Safari!

Six years ago, I went on safari to southern Africa—Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.  It remains a favorite among the many trips I have taken since retirement.  I thought Scott would be interested in a similar experience, but I wanted to see something different, so we booked an east African safari for this summer.  

There were many similarities between the two safaris--most of the animals we saw on this trip were repeats of those I had seen on the previous safari, and both were booked through Smithsonian Journeys.  But there were also differences, most notably in the terrain and the safari vehicles used.  The wildlife parks we visited in east Africa—Kenya and Tanzania—are vast compared with those in southern Africa and required driving much greater distances to see animals.  The biggest negative of this trip was that much of our safari-vehicle driving was over bone-jarring, teeth-rattling dirt—and dusty—roads.  The discomfort was worth it, however, as we observed nearly every species we could have hoped to see.  The animals are so accustomed to seeing those vehicles that they virtually ignored us as we watched them go about their lives—eating, sleeping, feeding their young, and even hunting.

This trip began and ended in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.  Our itinerary included stays in five parks, two in Kenya and three in Tanzania.  Driving from Nairobi to the first park, Amboseli National Park, took about four hours mostly on the Mombasa highway, the last paved road we would see until we returned to Nairobi ten days later.  For the most part, we traveled the roughly five hundred miles between game parks in our safari vehicles on those dirt roads.  In addition, each day we went on one or two game drives, exploring the parks that, together, cover about 10,000 square miles.  It is hard to imagine the vastness of this portion of the Great Rift Valley or to convey it through photographs.  Thousands upon thousands of animals live on these plains, but sometimes we would drive long distances seeing only a few. 

A bull elephant grazes with Kilimanjaro in the background

Amboseli is a beautiful small park, whose swamplands are fed by snow melt from nearby Mt. Kilimanjaro, a dormant volcano that is the highest free-standing mountain peak (19,341 feet) in the world.  The Kenyan/Tanzanian border jogs around the mountain, which, according to my 94-year-old friend Michael (who was born in Tanzania and has climbed Kilimanjaro), was given to Kaiser Wilhelm as a birthday gift from Queen Victoria.  (An internet search suggests that this is probably an apocryphal tale.)  We were told by the locals that our visit was blessed because “the mountain” looked upon us, that is, the clouds cleared enough to give us a view of the peak.

Approximately 1,200 elephants inhabit these marshlands, along with hippos, various species of antelope, giraffe, and an abundant number of birds.  Unpredictable water levels have flooded some former lodges and made muddy messes of a number of roads, but the water and grasses nourish the animals who live here.  Small vervet monkeys are a nuisance around the lodge, and we were warned to keep our doors and windows shut so that we didn’t return to find unwelcome messes in our rooms.  (One morning one of them bounded across the breakfast buffet and made off with the bananas.)

Approximately two million Maasai live in Kenya and Tanzania.  They are semi-nomadic herders of cattle and goats, who live as their ancestors did in mud, stick, and dung huts or bomas.  The round bomas are built by the women.  Maasai men can have multiple wives, but each wife has her own boma.  A number of Maasai villages are scattered throughout the Amboseli region.  We visited one of them early one morning.

We were greeted by the village elder, who spoke excellent English.  The men and women of the village welcomed us with songs and a dance, then encircled us to offer prayers, before taking us for a tour of their village.  The bomas form a circle and outside these a fence wall is built from tree branches.  The men take their animals out to graze during the day and herd them into the inner village each night to protect them from predators.  We shared songs with the preschool children and gave the teachers school supplies we had brought from the States. 

Lake Manyara

Moving on to Lake Manyara, we had to pass through the Kenyan/Tanzanian border where we paid our visa fees, documented that we had been vaccinated against yellow fever, and changed vehicles and drivers.  Approximately 40% of Tanzania is protected national park land.  The smallest of its parks is Lake Manyara.  The hills and forests around the lake house nearly 400 species of birds as well as blue monkeys and baboons.

The next day, we traveled on to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.  The Ngorongoro Crater (really a volcanic caldera) is two thousand feet deep, a hundred miles wide, and surrounded by old volcanic mountains.  The UNESCO International Biosphere provides a microcosm of all of Africa—grasslands, swamps, forests, and mountains.  The animal population is estimated at 25,000.  

Ngorongoro Crater from the Rim

Since we were traveling in the southern hemisphere, we knew it would be “winter,” but we also knew that the equator passes through Kenya so didn’t anticipate what we Americans would think of as winter weather.  However, our lodge overlooking the crater sat at an elevation of 9,000 feet and morning temperatures were around 40 degrees.  I was glad that I had packed a down jacket and gloves!  

As we moved down the mountainside to the Serengeti plains, temperatures warmed considerably, and we quickly shed some of our  layers.  On the drive between parks, we stopped at a small museum and learned about the discoveries of human ancestors by Mary Leakey and family in the Olduvai Gorge.

Twice each year--from June through October and from December to March--approximately a million wildebeest, 200,000 zebras, and 300,000 Thomson’s gazelle migrate in search of new grazing lands around the Serengeti and Masai Mara.  This is called the Great Migration.  Coming upon animals in the wild is much more exciting than visiting them at the local zoo, but seeing the plains covered with herd after herd of grazing animals was simply awe-inspiring. 

Sunset on the Serengeti Plain

We spent two nights in the Serengeti and three in Masai Mara (after crossing back into Kenya and reuniting with our first drivers/guides and their vehicles), going out on long drives in search of game.  Many safari-goers are most interested in seeing the "Big Five":  lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo, and rhino.  Over the course of our safari adventure, we saw all five as well as most of the other species that live in this part of the world.  I logged about thirty types of animals and over seventy birds in my journal.

When we returned home and I downloaded photos from my camera (a small Canon Powershot with a 40X zoom) and my iPhone, I had over 900 images.  It has been a massive undertaking to review and organize these and decide how to share them.  What follows is an animal-by-animal series of photographs (in no particular order), and some brief information that I gathered from our guides and the guidebooks I took with me on this trip.  I hope that you will enjoy the photographs and learn something about these interesting and exceedingly diverse creatures.  (I used an app called Pic Collage to group photos into collages rather than inserting them one-by-one into my blog text.  I hope this makes the blog easier to view and more interesting.)

Elephants were the main draw in Amboseli, but we saw few of these magnificent animals in the other parks.  Elephants live long lives and stay connected to their families throughout.  Multiple generations of females, led by an elder matriarch, live together.  Young elephants stay with the herd until they are teenagers at which point the males leave and join other males.  At the end of our trip, we visited an Elephant Orphanage in Nairobi.  The baby elephants are bottle fed and then must learn to eat solid food.  

Primates.  We saw several species including Baboons (male, female with baby hanging on, and family, photos on the left),  a Sykes's Blue Monkey (top right among the thorns) and a Black-faced Monkey (lower right).  The tree the monkey in the lower middle photo is climbing is known as a "Yellow Fever Acacia."  European explorers camped among these trees and came down with Yellow Fever.  They mistakenly thought the trees were the culprit.

Cape Buffalo are ruminants (grass-eaters) and are typically seen either grazing or lying down and chewing their cud.  They live in herds watched over by a dominant male.  Young or weaker males typically band together in smaller herds.  The small birds that appear to ride on the buffalo's back are Oxpeckers.  They feast on the skin parasites of the larger animals.

Zebra herds accompany the more populous Wildebeest, grazing and migrating through the plains of Africa.  The species complement one another as the zebras graze on the tall grasses, clearing the way for the low-grass grazers like the wildebeest.  

Cheetah are similar in appearance to leopards but they have a smaller, more cat-like face with distinctive black teardrop lines running down the face.  Cheetah have slender, greyhound-like bodies.  Females live and hunt alone and hide in the tall grasses of the plains.  Males tend to hunt together. We found a well-hidden mother and cub (top left photo) as they were feeding on a gazelle.

Giraffes are stately, graceful animals.  Loose associations of female giraffes and their young are called a tower.  The lower left photo is of two young giraffes.  The main diet of the giraffe is the Acacia tree.  The lower right photos, which are a bit difficult to see, show giraffes sitting and spreading the front legs in order to feed on grass or drink water.  

Hippos are water animals with sensitive skin that easily sunburns.  They are herbivores, feasting on grasses that grow in or near a river or lake.  They are sociable creatures living in mixed-sex pods.  

The Spotted Hyena is both a formidable hunter and an opportunistic feeder on game killed by other predators.  Small groups of hyenas can run down their prey through a chase that can last up to four miles, going in for the kill when the prey is exhausted.  Unlike other animal groups, hyenas are a matriarchal society.  Females live and give birth together in dens.   Males are unwelcome outside of the necessary act of breeding.

Leopards are solitary creatures, usually found in trees.  They are skilled hunters, creeping through the grass before attacking large prey such as wildebeest, cape buffalo, and zebra.  While we did not witness it, they carry their kill high up into a tree to eat it.  (It was difficult to get a good photo given the shadows and lighting.)

Lions are quite prevalent on the African plains, where prey are plentiful.  After seeing 19 of them, Scott says he quit counting.  Lions are very sociable creatures, living in groups ("prides") of several related females and their offspring, watched over by an unrelated male.  We found lions in the plains grasses, in trees, and on rocks.  The lion in the bottom right photo is a young male whose mane is developing and whose legs are losing their baby spots.  For about an hour one day we watched two lionesses in the top right photo inching through the grass toward a herd of zebra, wildebeest, and gazelle.  When some of us said we couldn't wait any longer for a bathroom visit, we left the scene.  Another vehicle in our group reported that when the lions finally sprang, the targeted young zebra got away.  

On our last morning game drive, we spotted a lioness in some shrubs watching a lone zebra grazing near a few gazelle.  The lioness sprang, landing on the back of the unsuspecting zebra.  The two went down in a tangle of feet, but the poor zebra was no match for the powerful predator.  After several moments of thrashing, the zebra succumbed (lower left photo).  The lioness then dragged the zebra, a few steps at a time, across the grasses and into the shrubs.  All the while, two jackals watched and circled.  I was both fascinated and appalled by this scene of real nature.  

We managed to see one elusive and rare Black Rhino in the Serengeti.  Rhino were hunted nearly to extinction for the supposed curative power of their horns but are making a comeback.  The last day of our trip we visited an Elephant Orphanage in Nairobi which is also the home of one lone baby rhino.  (I saw a White Rhino on my southern African safari.  The two types of rhino live in different parts of Africa and are actually distinguished by jaw shape and not by color.)

Wildebeest are the most numerous of the African plains' animals, traveling in herds of hundreds or thousands.  They are a large, stocky antelope with curved horns, a black face, and striping on their bodies.  The Wildebeest are sometimes called one of Africa's "Ugly Five," but I found them to be beautiful and unusual animals.

The only variety of antelope I know of in the US are the pronghorns of the Wyoming plains.  There are many species in Africa.  Here are some of the ones we saw.  The top two photos on the left are of Impala--on top a female and her fawn and below her, a male.  Impala are medium-sized antelope.  The males have curvy horns but the females have none.  The bottom left photo is of Thompson's Gazelles.  These are small animals.  Both sexes have short, straight horns.  Even smaller is the Dik-Dik, shown in the bottom right photo.  They are only about a foot tall and easily hide in the tall grasses of the plains.  

The top two photos on the right are of Waterbuck.  They are bigger than Impalas, but, like them, the males have horns and the females don't.  The top middle photo is of a male Hartebeest and the center one is of a female with a newborn fawn.  Finally, the bottom center photo is of a Topi, "the sentinel of the plains" because they often stand on top of termite mounds and survey the surrounding plains.  The Topi's coloration is called "blue jeans with yellow socks."  It is hard to see in this photo, but the hind legs are bluish at the tops and the lower legs are yellowish.

And here are a few miscellaneous sightings.  On the left are photos of Rock Hyrax.  The top one is alone and the bottom photo shows a mother with her babies.  Top right is a Warthog and bottom right a Banded Mongoose.  The bottom middle shows a pair of pythons mating.  We were looking at birds when our guide noticed the snakes.  (Yikes!  It's winter, shouldn't snakes be hibernating?)

One of my favorite safari activities is finding interesting birds.  Our Kenyan guide, Nicholas, was an expert at finding and identifying them.  Clockwise starting with the top left are:  Secretary Birds, a Tawny (or Martial?) Eagle with a lizard captured under his talon, Grey Crowned Cranes, Ostrich (male, the females are brown), Kori Bustard, and Southern Ground Hornbill.

 

And finally, some of the water birds:  Yellowbilled Storks with Whitefaced Whistling Ducks, Egyptian Goose, Greater Flamingos, Grey Heron, African Fish Eagle, Little Beeeaters, and Lesser Flamingos.

We had a wonderful couple of weeks with our safari partners.  From the left: Peg Potter, a recently-retired colleague of mine from Minnesota State University Moorhead; John and Barb Sloan, whom I met when we explored Morocco together on an OAT trip; our awesome guide/driver Nicholas; Deb, a new friend on this trip; and me hiding behind my safari-ready husband, Scott.  

It was a great adventure but we were glad to get home and get some rest.  Many evenings we moaned when we were told that we would need to be up and moving by 5:30 or 6:00 the following morning.  The common refrain was, "You aren't on a vacation, you're on safari!"  And so we were.