carrying on, but there’s no way to avoid it entirely. It was nice to have breakfast in the lodge. It was quiet, save for the squawking birds trying to steal our food. Zawadi (self named Whiskey Sour after Seb ordered one at the firepit last night; turns out it is Zawadi’s favorite drink) was there to serve us breakfast and our light banter continued. Only one other couple arrived shortly after us - most guests and guides were already out hunting for cats. We headed out to the airstrip with Innocent at the wheel and had what turned out to be a great game drive, as well as transportation. We spotted a wildebeasts carcass - not yet stripped of most of the flesh, reminding us of how tidy all the animals are, cleaning up after those no longer with us; otherwise, of course, there would be carcasses everywhere for the sheer volume of animals. Innocent promised that the vultures would soon be having a party at the location. Next, our second sighting of a serval cat - how lucky! She was not nearly as orange as the one we saw last night but we got a good, pretty close, look at her. Alas, she was shy and by the time we got cameras out, she was long gone in the high grasses. We also caught sight of some banded mongooses crossing the road and hopping through the grass, giving us a good view of their stripes.
Innocent stopped both to show us some footprints in the loose dirt (he wanted to show off one more time how he tracks, but misidentified from the vehicle, and corrected himself when he got out to inspect). And just to complete our bush education, he had us get out of the vehicle to inspect an aardvark hole, made the night before to hunt ants - now deserted. He clearly appreciated the fact that we’d be interested in less “showy” features of the landscape. And then our farewell to the bush. Way off in the distance was a large rock outcropping. He stopped and got out the binocs, saying that he’d driven this route so often that he could tell from that far that something was different. Indeed, it was a pair of stunningly beautiful lions snoozing in the sun on a rock. Did Disney use this rock as a model for The Lion King? When we drove up, there were a few vehicles there (we were, of course, getting close to the busy central Serengeti). The male roused once, checked around so we could see his face and then went back to his comfortable position next to his girl with head on ginormous paw. As if that wasn’t enough, around the other side of the rock outcropping was a bonafide traffic jam - a bunch of safari vehicles parked in and around the road. In the middle of the group was another lion pair. One vehicle moved to let us into the circle before we tipped over with Innocent trying to maneuver to see the beasts. (Each of us admitted later wondering if finally the frequent listing of the vehicle would get the best of it a mere several miles from the airstrip!). The lions were completely encircled by safari vehicles, with Jillebob only a couple feet from them. They were nonplussed and/or oblivious to the riveted tourists around. Alas, we couldn’t watch for long as we had a flight to catch. Farewell, Serengeti cats!!
The airport was busy and chaotic - a bit nerve wracking wondering if we’d know when our flight was “called” or if our bags would get on the plane. Luckily, on check-in, all our worry about 33 lbs. was for naught. We passed the weight restriction on the last little flight. It all worked out and we had the 1 1/2 hour flight (with one stop) to Arusha. We had to laugh at the safety (not) at the airport. We identified our bags after they were indeed off-loaded from our plane, walked on the taxiway side of the plane, across the hose from the fuel truck to our plane and to the waiting car. Our escort did stop briefly when she saw a plane was starting to taxi out.
Our driver, a very nice Nomad guy, named Salem, who gave up the bush and now guides in the city, will also be our driver/city guide tomorrow. He went over the plan and got us the 5-10 minutes to the Arusha Coffee Lodge, where we will overnight. It’s quite nice, with duplex bungalows, but has more the feel of a hotel than we’ve grown used to. We had lunch, as our room was not quite ready. After lunch, Jillebob had a nap, Seb wandered to the shopping/demo area (beading, glass blowing, weaving) for a few minutes and then returned for her own short nap. As exhilarating, marvelous, fantastic as this trip has been, we’re both weary. Safari is truly a most wonderful, energy-sapping adventure!! We advise everyone to try it and would be happy to live vicariously through your planning.
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Oh what a beautiful morning!
June 7 & 8, 2024
Our last two mornings on safari and we did ok (to say the least). On departure day from Cherero, We had breakfast scheduled for 6:30 AM, and since we’re obsessively punctual, we finished getting ready in the room and headed to the common area. One of the security guys met us part way, and escorted us not to the main tent, but to a freshly cut plot out in the plain. The table was beautifully set, and there we had a yummy breakfast as the sun rose in the distance. Wow. Our hosts bid us farewell and Anaeli made a point of letting us know that the team has been together for about a year. It’s unusual not to have more turnover. Their synchronization showed. We headed out across the plain, slowly toward the airstrip for our hand over to the Namiri Plains Camp folks. The high grasses looked particularly beautiful in the golden light of morning, soon to be eaten as the migration makes its way to Morumba Plain. It made us think of the Oklahoma song: Oh what a beautiful morning - just with grass vice corn! We also noticed, as we have all along in the Serengeti, the scale of the many flowers - tiny pops of color - scattered against the vastness of the plains. As we crossed via the secondary roads on our way to the primary road, we spotted various animals just waking up. Along the remainder of the drive, a lion giraffes, antelopes, jackals, and myriad other creatures including fighting dikdiks and banded mongooses. Periodically, as he has done all along, if we were quiet for too long, Anaeli would call back to us: “How’re you doing?” Love that about him. We also noticed that over our three days in the west, the roads have improved considerably from the soggy, post-rains state they were in when we arrived - no more risk of getting stuck in the mud! The western Serengeti and Anaeli have been good to us. Such a treat to have had the same guide - and a really good one - for five days running.
At the airstrip, Anaeli spotted Innocent from Namiri Plains Camp, who he knew and gave a good review. Then came probably the most frustrating episode of our trip. Anaeli had gotten us to the airstrip early in case the Asilia people (parent company of Namiri) also got there early. They did, but we had to wait for another trio of guests to arrive via plane. The message that their plane was due to arrive at noon had not been passed along. Their flight was late. We gave the rangers at the airstrip our packed lunches from Cherero, in anticipation of having lunch on arrival at Namiri. It was a confluence of bad communications between camps/companies, and bad choices by Namiri. In terms of the latter, save for a short visit to some hippos to distract us, we were left to sit in the airstrip parking lot for a total of three hours. NOT the way we wanted to spend our second to last day on safari. We started to agitate then got firmer and firmer that this was not acceptable (weren’t there other vehicles - oh no, it’s too far; can’t we leave via the second Namiri vehicle at the parking lot? - oh no, it’s a private booking). Nothing was done. By the time the other guests’ plane got in, we were both pretty pissed off. Thankfully, the new guests (and our safari companions for a day and a half) were lovely: two sisters and their stepmother. We had a pleasant drive to camp, chitchatting and checking out a sight here and there. At camp, we let the managers know that we wanted to have a chat, but please let us enjoy lunch and our afternoon drive first. They already knew about the incident, knew we were unhappy and later were very gracious about taking responsibility and apologizing. At this writing, it remains to be seen if they and Mike, our “Africa guy” will sort out some sort of accommodation for the time lost and frustration. More about what made up for the agony to come….
Lunch was lovely, and we have a “butler” (waitress), Zawadi, who is delightful with a good sense of humor. We barely had time in our room and were off on our afternoon game drive. Innocent, our guide, is paired with Ally, a guide in training, and they do well together. Innocent described this drive as “window shopping” for the serious shopping the following day. Our first sighting was a big ellie, doing some unmentionables, and his buddy, in the background, knocking over a tree. It’s a toss up which was more interesting: the birds or the migration. Our vehicle mates are serious bird peeps so we stopped many times to check out fun varieties to include the especially beautifully lovebirds, superb starling, lilac-breasted roller, and many more. Since we’ve only randomly focused on birds to this point, it was a really nice diversion. Then we found a large mass of wildebeasts moving in formation. It was a different perspective of the migration than what we saw the other day. It’s a force of nature moving along, some running but in a somewhat organized line. And it never stops. They kick up a cloud of dust not unlike PigPen of Peanuts fame. At one point, Innocent drove into the middle of them so we were totally surrounded. A few momentary fights, a few pairs mating, babies calling out for their mamas…. it was a scene that is impossible to describe. While often the wildebeasts are mixed with zebras, in this case the zebras were only on the fringes of the herd. During a good part of it three hyenas were casing the situation, but left without taking action. We won’t forget this in a hurry. On the way back, on the amazing flat plains that go on forever, we’d see rock outcroppings so interesting that they’re like sculptures with trees on the side and on top. Innocent pointed out the Rock Fig trees that grow out of cracks in rocks. Very cool!
From the drive we went straight to the fire pit for a glass of wine. With a dead tree hovering above - another work of nature’s art - the setting looking back at the lodge was beautiful. We loved the fact that the guides came down and joined us, chatting about the day and mixing it up a bit. Even the second (private) guide from the dreaded airport parking lot sat down next to Jill and checked in before his (photographer) guest arrived. After dinner, golf cart back to the room - not too bad of service, given our tent is the furthest away.
The beauty of yesterday morning was all about the surroundings. Today, the beauty of the aminals was off the charts. And that’s saying a lot after four weeks on safari. Ally picked us up in a golf cart at 6:15 AM and when Patricia, Christina and Terri arrived moments later, off we went for our serious (animal) shopping morning. And what a morning it was. We thought we had hit the jackpot when Innocent spotted three cheetahs brothers. Stunning creatures, we watched them sit and keep watch in every direction for a while, then tracked them as they walked, sometimes side by side but more often in a like heading to, well, who cares where they were headed. They were wonderful to watch. Indeed it was just a quick little purchase on our shopping trip in the Eastern Serengeti (Maasai word for Endless Plain). The main events were ahead. We saw a (spread out) group of 4 adult lions and a female. Over the morning, our team dubbed them Scarface (the ugly, scarred one), Pretty Boy (the stunner), Lover Boy (hanging close to/claiming the female), and The Guard (keeping watch). We had great views of them hangin’ out, moving about, and of note: taking serious action in intentioned walking and roars to scare off another male interloper. Innocent had us laughing when he put words to the growls… “Whose land is this? Mine, mine, mine”, as a lion sounds. (You really have to hear it.). The intimidation worked, so no blood had to be spilled. Well, no lion blood today.
On the morning went, with several more views of cheetahs, some great zebras drinking at a watering hole (with zebras around for miles!) some jackels (renamed wolves, as they’ve been re-categorized), a hippo and buffalo in a pond, and a pretty little lizard sunning himself and doing by a few pushups every time he changed position . The highlight of the morning was when Innocent found under a tree in the shade a mama cheetah and five cubs. They were about two months old, so so so so so so adorbs! They were sometimes playful, sometimes sleeping with one in particular (the troublemaker) who first tried to climb the tree, and later got stuck in a branch and took many multiple efforts with dangling and reaching legs - to finally tumble out onto the ground. The cubs were fuzzy, inquisitive and playful, sometimes even climbing on their mama. We learned the markings are like honey badgers to intimidate predators… we could actually see it. At times they tried for milk, but mama was having none of it this morning. She was busy keeping watch. She would occasionally make a call and all five would make their way to her. A fantastic sighting that bookended the very first cats that we saw on our first day on safari on our first trip to Africa: a mama cheetah and cubs. Too cool.
While we watched the cheetahs, we heard someone else peeping/crying. So innocent finally tore us away from the cubs to find a set of lion cubs. (A morning on safari is hard pressed to get better than this!!!). They were tucked in some trees by a rock outcropping a short distance away - more difficult to get a full view, but the peeks of them in between branches, snuggling with one another, resting heads on their (huge) paws. Very very fun. They were about three months old, so quite a bit bigger than the cheetahs.
On the way back to camp, we went by the same watering hole where many zebras were availing themselves of a drink, wading in to get the freshest water. The adult lions were nearby and the zebras weren’t even spooked. In case Namiri Plains had not already demonstrated the accuracy of its name (Namiri is the Maasai name for “Home of Cats”), we had one more cheetah sighting before heading in. Indeed: Oh What a Beautiful Morning!!
Lunch, as now expected, was wonderful. We chatted about how lucky we were in having as our last vehicle buddies Patricia, Christina and Terri. A true She-fari, as Patricia dubbed the five when we first met! We’ve enjoyed the banter, their awe in seeing things for the first time, our mutual awe at seeing - well, everything. Short as our interaction was, we hope to be in touch in the future.
We had good time to blog and check photos before heading out on our afternoon drive, sadly, our last safari drive of the trip. It has been forever that we’ve been in Africa, and has also gone by in a flash. Will there be a “take 3” in Africa? Let’s just say it’s not off the table!
The game drive was a good one — hyenas and hyena babies (to round out “baby day”); a cheetah (because one simply can never get enough); load of birds (particularly at a watering hole where Innocent challenged us to find all the birds); and treat of all treats, a serval cat (small and rather bright orange with spots), a rarity. We got back to camp on the late side, but still chilled out at the campfire before dinner. It was there that we picked up some sentiments from various guides implying a (tourism) rivalry between Kenya and Tanzania. Anaeli had first brought this up in the context of the burning of grasses (slows the migrations progress toward Kenya which is not good for their sighting opportunities), one of the many tour organizers we met was skeptical of the concept, and here again, the guides were keen to point out the riches found more in Tanzania than Kenya. Who knows where truth lies?
Patricia was wiped out so packed it in. We had a lovely dinner with Christina, Terri, and Innocent, talking about Africa, safaris, the impact of Covid and more. As we sat at the table on the open patio, Terri spotted movement in the dining room - a Jennet (pretty, cat-like creature, but not a cat) running across the shelves on the wall. There are seemingly endless new animals to see. Lovely, lovely end to our safari time in this fair land.
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Where the Heck Are We?
June 6, 2024
The Serengeti is big. Really big! The nature of this type of travel more generally is that we’ve put our trust in Mike (our organizer) and then in each transport person and more importantly each guide to get us where we’re going and guide us on what to do next. Half the time, we have no idea where we are! In the Serengeti, that’s taken to an extreme. Anaeli takes us out onto the plains following primary (dirt) roads and secondary roads (paths with a divit for each tire, sometimes barely recognizable!). We’ve asked a few times how Anaeli knows where we are and he always has an answer, though it’s inconceivable to us how he’s finding his way around.
After an early rise this morning we were off to find the 15 lions from yesterday. Seriously, how the heck could he get us to the very same rise and same group of trees? But he did. Alas, the lions were nowhere to be found. But we still had some fabulous viewing for the day. In the vicinity of yesterday’s lions, a wonderful group of giraffes making their way across the plain, with the matriarch in the lead and one family member taking up the rear - on watch. We spotted several lions over the course of the day, including one spectacular male resting in the shade. Zebras took center stage today, as many of them seem to be in the lead of the great migration making its way to Morumba Plain and vicinity. Great groups and a very fun family drinking at a (man made) watering hole alongside some beautiful birds and ducks. Were quite enamored with a beautiful, shiny blue roller bird (not sure the technical name), and several times, Anaeli positioned us to get a shot of him taking off - he’s beautiful siting on a branch,but stunning (!) in flight. No luck on that one, but it was fun trying! We randomly saw the rest of the usual cast of characters: antelopes of various types (including waterbuck, with their heart-shaped noses), ostriches, warthogs, mongooses, ellies, hippos, Guinea fowl, baboons, etc. and then…. crocodiles!! Who knew? We had to search a few animal crossing points of a river to find some crocs. Turns out that with the massive amount of rain they’ve had for a few months, the rivers have been so flooded that Anaeli suspects that many died in the chaos. We saw several and one, directly across the river from us who gave us a show of rising out of the water and opening his mouth to cool down!
We drove toward the controlled fires (burning the dry grass, not burning the fresh grasses) but stopped short of them, stopped at the loo of an airstrip (welcome, having already used the bush loo), and zipped around. At lunch (delicious, packed by the camp), Anaeli broke out a map and showed us where on earth we were (well, where in the Serengeti we were). It was welcome to get our bearings, particularly since both of us thought we were on one side of a major river only to find out that we had crossed it twice. Thank goodness we have a great guide to get us around!
On our way back to camp, we stopped to see/tour the Nomad “mobile camp” quite near ours. It was fascinating to see, though we’re happy where we are. The mobile camps move with the migration, staying in one location no longer then 2 months at a time. It was a bit more basic, but that said, still quite nice! Still, it was good after a long day out, to come back and chill a bit before dinner. Finally, there’s another couple in camp - lovely Brits, of which one is yet another travel agent. It was fun talking to them around the fire before dinner, and, in particular, getting her perspectives. After a lovely dinner, we were told there was a surprise for us. We headed to the fire. The entire staff gave a singing and dancing performance for us to bid us farewell. They really looked like they were having fun - even dragged Jill up to dance - and it was greatly appreciated. Too bad we didn’t have more time to chat with the Brits, but such is life in camp.
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