I'm still working my way through the 20,000 photos I took in Africa but now I'm looking ahead to a workshop in the Palouse. I was going to go last year both during the springtime and then during harvest season to photograph the beautiful rolling hills and agricultural communities, but because of some health issues in my family I put the trip on hold.
So, if everything goes well I will be in the Palouse region of Washington State between June 12 and 17th. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
March 4 - I'm home!
After 40 hours of travelling I'm home!! First thing I did was pour a big glass of cold, clean, safe water straight out of the tap and savoured every last drop. Then I took my first really good shower in 2 weeks.... its so nice to shower as long as you want without feeling guilty and to not have to worry if a drop of water got into your mouth that will give you cholera!! Now I'm going to try to sleep.... I'm so tired that I don't even know that I'm tired anymore!
Here are a few more of my favourite photos of the trip...
Here are a few more of my favourite photos of the trip...
March 1 - Ngorongoro Crater
Ngorongoro
We got an early start to the day and descended into Ngorongoro Crater which was blanketed with thick fog. We passed a large group of Water Buffalo grazing in the fog. The crater is roughly 20 miles across and is considered a conservation area… it is also one of the last places where you might be able to see Rhino.
Almost as soon as we got to the crater floor the fog lifted and we had our first sighting of the day…. Two young lions who attempted in vain to hunt a Zebra. The Zebra saw the lions without any difficulty and ran away. Soon after, a large pride of lions came over a little hill and the two young ones ran over and eagerly greeted everyone.
They all came to the road and used the cars as camouflage to hide from another herd of Zebras. One of the larger females was probably a decent hunter but most of the other lions in the pride were young and dumb… so every time she attempted to sneak up on a Zebra, a young lion would show itself and the Zebras would run away. The lioness eventually gave up and they all lay down in the grass to snooze.
We also saw two sets of two large males…. One group was feasting on a wildebeest… the other had eaten most of a zebra and were flat on their sides sleeping. One of the males lifted his head and we could see what a magnificant creature he was... he had a huge beautiful mane!
There were elephants, zebras, wildebeest, water buffalo, jackals, lions, impala, gazelle and hyenas in the crater. We had hoped to see a Rhino so that we could say that we saw all of the big five… and off in the distance we saw a big lump that everyone was driving past.
I told Harry to stop because I thought they were Rhinos... sure enough when we looked through our binoculars and long lenses we saw two huge Rhinos grazing with some wildebeests. There are only 12 of these amazing creatures in the crater so we were very lucky to see them.
After a long day in the crater we drove to a Maasai Boma and had a tour of their village and watched them do their traditional dancing and jumping. They showed us how they lived and explained their culture to us. A man's wealth is counted by the number of cattle he has. If he has many cattle he can trade 10 to 15 of them in exchange to the father of a woman and she will become his new wife. The Maasai can have as many wives as they want. The chief of this village had 8 wives and 53 children. He could lounge around all day and talk with the other elders while his young male children tended his herds and his wives gathered wood for the fires and brought water from miles away for the cleaning, drinking and cooking. He probably talked to the other elders about trading his female children for more cows. I guess its good to be a Maasai man... not so good to be a Maasai woman!
Our eye opening visit to the village was a great way to end the day!
Tomorrow we will go to Lake Manyara and have our last game drive before returning home.
Its been an amazing trip and although its always sad to end a vacation… its always good to come home too.
I told Harry to stop because I thought they were Rhinos... sure enough when we looked through our binoculars and long lenses we saw two huge Rhinos grazing with some wildebeests. There are only 12 of these amazing creatures in the crater so we were very lucky to see them.
After a long day in the crater we drove to a Maasai Boma and had a tour of their village and watched them do their traditional dancing and jumping. They showed us how they lived and explained their culture to us. A man's wealth is counted by the number of cattle he has. If he has many cattle he can trade 10 to 15 of them in exchange to the father of a woman and she will become his new wife. The Maasai can have as many wives as they want. The chief of this village had 8 wives and 53 children. He could lounge around all day and talk with the other elders while his young male children tended his herds and his wives gathered wood for the fires and brought water from miles away for the cleaning, drinking and cooking. He probably talked to the other elders about trading his female children for more cows. I guess its good to be a Maasai man... not so good to be a Maasai woman!
Our eye opening visit to the village was a great way to end the day!
Tomorrow we will go to Lake Manyara and have our last game drive before returning home.
Its been an amazing trip and although its always sad to end a vacation… its always good to come home too.
February 29 - Ndutu to Ngorongoro
Sometimes it helps to have a good sense of humour……
This morning we met our driver and he informed us that the camp that we were supposed to go to, on the rim of the Ngorongoro crater, had moved overnight to about a mile from where we had just spent the last 3 nights. It had moved there to be closer to the migration… but having already seen that we just wanted to be in Ngorongoro and the drive there would take over 3.5 hours each way... which would only leave about an hour in the crater for game drives.
Harry suggested that we get his office to find us another lodge at the crater…
So we drove off in the direction of Ngorongoro … not exactly knowing where we would be spending the night or even knowing if there would be rooms available for us… but things have a way of working themselves out so I decided not to stress out about it.
We were crossing over the wide open desolate plains of Ndutu and we passed over this little ridge when we heard a loud thump…. Then the jeep made a funny dragging sort of sound and Harry announced, “Flat tire” and stopped the jeep. He got out and looked and came back to the jeep with a serious look on his face and told us that it was not very good. A rock had sheered off the U-bolt on the back axle. We looked around to check for hyenas, lions, cheetahs etc.. none were to be seen so we all went out to examine the carnage! The back of the jeep was sagging down and the leaf spring, the spring and all sorts of other stuff was hanging down where it shouldn’t have been. This day had quickly gone from bad to worse.
You could tell that Harry was upset… we’ve all got the sense that he doesn’t want to let us down. He grabbed his cellphone and walked about a half a mile down the dirt track… he was probably swearing the entire way. We hoped that he was coming back!!
When he finally got back to us he said that the closest company jeep was in Arusha (4 hours away) and that they would be sending the parts to fix our jeep and a mechanic … once the new jeep got to us (in 4 hours) we would transfer our stuff into that and go to the crater in the mean time we would just have to be patient and wait.
We waited on the hot wide open desolate plains… wondering if we’d succumb to hunger, thirst or lions…. We were probably being a little bit melodramatic since we had huge boxed lunches and a cooler full of cold water… death by lion was probably not very likely either. Thankfully there were no tse-tse flies here like there were every other place we stopped. At noon we dove into our boxed lunches and Sandi kept us entertained with a lot of funny stories. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather be stranded with other than Sandi and Tom.
After about two hours of not seeing anything except for the wildlife moving in closer and closer... we saw the dust cloud of an approaching jeep.. it slowed down to see what was wrong and Harry convinced the occupants to take us back to Ndutu Safari Lodge so that we could wait in comfort. We piled into a jeep being driven by Tito with some nice people from Holland… we had a nice conversation with them and finally got back to the lodge we had just left. The people at Ndutu Safari Lodge welcomed us back with open arms. They offered us lunch, they let me use the phone over and over again… they even sent their mechanic out to see if he could help. We relaxed in the covered verandah drinking cold drinks until Harry came back with another jeep and a new driver.
The driver was going to take us to the crater while Harry and the lodge mechanic got the parts they needed out of the lodge garage and went back to fix our broken car.
On the way to the crater we passed our saggy jeep and right about then the clouds opened up and it started to rain harder than I’ve ever seen it rain… even harder than the other night at Mbalageti. When it decides to rain in Africa it really rains. The windows of our jeep fogged up so bad that you couldn’t see outside, even if there was no fog inside it was raining so hard that I doubt we could have seen through the water on the outside… but our driver sped on. I was sure that we’d hit a zebra or gazelle since they were all running around joyfully in the rain and Mario Andreti couldn’t really see where he was going.
The rain eventually stopped but we knew that Harry would have a hard time fixing the jeep in what would now be a giant mud bog… Tom said that it wouldn’t be an easy fix in a garage let alone on muddy ground. Harry later told us that they had to build a dam around the jeep so that the water was diverted around it.
After about 4 hours of driving we got to the Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge… on the road very close to the lodge we saw a large female lion… she went into the grass next to us and lay down, we could have reached out and touched her. She roared a few times and I decided that considering the day we’ve had, it would probably be wise to close the window. We took a bunch of photos of her and continued on.
A mile from our lodge we had another incredible sighting… a leopard ran out in front of our car and then dove into the trees. We watched him watch us in the dense brush and then finally continued on.
We are at a very nice warm cozy lodge now… it overlooks the crater, the view is mind bending. Dinner was great. While we were poking around in the gift shop Harry came around the corner... I was so glad to see his smiling face, we were all relieved that he made it here and he was safe! Now I’m going to bed, safe and sound after our days adventure… we’re leaving on our game drive at 6:30am.
This morning we met our driver and he informed us that the camp that we were supposed to go to, on the rim of the Ngorongoro crater, had moved overnight to about a mile from where we had just spent the last 3 nights. It had moved there to be closer to the migration… but having already seen that we just wanted to be in Ngorongoro and the drive there would take over 3.5 hours each way... which would only leave about an hour in the crater for game drives.
Harry suggested that we get his office to find us another lodge at the crater…
So we drove off in the direction of Ngorongoro … not exactly knowing where we would be spending the night or even knowing if there would be rooms available for us… but things have a way of working themselves out so I decided not to stress out about it.
We were crossing over the wide open desolate plains of Ndutu and we passed over this little ridge when we heard a loud thump…. Then the jeep made a funny dragging sort of sound and Harry announced, “Flat tire” and stopped the jeep. He got out and looked and came back to the jeep with a serious look on his face and told us that it was not very good. A rock had sheered off the U-bolt on the back axle. We looked around to check for hyenas, lions, cheetahs etc.. none were to be seen so we all went out to examine the carnage! The back of the jeep was sagging down and the leaf spring, the spring and all sorts of other stuff was hanging down where it shouldn’t have been. This day had quickly gone from bad to worse.
You could tell that Harry was upset… we’ve all got the sense that he doesn’t want to let us down. He grabbed his cellphone and walked about a half a mile down the dirt track… he was probably swearing the entire way. We hoped that he was coming back!!
When he finally got back to us he said that the closest company jeep was in Arusha (4 hours away) and that they would be sending the parts to fix our jeep and a mechanic … once the new jeep got to us (in 4 hours) we would transfer our stuff into that and go to the crater in the mean time we would just have to be patient and wait.
We waited on the hot wide open desolate plains… wondering if we’d succumb to hunger, thirst or lions…. We were probably being a little bit melodramatic since we had huge boxed lunches and a cooler full of cold water… death by lion was probably not very likely either. Thankfully there were no tse-tse flies here like there were every other place we stopped. At noon we dove into our boxed lunches and Sandi kept us entertained with a lot of funny stories. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather be stranded with other than Sandi and Tom.
After about two hours of not seeing anything except for the wildlife moving in closer and closer... we saw the dust cloud of an approaching jeep.. it slowed down to see what was wrong and Harry convinced the occupants to take us back to Ndutu Safari Lodge so that we could wait in comfort. We piled into a jeep being driven by Tito with some nice people from Holland… we had a nice conversation with them and finally got back to the lodge we had just left. The people at Ndutu Safari Lodge welcomed us back with open arms. They offered us lunch, they let me use the phone over and over again… they even sent their mechanic out to see if he could help. We relaxed in the covered verandah drinking cold drinks until Harry came back with another jeep and a new driver.
The driver was going to take us to the crater while Harry and the lodge mechanic got the parts they needed out of the lodge garage and went back to fix our broken car.
On the way to the crater we passed our saggy jeep and right about then the clouds opened up and it started to rain harder than I’ve ever seen it rain… even harder than the other night at Mbalageti. When it decides to rain in Africa it really rains. The windows of our jeep fogged up so bad that you couldn’t see outside, even if there was no fog inside it was raining so hard that I doubt we could have seen through the water on the outside… but our driver sped on. I was sure that we’d hit a zebra or gazelle since they were all running around joyfully in the rain and Mario Andreti couldn’t really see where he was going.
The rain eventually stopped but we knew that Harry would have a hard time fixing the jeep in what would now be a giant mud bog… Tom said that it wouldn’t be an easy fix in a garage let alone on muddy ground. Harry later told us that they had to build a dam around the jeep so that the water was diverted around it.
After about 4 hours of driving we got to the Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge… on the road very close to the lodge we saw a large female lion… she went into the grass next to us and lay down, we could have reached out and touched her. She roared a few times and I decided that considering the day we’ve had, it would probably be wise to close the window. We took a bunch of photos of her and continued on.
A mile from our lodge we had another incredible sighting… a leopard ran out in front of our car and then dove into the trees. We watched him watch us in the dense brush and then finally continued on.
We are at a very nice warm cozy lodge now… it overlooks the crater, the view is mind bending. Dinner was great. While we were poking around in the gift shop Harry came around the corner... I was so glad to see his smiling face, we were all relieved that he made it here and he was safe! Now I’m going to bed, safe and sound after our days adventure… we’re leaving on our game drive at 6:30am.
February 28 - Ndutu day three
Ndutu day 3
Last night after midnight the camp was awoken by the roars of a lion, a large pride had passed in front of our camp while we were all sleeping.
This morning we had a nice warm breakfast and then we went off in search of wildlife. Harry drove towards the big marsh and we quickly spotted a pair of Bat-eared Foxes playing around a shrub. We drove further and saw two young foxes right beside the road, napping at the opening of their den. In the distance we could see two more fox families.. they blend so perfectly with the colour of the ground that if they weren’t moving you probably wouldn’t see them. Their ears are absolutely HUGE, every now and then the sleeping foxes would give us a quizical look and then go back to sleep.
Further down the road we saw two young jackals, the sun was glistening on their beautifully coloured coats.
We drove around the marsh and then up into the plains, before too long we spotted a group of 4 jeeps clustered around a tree so we slowly made our way towards them. As we got neared we could see a large female lion resting in the shade of the tree and sprawled out in the grass around her were three adorable little cubs!
The cubs alternated between snoozing in the shade and looking wide-eyed at all the jeeps and commotion around them. As usual, the cameras were blazing. The mother lion occasionally opened an eye to see that her babies were okay.
After a while one of the babies went over to mom and wanted to nurse…. She snarled at the little cub and we all got a good look at her 4 inch fangs! After much snarling she finally allowed the cub to nurse and the other two came over and joined their littermate.
Once their little tummies were full they strode off into the grass to rest. One of the little babies stayed out in front and looked so regal as he watched over his littermates and mother.
Harry continued on and we saw more jeeps on the horizon… as we got closer we could see three full grown cheetahs. It looked as though they were out hunting. One of the big cats had a pretty bad limp and a swollen ankle but he managed to keep up with the other two. There really was nothing for them to hunt so they slowly made their way towards a shade tree.
We came back to the lodge for lunch… Chicken tangene, couscous, chuckula chuckula and tossed salad …. Followed by papaya sorbet for dessert. Noboody is going to lose weight on a safari.
We’ll go out again this afternoon until sunset and see what other wildlife we can find.
We decided to go back to see the lioness with the three young cubs. We found her where we had left her, this time she was out in the open and the cubs were a little bit more active. We watched them play for about 20 minutes and then the lioness decided to get up and move away. As she walked away we noticed that she was limping and had a big gash on the inside of her leg and a puncture wound on the outside. Life is not easy here even for the mightiest beast. I pray that her leg heals so that she can continue to provide for her 3 beautiful babies.
We just returned from our afternoon game drive. Since coming to Africa the only time I would have complained about dust was during our drive on the Serengeti highway up to the northern part of our trip, since then we’ve managed to follow the rains and the ground was always damp. It rained in Ndutu the day before we arrived so the driving conditions were fine until this morning… on our morning drive we noticed that the dust was quite heavy but Harry said that this was nothing. The day has been hot, so this evening the dust was even worse than before…. Any slight breeze would kick up a huge cloud. However, according to Harry this still wasn’t that bad. I enjoyed a nice shower with Ndutu lake well water which is extremely high in soda… so even when you’ve rinsed all the soap off, it still feels as though you need to rinse some more. You can’t drink the water but the occasional drop that touched my tongue tastes just like baking soda.
Tomorrow we go to Ngorongoro crater… hopefully we’ll see the only animal on our lists that we haven’t seen yet… the Rhino. I don’t think that our next camp has the internet, so this may be my last message until I get home.
Last night after midnight the camp was awoken by the roars of a lion, a large pride had passed in front of our camp while we were all sleeping.
This morning we had a nice warm breakfast and then we went off in search of wildlife. Harry drove towards the big marsh and we quickly spotted a pair of Bat-eared Foxes playing around a shrub. We drove further and saw two young foxes right beside the road, napping at the opening of their den. In the distance we could see two more fox families.. they blend so perfectly with the colour of the ground that if they weren’t moving you probably wouldn’t see them. Their ears are absolutely HUGE, every now and then the sleeping foxes would give us a quizical look and then go back to sleep.
Further down the road we saw two young jackals, the sun was glistening on their beautifully coloured coats.
The cubs alternated between snoozing in the shade and looking wide-eyed at all the jeeps and commotion around them. As usual, the cameras were blazing. The mother lion occasionally opened an eye to see that her babies were okay.
Once their little tummies were full they strode off into the grass to rest. One of the little babies stayed out in front and looked so regal as he watched over his littermates and mother.
We came back to the lodge for lunch… Chicken tangene, couscous, chuckula chuckula and tossed salad …. Followed by papaya sorbet for dessert. Noboody is going to lose weight on a safari.
We’ll go out again this afternoon until sunset and see what other wildlife we can find.
We decided to go back to see the lioness with the three young cubs. We found her where we had left her, this time she was out in the open and the cubs were a little bit more active. We watched them play for about 20 minutes and then the lioness decided to get up and move away. As she walked away we noticed that she was limping and had a big gash on the inside of her leg and a puncture wound on the outside. Life is not easy here even for the mightiest beast. I pray that her leg heals so that she can continue to provide for her 3 beautiful babies.
We just returned from our afternoon game drive. Since coming to Africa the only time I would have complained about dust was during our drive on the Serengeti highway up to the northern part of our trip, since then we’ve managed to follow the rains and the ground was always damp. It rained in Ndutu the day before we arrived so the driving conditions were fine until this morning… on our morning drive we noticed that the dust was quite heavy but Harry said that this was nothing. The day has been hot, so this evening the dust was even worse than before…. Any slight breeze would kick up a huge cloud. However, according to Harry this still wasn’t that bad. I enjoyed a nice shower with Ndutu lake well water which is extremely high in soda… so even when you’ve rinsed all the soap off, it still feels as though you need to rinse some more. You can’t drink the water but the occasional drop that touched my tongue tastes just like baking soda.
Tomorrow we go to Ngorongoro crater… hopefully we’ll see the only animal on our lists that we haven’t seen yet… the Rhino. I don’t think that our next camp has the internet, so this may be my last message until I get home.
February 27 - Ndutu day two
Ndutu day 2
This morning we went in search of a Cheetah… one of the guests had told me that they saw one yesterday in a wide open field about 15 minutes from our lodge. Harry’s intel from one of the drivers was that there were Cheetahs down by a marsh… so we headed off in that direction.
After driving for about an hour we didn’t see anything but some birds and a deer hiding in the reeds… so we made our way back towards camp.
We stopped at the rangers station and used the washroom while Harry asked where the Cheetahs were. The toilets were 'lovely' holes in the cement floor… but beggars can’t be chosers!
The rangers told us to go 8km down a dirt path and we might see something. Eventually we came to a huge open grassy field and saw 3 jeeps in the distance… this was a good sign! When we got there we saw a large Cheetah and 4 cheeky kittens!! The mother started to head off into the distance towards two young impalas while we babysat her cubs.
She lowered her head and every move of her body had purpose. The impalas walked right past her… she let the first one walk by and as the second one walked only a few feet in front of her she sprang into action. The chase only lasted about 7 seconds… the impala zigged and zagged a few times but the Cheetah closed in with each stride… the end was very quick.
As soon as the impala was down… every jeep in the vicinity raced off towards the cheetah… I was worried that someone would run over the babies but thankfully that didn’t happen.
The mother dragged her kill nearer to the babies and then lay down in some taller grass to catch her breath. The 4 babies were about 100 feet away not once taking their eyes off their mother. She lay there for about 5 minutes before making two chirping sounds… at which the cubs ran straight towards her.
We watched for about 30 minites as she dragged her kill to try to find some shade. Each time she dropped it near a jeep… the jeep would start up and drive away from her. We watched her getting more frustrated and decided that after shooting our 2000 photos it would probably be best to drive away and try to give this little family a little bit more peace.
I believe that when I think of this trip, seeing this beautiful family of Cheetahs will probably remain as my most vivid memory of Africa.
This morning we went in search of a Cheetah… one of the guests had told me that they saw one yesterday in a wide open field about 15 minutes from our lodge. Harry’s intel from one of the drivers was that there were Cheetahs down by a marsh… so we headed off in that direction.
After driving for about an hour we didn’t see anything but some birds and a deer hiding in the reeds… so we made our way back towards camp.
We stopped at the rangers station and used the washroom while Harry asked where the Cheetahs were. The toilets were 'lovely' holes in the cement floor… but beggars can’t be chosers!
The mother dragged her kill nearer to the babies and then lay down in some taller grass to catch her breath. The 4 babies were about 100 feet away not once taking their eyes off their mother. She lay there for about 5 minutes before making two chirping sounds… at which the cubs ran straight towards her.
February 26 - Serengeti , Mbalageti to Ndutu
After getting a couple hundred shots of sleeping lions we drove on to our camp.
As we turned into the parking area of our lodge we saw 4 little Dik diks…. Two adults and two young ones. For those who don’t know… a Dik dik is a very very small deer.. they’re only about 16 inches tall.
They welcomed us to the camp with delicious iced tea and then took us to our comfortable stone cottages overlooking Lake Masek. While we were talking on our verandah before dinner…. 3 more Dik diks walked by and then a golden bat flew out in front of us. I think we’ve hit the wildlife jackpot here in Ndutu.
When we entered the main building for dinner we saw two Genet Cats in the rafters… I guess they’ve become residents here and help to keep the rodent and bug population down. So we had a nice dinner of lamb while the Genets prowled overhead!
Time for bed now…. Tomorrow we’ll see what else Ndutu has in store for us… hopefully we’ll be able to spot a Cheetah!
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