Day Eight: Ngorongoro Crater, Masai Village Visit, travel to Arusha and Rivertrees Country Inn.

Vervet Monkey

Today we saw lots of lions again. We saw lions on a wildebeest kill, a small group of vervet monkeys, then a small herd of elephants in the forest. We got tired of driving around the barren wasteland,
so when I noticed the monkeys in the forest, I opted to watch and photograph them for an hour or so.


On the way out of Ngorongoro conservation area we stopped at a Masai village and were taken on a tour by the chief’s son. It started with a welcome dance and they insisted that we both dance with them. His father has 20 wives. The chief's son explained that when you have one wife, you have one problem. When you have twenty wives: 20 problems:) The chief's son was quite impressive. He was educated in Arusha and spoke very elequently.

Maasai Village Visit

After experiencing what we would call a more "civilized" society, he preferred living the Masai lifestyle. It was a pretty interesting tour as we were led into a hut and showed how they lived and cooked and slept. The structure of the hut is made with acacia tree branches. Each hut has a small main area that is used for cooking and a bedroom for the parents and a bedroom for the children. The roof of the hut is made with long grasses and the walls and the roof are cemented together with cow dung. The huts are quite sturdy and last for about 20 years. Each hut takes about 14 days to build.

The picture count for today is 739. 10,889 pictures to go...

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View pictures of elephants from Tarangire National Park.



Day Seven: Ngorongoro Crater

To this point, I was looking forward to this as the highlight of the trip next to Little Governors’ Camp in Masai Mara. This is the reason that we came to Tanzania. Our camp is lush and green and beautiful. We get down the escarpment to the crater floor to discover a vast brown, dusty barren land. There are impressive herds of zebra and wildebeest, but you can’t drive off the roads, just like in other areas of Tanzania. It is understandable considering the amount of tourists here.



Affectionate Zebras



The problem is that unless the animals are right beside the road, your photo opportunities are quite limited. Our highlight of the day was watching a cheetah stalk and chase a thomson’s gazelle. She missed, but I did get a few pretty good shots of her. We also saw about 20 lions today and 20 or 30 hyenas. Early in the morning, we saw three lionesses and four lion cubs in the long grass devouring a wildebeest kill. The hyenas and jackals were standing by waiting for them to finish so they could clean up the scraps. The rest of the day we basically drove around dusty roads looking at the odd animal here and there way off in the distance. My lens and crop sensor camera reaches 960mm. The largest lens I saw anyone else with was a 400mm lens. I was having issues trying to get decent pictures today as most of the game was too far away. Gaye was bored stiff in about the first two and half hours. I think this place is highly over rated and will definitely not be back (after our three hour visit tomorrow morning of course). Even the alkaline lake with the flamingos is at least 150 meters away from the road. The roads in this park are not designed with easy access viewing! Oh well, I still managed to take 835 pictures. That would be a good hour and a half in pictures if the wildlife viewing was good. The good news is our peace de le resistance is coming. I saved the very best for last. Five days at Little Governors’ Camp is my dream safari.

11,628 pictures to go...

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View pictures of elephants from Tarangire National Park.

Day Six: Southern Tarangire and travel to Ngorongoro Crater

Today we drove the Southern portion of Tarangire. The terrain was completely different than the northern end. It was much prettier, although had fewer animals. I took about 300 pictures until noon when we had lunch and headed for our Ngorongoro Nyumba.

Baby elephant on a misson

Nogorongoro is a three hour drive. With our pit stops and souvenir stop, we ended getting in at around 5:30p.m. Driving up to the crater rim, the flora changes from barren and brown to green and lush and quite stunning. As we drove into camp, we were suddenly surrounded by these huge flat topped acacia trees. They look just like the setting from the movie Jurassic Park.


12,463 pictures to go...

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View pictures of elephants from Tarangire National Park.

Day Five: Tarangire National Park

Watering Hole

The vehicles in Tanzania are perfect for safari photography. The tops pop up so you can stand up in the vehicle, but are still shaded from the sun. It is quite ingenious.
Today was a great day for photography. We saw herds of zebra and waited for them at the river. We photographed literally hundreds of them as they passed through to drink. So far that was definitely the highlight of the safari. Tarangire is famous for their elephants. We saw hundreds of elephants, hundreds of Masai giraffe, hundreds of zebra, hundreds of baboons and basically a large diversity of animals.



When we got home from our safari today there were two huge elephant bulls in camp eating the trees about two tents down from ours. We were too dirty and too hungry to feel intimidated and after photographing hundreds of elephants in large herds today oddly enough we didn't really care. We had our showers and watched them as we waited for supper. You know you are on safari in Tanzania or Kenya when you go to sleep at night with animals like these outside your tent.

While we're on safari, safari comes to us

The picture count for today is 3517. Tomorrow we photograph in Tarangire in the morning, then at noon we leave for Ngorongoro Conservation area. Ngorongoro is ten miles wide, by twelve miles long. It is toted for being the most populated area for wildlife viewing on earth with 25000 to 30,000 animals.

12, 763 pictures to go...

Day Four: Giraffe Manor, then travel day to Arusha, then on to Tarangire National Park

With my food poisoning, yesterday was kind of a blur and a write off. After we got home from the elephant sanctuary I pretty much slept from about 1p.m. to 7p.m., then got up for dinner which they served to us in our room, then I went back to bed.
This morning, feeling about 75%, I had a good breakfast, then we left for the airport. I still had a really bad headache and was feeling somewhat queezy. I was eyeing up a muffin, but we had lots of time, so we decided to have lunch…Big mistake! I was reintroduced to that very lunch on the flight to Kilamanjaro. That was not pleasant. They had given us bags with a small sandwich and juice and fruit. About ten minutes from landing, I grabbed both my bag and Gaye’s, emptied them out on her lap, then proceeded to fill them both…quite discretely, I might add. So there I am holding these f’ing bags, sick as a dog. Then we had to wait to get out of the damn plane. I was asking the attendants where the nearest garbage was, but they didn’t really see the urgency and I didn’t want to bring attention to what I was carrying. Well, the weight and liquid of the contents was just too much for those paper bags and they gave way. The attendants quickly understood the urgency of the matter and helped me out. Green as a spruce tree I made my way with Gaye to pick up our visa’s and through customs. Thankfully our next flight was only a 15 minute flight or I think I would have lost any other reserves that I could have possibly had left. From there our guide from Thomson Safaris met us. I slept for the next 90 minutes on the way to Tarangire National Park.




Tanzanian Synchronized Zebra Team

 We had about an hour long safari ride to the camp. 45 minutes of which we were able to take pictures before it got dark. We saw troops of baboons, herds of impala, a herd of over 20 masai giraffe (which is odd as giraffe are not usually in groups), several herds of buffalo and the odd water buck here and there. Not a bad game drive for 45 minutes. The picture count for today is 619. 16,280 pictures to go. Unfortunately, I wasn’t really on my game, so I don’t know that there are any stellar pictures in the bunch, but all in all not bad for 45 minutes I suppose.
Tomorrow we get up early. I have some serious catching up to do! I am going to ask to visit the watering holes of Tarangire. It is dry as a bone out here, so I think the animals will be in huge numbers at the river and swamps. Tomorrow I am shooting for 2500 images to get back on track. 16,280 pictures to go...

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View pictures of elephants from Tarangire National Park.

Day Three: David Sheldrick Elelphant Sanctuary

The start to the morning today was really fun. I got up early to see a nice Australian couple off. They got here late last night and were leaving early this morning, so I got up at 6a.m. The giraffes weren't here yet, so I opened the windows of the dining room and put some giraffe pellets in a bucket and shook the bucket. There wasn't a giraffe in sight and the tree line is about 150 meters away. Within minutes, I could see 7 giraffes running toward the manor through the brush. It reminded me of the whiskas commercials when the guy shakes the bag of cat treats and the cat runs through the walls. :)

Sities

Well, that was more or less the highlight. Just after breakfast I started getting sick. I guess I caught some kind of bug because by the time we got to the Elephant Sanctuary this morning, I wasn't feeling too hot. We got there a little late yesterday. By the time we got there, there were probably 100 or so tourists wanting to see the elephants, so it was difficult to get clear pictures. Today we wanted to get there early. Gaye was nice enough to suggest that we go back to the hotel and forget about it. I asked Gaye to go ahead while I rested in the car for a few minutes seeing as we were early anyway. That didn't last very long before I was trying to discretely puke my guts out  between the car and the bush. I just happened to be wearing my work t-sirt that says on the back "I have a high threshold for your pain". Well, the African cab drivers were watching me hurl from hehind me. They weren't trying to be mean, but they couldn't help but laugh at me because of the shirt that I was wearing. I think they felt it was sweet justice or something. Anyway, we had our little laugh, I still managed to catch the elephant presentation, then we went back to the Manor and I slept most of the day. We missed out on the monkey forest, but that's alright I suppose. I need to get better before tomorrow because we are flying to Arusha on a small bush plane, then driving to Tarrangire and I certainly don't want to be sick for that or it will make for a very long day!

Last night we visited Sities as she went through her evening routine. The above video shows one of the stalls that the elephants sleep in at night. The keeper has a bunk and he sleeps with his elephant every night. Elephants are very social animals and as infants, they need that reassurance that a mother or father figure is with them at night. Most of these babies have either fallen down a well or they have watched as their mother was killed by poachers for her ivory. They can be quite traumatized and very sick when they get here, so the keepers do everything they can to ensure the comfort of the animals. These people are about as dedicated as I have ever seen. The keepers only get four days off per month to see their families. Otherwise, they are essentially taking care of their elephants 24/7.

Today was obviously a bismal photography day at only 268 images. On the bright side, I did manage to get a couple good shots in. 16,899 images to go.

That concludes the first leg of our trip. Tomorrow we fly to Arusha, then will drive out to Tarangire National Park and will stay there for a couple of days. From there will go to up to Lake Manyara National Park, then Ngorongoro Crater for a day and a bit. We will drive back to Kilimanjaro airport where hopefully we will pick up an internet signal for a few hours before flying out to Nairobi and then to the Masai Mara.

Check out our main wildlife photography website and our main wildlife photography blog.

View pictures of elephants from Tarangire National Park.

Day Two; Giraffe Manor, Kazuri Beads and David Sheldrick Elephant Sanctuary

Breakfast time at Giraffe Manor

This morning I got up early and went into the dining room to find seven giraffes with their heads in the dining room windows looking for food. The giraffe centre is only about a hundred and fifty meters away from the manor and between the guests at the Giraffe Manor and the guests at the Giraffe Centre, they get their fair share of treats. They get fed pellets that are a combination of corn meal and a little bit of honey. From six pm when it gets dark until the morning, there are no treats handed out, so the giraffes are very anxious to meet the guests at the Giraffe Manor and get their fill of treats to make up for all of those hours that they had to fend for themselves in the bush. It was really cool eating breakfast with 14 foot tall giraffes sticking their heads in the dining room window a directly behind and in front of us trying to get our attention.

It is interesting to note though that although these giraffes are friendly, the staff at the manor have strict safety rules regarding the giraffes and warthogs on the property. They are wild animals, so although we are allowed on the terrace outside, if either the giraffes or the warthogs come up on to the terrace, we have to scurry back into the manor. The giraffes defence in the wild is to kick and can kill an adult lion with one kick. They don't do well with stairs though, so as long as we are on the other side of a ledge that is about 18" high, we are safe from their kicks. Also, they can head butt, so we have to be leary of Kelly who likes to run after tourists. You always feed her from the front. In addition, if Patrick her son is beside her, you definitely don't get between the two of them, or she is likely to bash you with her head.

In the late morning we went to Kazuri Beads. This factory makes beads  and of course pottery from clay and ships their work all over the world. The employees are mostly single mothers on an assembly line. Their work is amazing. The factory is very important to these women as it is their livelihood in an area where work for women in this situation isn't as easy to come by as finding employment where we are from.

Our adopted baby ellie: Sities

After Kazuri Beads we went to the David Sheldrick Elephant Sanctuary. At 11a.m. the elephants are called out from the field and given 4L bottles of milk. They quickly suck them back, then play in a slough of red muddy water for about 45 minutes as the guides give us some history about where the elephants have been rescued from and thier different personalities and roles in their new families etc. They are then sent off back into the field and the older juvenile orphans are called in for their feeding and playing time. They come running out like there is only one bottle of milk between the ten of them. These orphans are a little older and stronger. They grab the bottles from the keepers and can feed themselves. As teenagers, they don't realize their own strength and as two of them are playing, they knocked over a massive barrel of water and soaked a few tourists. We wanted to adopt a baby elephant, we were allowed to go back at 5p.m. to see them put her in her stall so her keeper could tuck her in. Each elephant is assigned a keeper. He sleeps in a bunk beside his elephant in her stall and only has four days off per month. Each elephant bonds with his/her keeper as they would with a parent. When we went to watch the little one go through her bedtime routine, she was sucking his fingers. When he got tired of having his fingers sucked on, she would suck on the bottom of his smock. That wasn't enough for her though, so eventually her little trunk would grab his arm and put his hand back in her mouth. Our little girl; Sities came to the sanctuary in January, 2010. She walked into the headquarters of a ranch by herself when she was about seven weeks old desperate for some company. They suspect that her mother was another victim of poachers.

Tomorrow we are heading back to the elephant sanctuary for another crack at photographs of the babies playing soccer and playing in the mud. That was pretty cute. From there we are going to a forest that has a lot of monkeys in it. Today we saw a troop of baboons with a few babies and at the bead place we saw a few vervet monkeys and some impalas on the side of the road. Other than that, all we have seen is a swack of cows and goats on the side of the roads. Although the giraffe manor is quite amazing and we love it here, I think we made a mistake by staying this extra day. I usually try to arrange the trips so that there is some educational or cultural component or both as we are getting over our jetlag, but this trip we didn't experience any jetlag and although the giraffes are really amazing, I am anxious to go to work and get the images that I came here for. People keep coming to the manor raving about their experiences in the Mara and their sights of 30,000 wildebeast bolting across the Mara river. The great migration is winding down and I should just be thankful that I am in such an amazing place, rather than worrying about missing the action, but that's okay, we'll get our shots in due time. They may not be of any crossings, but we'll get there.

One of the couples today described their experiences at a Masai village. In one of the stories, he describes how two Masai warriors suffocated a goat til death. They then stabbed the goat in the heart and then stuck the heart with a large reed that acted as a straw. They took turns sucking out the blood while the other two pushed on the limbs and body of the carcass forcing the blood up to the heart. Once the animal had no more blood left, the Massai men cut out the heart, kidneys and liver and ate them raw. From there they cut off the best pieces of meat off the animal for themselves then took the rest of the carcass to the village for the women and children. It can be difficult to watch as a different culture does things that are far beyond what our values represent, but it really isn't for us to judge. Each Massai warrior has several wives. The hierarchy goes man then cow, then children, then goats and women are about equal. Goats to purhase are about $30 U.S. That is their culture. The couple who visited the Massai villiage had the unique experience of visiting there for a longer stay. Most tourists only stay for an hour. They take a few photos, buy some over priced souvenirs and leave without really learning about the actual culture. This couple really in the end, inadvertently went outside their comfort zone as they wanted to learn more about the culture. The culture shock was pretty intense for the wife and the husband was feeling pretty relieved to be out of there as well!

1,652 images today, 17,167 images to my goal and 9 photo days left. Well, that includes two half days. We actually have ten days left, but there will be some traveling in there, so we'll see.

'Til tomorrow...

Giles, JJ, Patrick and Helen

Check out our main wildlife photography website and our main wildlife photography blog.

View pictures of elephants from Tarangire National Park.