Serengeti Last Day

Today has been an incredible last day. Rhonda and I began our day with coffee at our tents while we watched the sun rise. I love it that in some places you can order coffee with your wake up call. Now I'm spoiled!  Sayari Camp has been a great place to spend our last 3 nights in Tanzania.

We decided to just do a morning game drive so that we can get our last glimpse of animals here before we have to say goodbye to Tanzania. We tried for a while to find lions but they just did not want to be seen. It's all about timing as we have discovered on this trip.  One moment you can be surprised by some animal coming out of the bush to driving around looking for animals. 

After not finding any lions we turned back to the Mara river. It was a good thing we did.  I think yesterday's evening rain cleared the sky and all the animals came out.  What a surprise when we found these hippos. Thèy looked like rocks from the distance but a closer looked found them laying in the sun. 

Next we found these giraffes wading in the river where they could get a drink. 

As I mentioned yesterday I only found 4 crocs.  Well today a lot more came out to lay in the sun. We think we saw at least 15 at different sections of the river. It was funny seeing them laying close to the hippos. I guess it's the whole concept of keeping your enemy close. 

And would you believe this?  We found elephants!  Just when I thought none would be seen when Justin yelled out "elephant across the river"!  There were two bulls eating grass along the river. Then we saw a family of at least 10 across the river. Finally the below family was near our camp.  So my record held. Elephants were seen every day but the first day on our trip. 

It's been an amazing journey.  I know it's 4th of July today but this has been a special place to celebrate it. They even made a star spangled banner cake for us today. But getting back to this journey, I couldn't have asked for a better person in Rhonda to share it with. We have been very privileged to experience Tanzania in a way that I have a hard time explaining. If this is Africa, I hope to see more of it one day. The people are friendly and live a more simpler life that we should embrace.  And this is nature that only God could have created for everything is in harmony here.  All to often we allow our lives to be complicated with goals and accomplishments and forget that we should be living in the moment. That to just be in the grace of a moment, we can connect with what is more important which is not the world that the media and tv says we should follow. So I hope I can continue to be inspired in this way to what is more important.  

Tanzania Trip Observations

I thought I would make some general comments about my trip. Here are just some topics I thought I would cover. 

Lodges

We have stayed at a diverse list of lodging. I have to say that they were all unique and interesting to stay at. Some were in permanent buildings and some were in tents. I have to say I like tents the best. You can really hear the animal sounds at night as well as the birds at 6am. All of these places had good beds to sleep in. I just wish all of them had nets. I really was bitten up really bad on this trip by mosquitoes. Thankfully I only was bit by one tsetse fly.  Also each room came with a shower, flush toilet and sinks.  Now I'll admit that the showers went from a western style shower to solar showers to a bucket shower.  For the bucket shower, our tent steward heated our water first and let us know when it was ready.   So all were good enough in my opinion. So your basic needs could be met. 

All of these lodges greet you with towels and a fruit drink.  So great hospitality by each place was welcoming. 

All of these places had common areas to relax and hang out after a long game drive. It was always nice to relax with my group while having a glass of wine to talk about all we saw that day.  Even a few places put on Masai shows before dinner. 

Wake up calls

I love wake up calls!   Where they were available, you can have French press coffee delivered to your room.  A great way to enjoy the sunrise. Plus the coffee is great here.  You don't have a bitter finish so the coffee which is grown here is smooth to drink. 

Food

I actually think the food was good. I had some Indian inspired dishes as well as dishes that would appeal to everyone.  Breakfasts were typical. Although the eggs are strange in that there is no yellow yoke.  So eggs are kind of white looking. Also when you ask for pancakes, what you get is crepes.  They are really good.  The only difficulty is in finding maple syrup. It's just not a concept that a lot of places think to provide. 

Most of our lunches were box lunches provided by our lodgings.  Usually you got a few proteins with fruit and a sweet. Whatever we didn't eat was usually collected. When we ate near some Masai herders, we donated our food to them. We only didn't give them apples or chocolate but everything else was eaten. 

Dinners were hit and miss. Some were good and some were just okay. It's hard to please everyone. But wine and other kinds of drinks were all available with dinner.  One drink we learned from Steve was the dresser.  It's a drink you have while getting ready for dinner.  We've had a few of those. 

Roads

The roads come in all qualities. An all-wheel drive vehicle is a necessity here.  Near Arusha and to Tarangire they have paved roads but everywhere else the roads are dirt and rocks. There are a lot of wash board roads here.  As we drove more north in the Serengeti, the roads seem to deteriorate.  A lot more bumps and ruts.  You can't really drive very fast. And you would not want to be here in the rainy season. 

People

Most of all the people are very friendly. Our guide and driver are very accommodating. We walked through several markets and people are curious but they are all friendly. What was sad is how tourism is down here. I just hope it recovers soon. A lot of people depend on tourism and Tanzania has picked up from Kenya's losses but only our lodge in the crater and Sayari was filled with guests. 

Bush toilets

I had to comment on this since you learn to pee behind your vehicle. Once you do it once, it's not so difficult.  In some remote areas there just isn't a toilet available or it's not clean and so it's just better to go behind the vehicle. 

Laundry

Laundry is pretty much available in every place. In some cases it is included. However in a lot of places they won't wash underwear. Because of the availability of laundry services, you don't need to bring a lot of clothes. In my case I packed 3 pants, 1 long sleeve shirt and 4 t-shirts.  So believe it or not, you don't need to bring as many clothes as you think. So if you don't wash your clothes in the sink, you can get your pants or shirts washed for $1 which makes it easier to have someone do it. 

Bugs

Both Rhonda and I brought a lot of deet to help the fight against tsetse flies.  I wish I could say we were successful. We wore it in the beginning but we weren't bit as much. But as we went more north, I got more confident and didn't use it.   The Tsetse were probably the worse in the north part of the Serengeti for us. Even when we were using deet, it didn't help. Even Steve said this wouldn't work but we were hopeful. At least by Wednesday I hope many of the bites will start to fade. 

One interesting comment is that local people can't take malarone or some other malaria drug. Only the use of nets can prevent malaria from taking hold.  So they have to hope that they don't contract this here which is the biggest killer in Africa. 

Security 

You can't walk back to your tent or lodge on your own.  Almost every place we stayed at, we were escorted by either Masai or people from the camp. I think the Masai warriors were the coolest with their spears and colorful blankets. You never knew if a lion might approach the camp. 

Of course the most important observation I can make is to come with an open mind that allows you to experience everything that Tanzania can be.  It's all about having an adventure. 

Serengeti Day 6

Today is a recovery day. Both Rhonda and I needed to take a break from all the bouncing around in our vehicle on these bumpy roads. So Rhonda stayed behind to hang out and I went out on a game drive just in the morning in search of crocodiles. So Justin drove me down to the Mara River. 

Crocodiles are not as prevalent as I expected in the parts of the river that we toured.  The river is quite high for this time of year and the crocs are hard to find. We were only able to spot 4 in the river section near my camp. Below is one of them. 

Along the way, I saw a klipspringer. They are more common in the north section of the Serengeti. We have them in the Cleveland Zoo and they are excellent rock climbers. 

So today is another good day since I discovered elephants today. I found a family of 14 grazing in a field. So my record still holds. Unfortunately they ended up grazing in this area and never moved. I guess the food there was too good to leave. 

So I just hope tomorrow will bring at least one elephant for me to see. Seeing elephants every day has given me new hope that they are surviving and that they are still in the wild. I just hope that we can continue to find a way to insure that we still meet our needs and yet find a way for these gentle giants to exist freely in our world. 

Another animal that I am so happy to see is the giraffe. This animal is in such a critical state due to habitat loss and yet we have seen them every day in all the parks we visited.   Even yesterday we saw 22 together which is the largest group we have seen. They are such elegant and observant animals and I have hope that at least in the parks I've been to that they will multiply and live freely. 

Serengeti Day 5

Well we were glad finally say goodbye to Migration Camp. Unfortunately this place ended not as nice as some of the other camps we stayed at. The biggest problem I had is that the hyrax at the camp walked on our tent and kept slamming into the walls all night long.  It's hard to get any sleep with all the noise. I'm used to noise at camps but this was out of the ordinary. So goodbye Migration Camp. 

Would you believe the migration was right outside our camp when we left. It's amazing that last evening that there were no animals on the 18km road to our camp.  Then this morning all we saw was wildebeest and some zebras for the next 18 km.  just incredible!

The landscape changed again as we drove north. We mostly ran into more grasslands. The scenery was just incredible. What is even more amazing is that we saw most of the animals today that we saw over the last 12 days or so. 

Ok I'm happy to say that we are still seeing elephants.  We saw at least 3 families on the way today including this beautiful calf trying to imitate its mom drinking water. 

This is why it is so hard to get photos of some of these animals. Below was a leopard we found. It was really difficult even getting this picture. 

Even more incredible is a pair of lions we found. This was a beautiful male we found sleeping off a meal he just had. Just incredible. 

So we had an incredible drive up. We even saw a new animal, a black mambo. But that is where it started to not go so well.  At some point Rhonda realized we were going south and not north. Our driver was lost. He hadn't been this way in more then 2 years. We finally got him to ask for directions. My guess is we were driving around lost for more then two hours.  We were really spoiled with our first driver who seemed to know where he was going and was the owner of the vehicle. We were promised that Justin would know where we were going. It's just a shame that he didn't check on his directions before driving us.  One thing though I will say is there didn't seem to be signs so I know I had no clue where we needed to go.  So it just goes to show you that you really have to careful that your driver knows where he is going especially to such a remote location.  

But I will say that we made it to Sayari which is suppose to be one of the best camps in Tanzania. I already like what I see. So Rhonda and I should be able to rest here for a few days before we start our flights home. 

Serengeti Day 4

Well today was about catching the migration. We heard it moved north so our hope is to see the wildebeest migration now that we have already seen part of the zebra migration. Because of climate change the herds are not moving as one as they have done in the past. You used to predict where the herd would be but since wet grasslands are everywhere, the herds are splintered.  They are also no longer predictable. 

We set off at 8:30 to search for the herd.  I have to tell you that the roads are even more of a challenge in the north. You bounce all over your seat due to the poor roads. Most people don't come this far north so I don't think they attention to the roads up here. Plus the flies seem to be getting worse. I have a feeling it will get worse when we move north. 

The landscape of the Serengeti is forever changing. It was dry when we started and then eventually we saw a lot of grasslands with acacia trees. As soon as we went more north, there were more open spaces with short grass and small trees.  Then at times you drove through lots of forests. I'm guessing the elephants love those sections.  When we reached the area where Migration Camp is, we noticed more Kopjes.  It will be interesting to see how it changes as we go north. 

One great sight I saw along the way today was this elephant. I have seen one every day since I left Arusha. Today we saw 4 elephants while on our game drive.  It's always a good day when you see an elephant. 

Well it wasn't to hard to find the migration. They were just south of Migration Camp where we are staying. Below we saw long stretches of them. It's hard to tell where they are going since there is good grass everywhere. 

Another bonus for us was in discovering more lions. Unlike the center of the Serengeti where they are in trees, we are finding them on top of Kopjes. I know the below pictures don't show them off at their best but this shows you how hard it is to find them.  Below we found at least 10 lions including cubs. There might have been more but they only seemed interested in sleeping and barely lifted their heads.  We ended up having one of our best lunches watching them sleep. It was hard to believe that only one landcruiser stopped by. 

So tonight's our last night at Migration Camp. Rhonda and I can't wait to get to Sayari which is supposed to be our best camp. There we hope to finally see the great crocodiles in the Mara River.