Serengeti Continued

We stayed at the Serengeti Migration Camp for two nights. On the first full day there, we spent an entire day (10 hours) driving around to different spots to view wildlife, and we were fortunate enough to catch some amazing shots. Here are a few of our favorites.

Here's a better shot of some cape eland antelopes.

This little guy looks very much like a dik dik, but he is bigger. He's called a klip springer and likes to hang out among the rock outcroppings of the Serengeti.

This is a secretary bird, so named because he looks like a secretary with his white jacket and black pants.

When we stopped to check out what we might see, we turned around and saw this guy hiding in the bushes.

Many of our shots unfortunately were taken at a distance. Here you can see a cheetah sitting in the shade of a small tree.

The Serengeti is famous for The Great Migration that generally includes thousands of wildebeests and zebras moving in a clockwise fashion throughout Tanzania and neighboring countries. They move based on rains and vegetation that is fit for grazing. We were fortunate enough to see many examples of thousands of animals on the move.

Here's a video clip showing just one segment of the Great Migration.

During the migration of about 500 miles there' s always time to stop and have a little fun. Here's a video clip of two wildebeests squaring off to lock horns.

We stopped for a hamper lunch and photos.

Here's a photo of our guide, Adam, who works for Amawaterways. He had an unbelievable amount of knowledge to share about the flora and fauna of each of the safari locatons we visited. Here, he's posing on top of a termite mound.

We're not sure how this creature ended up in the savannahs of the Serengeti!

This is Adam again posing with our driver, John. The roads in these parks are incredibly rutted, and the driving is very challenging. John did an excellent job of keeping us safe.

There aren't a lot of elephants on the Serengeti due to the type of vegetation that it supports.

As mentioned in a previous post, the Serengeti is covered with rock outcroppings. This photo shows all kinds of good places for big cats to hide out.

A sunset over the Serengeti!

On our last morning at the Serengeti Migration Camp we went for an early morning game walk. Our driver came armed with a rifle, and there was also another armed man walking with us. We first went down to the hippo pool where we could see where all the nightly noise was coming from.

Here's a video clip taken at the hippo pool.

The Serengeti Migration Camp is set up along the Grumetti River which is one of the major rivers of the Serengeti, especially in the rainy season in March through May. Here you can see it now, in the dry season. This river, along with the Maasai Mara, are the two major rivers that have a great impact on the Great Migration.

On our way to the Lobo Airstrip to catch our flight back to Arusha, our guide, Adam, and driver, John, were constantly looking for wild game. They spotted this beautiful creature up in the rock outcrops.

Not far away this lady was also watching us. They are such beautiful creatures when seen like this!

After leaving the Serengeti we flew back to Arusha and the Coffee Lodge. They provided us with a day room to finish packing before the long trip back to London. This is a shot of Neema, our personal butler while we were here before and again for the day room. She was easily the best butler of all of them in the other lodges.

This is the last post of our Golden Trails of East Africa safari tour. In case you're interested, our travels continue up to Copenhagen, Denmark, where we will cruise the Norwegian fjords. The address of this new blog is greatnorthernlights.blogspot.com

Serengeti Migration Camp

On Sunday, July 12th, we left The Manor to go to the Lake Manyara Airstrip. No one wanted to leave The Manor because it was truly the best of the two stops we had done. The lodge itself was absolutely beautiful, and the service was over-the-top exceptional. But we had one more stop to make on our sky Safari, the Serengeti Migration Camp.

The take-off from the Lake Manyara Airstrip was breathtaking, because we flew right off the escarpment into open air overlooking Lake Manyara. I was lucky enough to take a video clip of this take-off. Our guide, Adam, said that this is his favorite take-off in the area.

Here's the video clip:

This is the plane we flew in to get to Lobo Airstrip in the Serengeti. It was piloted by another Spaniard who explained that the three of them trained at the same flight school in northern Spain.

 

 

 

And typical of the other three landings, our driver, John, had drinks and snacks waiting for us. The guy at the left in the white shirt was our pilot.

 

 

 

 

 

This is Terminal 1 at Lobo Airstrip. We were a bit disappointed with the duty free shopping!!! Later it was explained that eventually they will be moving the registration process for the park into this structure to make it more convenient for visitors.

 

 

The Serengeti has many areas of rock, and here, next to the zebra you can see a cape éland, one of the bigger animals of the antelope family.

 

 

 

This pesky little animal is a hydrax. We later found dozens of them at the Serengeti Migration Camp where we stayed for two nights. In fact, they slept on our tent roof and scurried about all night long. I tried swatting at them from inside with the handle of an umbrella, but they merely scattered to another part of the tent roof.

 

This colorful little guy is called an agama lizard. We saw several during our stay.

 

 

As we were driving around looking for game, we came upon this earlier kill up in a tree. Look closely in the lower center of the photo, and you will see the leg of an animal hanging from the branch.

 

Soon after we saw a bunch of vultures and other birds on the ground. Our guide and driver started looking around, and found a very recent kill along with the animal that killed it. See below.

 

 

Here is the guy that made the kill. In fact, take a look to his left and you will see the unfortunate wildebeest that he killed. In addition, you can see where the lion bit into his backside. In order to get the lion to look straight at us our guide played a recording of a hyena loud enough to get the lion's attention. It worked because the lion looked right at us.

 

Here's another Serengeti dweller. He's called a ground hornbill.

 

 

After driving around a small portion of the Serengeti National Park we arrived at our lodging. It's called the Serengeti Migration Camp. This is the bridge leading from the car park to the main "lodge area". The whole lodge is a series of tent roofs over solid structure walls.

 

This was our "room". Try to imagine a bunch of hyrax animals on the roof of this "tent". Even better, try to imagine Jim swatting at them with an umbrella handle!

The room was very comfortable with a rain shower, double sinks, separate toilet area, and a very comfortable bed.

 

This was the view outside of our deck on the back side of the tent/room.

 

 

This is the main area where guests can sit in comfortable chairs/sofas and use the camp's wifi.

 

 

This is the dining tent.

 

 

Here's a better shot of our "room".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More photos of the Serengeti after I load more off my camera card!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ngorongoro National Park

On Saturday, July 11th, we left The Manor at 6:45 am to spend the entire day in the Ngorongoro National Park. This conservation area is the result of a volcano that erupted millions of years ago. While it is commonly referred to as Ngorongoro Crater, the crater inside the cone actually blew off during the eruption, and the sunken area below the crater remained as a caldera. So what we visited is actually the Ngorongor Caldera. Home to the largest concentration of wildlife in Africa, we were able to see wildebeests, zebras, a few warthogs, some gazelle, lions, jackals, water buffalo, hyenas, many species of birds, and one or two elephants. There are not many elephants and no giraffes due largely because the vegetation does not support them.

Here's a shot of an African jackal.

 

 

 

The story behind this photo is one of a whole lot of luck. We came upon a group of land cruisers observing a bunch of vultures.Upon closer examination, we saw this hyena that had come in to scavenge a previous kill. Not only did he take this part of a dead zebra, but he came back two more times to scavenge more of the animal.

 

 

On his second visit, he took a leg bone of the zebra. Each time, he took the animal parts off to an undisclosed location for later feeding.

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a short video clip of the hyena scavenging a part of the zebra.

 

Shortly after watching the hyena, we came upon another group of vehicles parked alongside the road. Black-maned lions are somewhat rare, and we had the good fortune to see this one. We parked for at least 15 minutes watching this beautiful animal.

 

 

The bottom of the caldera has a salt lake, much the The Great Salt Lake in Utah. When the sun starts warming up the caldera floor, the salt starts filling the air as you can see in this photo. Also, in the foreground you can see two wildebeests, and in the middle of the photo there are hundreds of flamingos.

 

These boys are part of the Maasai tribe of bush people, and everyday they bring their clan's cattle and goats into the caldera to feed and water!

 

 

As we were driving around on the caldera floor we spotted a couple of Land Cruisers parked, and they were watching a group of female lions resting. Here's a shot of two of them, and you can see how close one of the Land Cruisers is to them!

 

 

One of them lifted her head so we could get a better look at her!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Manor & Ngorongoro Crater

We arrived safely at The Manor from the Lake Manyara Airstrip, and what a place! It is actually many different buildings including a reception building, the main house with a dining room, various sitting rooms, a bar, grand piano, etc. There is a stables for horseback riding, and the lodging is in buildings with two suites per unit. We had a late lunch on the terrace overlooking the coffee plantation. This is truly a special place.

This is the main house where the dining room is as well as several other sitting rooms, a bar, a grand piano, a media room, and a terrace looking out over the coffee plantation.

This is the back of the main house.

A shot of the main hall in the main building.

This is one of the cottages that houses two suites.

A shot of our suite. It was absolutely gorgeous.

Tarangire to Manyara

Today, July 10th, Linda and I moved on to another spot in our safari journey. We left Treetops at 8:00 am and did a game drive on the way to Kuro Airstrip for one last chance to see the Tarangire animals.

We said our last goodbyes to Nicholas, our butler at Treetops.

On our way to the Kuro Airstrip we spotted another dik dik.

And we also saw a candelabra tree, so named because of the cactus-like branches that grow upwards.

And we learned about ostrich mating rituals. When the male is ready to mate his neck turns reddish pink.

And the female stomps the ground and spreads her wings in an effort to attract the male.

We finally arrived at the airstrip and boarded our Cessna Grand Caravan. The pilot is another Spaniard, and he offered for someone to ride co-pilot. Of course, I volunteered.

After a short 20-minute flight we landed on an airstrip that ended at the escarpment down to Lake Manyara. What an exciting landing! Our driver, Lorri, met us, and we loaded up the Land Cruiser.

On the way to The Manor, our country estate hotel, we spotted lots of baboons.