Serengeti, Tanzania

After an amazing tour through Tarangire National Park and a restful night at the tented lodge just outside of the park gates, we set off for the Serengeti. It was a long drive through a lot of nothingness. I can't image the people's lives who know only this existence. The region is dominated by the Maasai tribe, who are cattle rangers (I guess that would be an appropriate term). They mainly eat meat and drink blood (true) so they have little need for settling and growing crops. They just move with their cattle to and from watering holes.

Just love the selfies :)

Jen exploring a rock outcropping while our guide registered us for entrance to the park. A perfect spot to stretch our legs and look back over the expanse of desert we just came through.

The road we drove in on... I wasn't kidding about a whole lot of nothingness!

Maasai with a herd of cattle.

A Maasai village.

Ostrich in the desert, what crazy looking birds! We also saw giraffe and camels out there, but too far away to photograph. We were told the camels are exotic to this region. They were brought in by NGOs for projects and then left behind when the projects ended. As with the introduction of all exotic species, there are mixed reviews about the benefits and the potential hazards of these animals to the region's ecology.

Found a cool looking lizard as we were exploring the rocks.

Lunch with a Marabou Stork. These birds are huge.. and ugly!!!

Baboon by the roadside. Baboons are beggars and scavengers so they are often seen by the roads looking for handouts from the tourists. You have to be careful to keep the windows rolled up because they are not timid or shy in the slightest bit. All baby animals are cute... right?!

Yeah, made it to the Serengeti!

Heehee... complete coincidence that mom and baby baboon picture ended up beside mom and baby people picture. When reviewing the post it made me laugh, so I left it.

We spent two days in the park, where all of the following pictures were taken. It was amazing to be so close to the animals. The park is huge though, hours and hour spent driving along very bumpy dirt roads. By the end of each day we were covered in dust and exhausted. All worth it though, man did we see the wildlife!

Lilac-breasted Roller

Cheetah. I was funny how she was perched on this rock completely ignoring the people in trucks gawking at her. 

Elephants enjoys a cool-down. They walked in cautiously, flinging water onto themselves, and toward the end, they were rolling in water.

The zebra followed the elephants into the pool, but stayed near the edge because the elephants would charge them if they got too close. Zebras spook and flee easily, then slowly creep back in.

Just like the cheetah, the lions completely ignored us...

and we were seriously close!

Those are gazelle in the distance, hyenas in front.

The hyenas hung with the lions. They are clean up crew; the lions would kill and eat until they were satisfied, then the hyenas would make off with all the left overs. We had a pack of six lions kill a zebra not 10 feet from one of the tents in our camp at 4am (seen and reported by the security guard, all the tourist stayed inside their tents and cringed at the sounds of the kill taking place... except me, I slept through it, ugh!). The hyenas carted off the remains so in the morning all we saw was a bloody patch in the grass.

All of the hippos we saw were dozing in the water, blowing bubbles.

Ah, the hyenas get a bad rap, they are kinda cute, at least when they sleep.

Another leopard, just lounging in a tree. We were told they only hunt as night and sleep all day, whereas the lions and cheetah hunt at all hours.

Another satisfied lion.

This one, our driver actually saw the chase and catch. Jen and I were looking the other direction, so by the time we were clued in to the excitement, we only saw a bunch of dust flying, then we saw the happy lion walking away with her prize.

Mongoose

Topi

Water Buffalo

Tarangire, Tanzania

Our first full day in Tanzania was spent at Tarangire National Park, a great kick off to a great trip. Matooke Tours did a fabulous job with arranging our itinerary and lodging, and supplying us with a wonderful tour guide.

Thanks Matooke Tours!

We had a short wait outside of the entrance to Tarangire so we broke out the bird book. Here are a few of the cuties Jen was able to capture on camera.

Red-checked Cordon Bleu

Yellow-collared Lovebird

Superb Starling

Then, right inside the gate, elephants! I was amazed at how close we were able to get tot he wildlife... and this was just the start!

A short drive deeper into the park brought us to a herd of zebras drinking from a pond. They seemed a bit skiddish, approaching the water then darting away... and there were several tour trucks on the far side of the lake... so after a few pictures of the zebras we drove to where the other tourists were gathered. Lions! Lions eating a wildebeest! Wow, just like on National Geographic! I'm still amazed at the animals we saw.

Our lunch spot gave us a beautiful overlook of a dry river. We were told that the elephant can still get water down there by pawing at the ground. This, to me, is what I expected Africa to look like.

That is a leopard up there. We saw three leopards on our trip, and they were all dozing in trees. They were very hard to spot, and without our guide, I would have missed them all.

The giraffe, on the other hard, you couldn't miss. They were huge! I did not realize how big these guys got. I can't remember where exactly we spotted this one, they were inside and outside the parks. We actually saw several during our drives between the three parks we visited, but I think we saw him the first day so I'm including his picture here.

We stayed the night at Sangaiwe Tented Lodge.

The view from our tent's porch.

This was nothing like any of the tents I've ever been in. All of our accommodations were magnificent!

Next post will be The Serengeti!!!

Entebbe, Uganda

My beautiful daughter came to visit! The next couple of blog posts will be our vacation in Uganda and Tanzania. Such a wonderful experience, went by in a flash... now I'm sad it is over.

Selfie with Lake Victoria in the background.

The first couple of days of our vacation were spent at 2 Friends Hotel in Entebbe, Uganda. I quaint little resort overlooking Lake Victoria. We stayed in Entebbe, just killing time really, because there was a three day gap between when Jennifer arrived and when we were booked to start our safari in Tanzania. Three days was not enough time to get to my site and back, or to any interesting spots in Uganda, so we stayed put and enjoyed the scenery. Uganda is not that big, mind you, transportation is just a rediculous challange. My site is only five hours from Entebbe by car, but between taxis and buses and coordinating rides down dirt roads, that journey takes a full day. Plus, it's not safe to travel past dark. Running up a tab at a comfy lakeside resort seemed like the best option.

2 Friends Hotel, Entebbe, Uganda. Wonderful place, highly recommended.

Jen on the hotel restaurant's patio overlooking Lake Victoria. The food was not the best, but the atmosphere was awesome. We sat up there for hours, relaxing and taking pictures of the birds.

Yes, people swim in Lake Victoria, but I wouldn't dare set foot in. The water is highly contaminated with bacteria and parasites and who knows what. I think that is true of all fresh water lakes in developing countries, just a part of life over here... don't trust the water!

Of course, no Ugandan vacation would be complete without monkeys on the roof.

The next few pictures are of birds Jennifer was able to capture with her new camera. Truth be told, all pictures are from Jennifer... I am still without a working camera. Jen brought me her old one but there is something wrong with it reading the batteries. Even with brand new batteries, the camera would not recognize them. Hint, hint, for Christmas :)

African Open-billed Stork

Woodland Kingfisher

Hamerkop

Little Egret

Pied Kingfisher

Spur-winger Lapwing