Besides the big guys and girls, we saw a lot of amazing smaller ones as well.
The colors on these two lizards are awesome.
The leopard turtle out for a stroll.
If you are into karma and reincarnation, well this dung beetle must not have lived a good human life. Pretty amazing watching this little guy push his ball of dung around. As part of the eco system he is fertilizing the grass.
The warthog is so ugly its cute. Also the nickname for this airplane. One you hope never comes looking for you.
A jackal out looking for something to eat. Saw lots of hyenas at night. A couple were stalking the perimeter of our bush dinner under the stars.
I have been working on the momma Cheetah.
A few more creatures and such. Here is a handsome male lion.
At first glance this looks like a three headed Giraffe. They, and the other guy, all walked in front of us. The coloring and detail on the single is amazing.
In Cape Town and a few other places they have these picture frames. Make your own postcard. Great idea.
Sounds like a good idea for a chain restaurant. Cape Town
The birds were a pleasant surprise. The colors and their faces. I understand now why people seek them out.Enjoy
How about some more from Africa?
Giraffe family out for a stroll. Little baby with them. When a giraffe is born it drops about 10 feet to the ground. The drop severs the umbilical cord and kick starts the baby, like we do with a slap on the behind. Or to quote Rodney Dangerfield, ” when I was born the doctor took a look at me and slapped my mother.”
Here is a strange thing to find in a dusty fishing village on the shore of Lake Victoria. It’s a private school, surviving on a shoe string budget. A family from Kansas was so impressed with what they were doing they donated money to build a new classroom.
We were introduced to TIAB, or This Is Africa Baby. A sidewalk made out of bags of cement. Water and sand, needed to make cement, are about 20 feet away. TIAB and smile.
At the fishing village, looking at some of the days catch. These birds are scavengers waiting their turn. Its funny to see them standing next to a three or four year old kid.
TIAB again. A human depth indicator. I don’t think the divining rod was really needed. He didn’t wash away so we went for it.
Good times, will add more.
Lawrence Lions – roar.
We had a fruitful early evening drive game drive. Part of a pride and the sun suddenly cooperated and gave us great light. Momma wasn’t too concerned when we got pretty close.
Here are her three cubs. Old enough that they will survive on their own.
Up up and away in my beautiful ballon. At the top of Julie’s bucket list, besides marrying George Clooney, was a ballon trip over the Serengeti plain. Still no George but we did the balloon and had a blast.
Some of the Flying Jayhawks, getting ready to fly….
It’s a blast to look down on the world. I can see why small drones with cameras are so popular. We flew over a heard of Cape Buffalo and got them all fired up and running.
Looking down on a Vulture and her chick in a nest.
After the flight the tradition is to celebrate with Champagne. Our pilot Mohammed.
Followed by a wonderful Serengeti breakfast.
Elephants. They are a target of poachers. Their number is down by 60%, in Tanzania, over the last ten years. The company that our safari went through is a vocal, and in other ways, opponent of poachers. While we were there one of their helicopter pilots was murdered by poachers. Heavy involvement of organized crime as ivory brings in more than gold.
These two guys had a disagreement. Third one came along to break it up.
We really got lucky to see this Cheetah. One of our sharp eyed traveling companions thought she saw a Simba(lion). Turned out to be a Cheetah and her cub in the grass.
Mom was kind enough to get up and move. This magnificent animal liked to pose. Perhaps a bit of a ham.
If you look her cub is so young it still has some of the down on her body. I think we can all relate to mom making us move when we didn’t want to.
We have just left the Ngorongoro crater which is one of the most amazing places on earth. A volcanic mountain that collapsed when it erupted a zillion years ago.
We have good internet and are trying to catch up. Got up at 4 am for a hot air ballon ride over the Serengeti. Will post those in a bit. We have some down time right now and into the evening.
Some more animals…
Baboon, look at his eyes. We had to roll up the windows in the car because they like to reach in and steal food.
One of my favorites is the Zebra, or a horse designed by a committee. This one looks proud as he gazes over the horizon. I didn’t tell him that his cousin is on my living room floor.
These two are grooming each other.
Grey crowned crane, the national bird of Uganda, or proof the good lord has a sense of humor.
A group of female lions sunning themselves. “Hey, why don’t we get an antelope, fresh spring water, sound track to the “Lion King” and see if the boys want to come over?”
Just like common house cats, they get up and change positions for no good reason. I bet she would like a belly rub. Any takers?
The toughest animal to find, the Leopard. A good distance away and even with a 300MM zoom it is not perfect. Caught him climbing up the tree and if you enlarge the picture he has his spots.
Last we have the Hippo. This animal kills the most humans of all of them. They are uncomfortable, on the land, where they go to feed. If you get between them and their water source, heaven help you.
Hello from Tanzania. How about some animals and other things?
Hungary giraffe’s.
Two of about 60 female Impala’s that all have the same male. Jokes on him, he doesn’t get a chance to eat much and after about a month another male will over power him and take the females.
Friendly Elephant, chomping away on his lunch.
One of our Land Cruisers got stuck in a dry river bed and we tried to push it out with the other one. Didn’t work and we were delayed. We didn’t complain other wise we would have missed Simba.
If you look to her right you will see some of her five cubs. She was moving them along. Later I will post a video where she is carry the weakest one on her mouth. Odds are only two or three will survive.
Finish with a type of stork, look at the colors on face.
Greetings from Arusha Tanzania. We spent the 27th traveling from Cape Town, to JoBerg, to Nairobi Kenya, to Kilimanjaro Tanzania and by car to Arusha. As luck would have it our bag with 80% of our safari clothing didn’t make it. The tour company has all hands on deck looking for it. At this point I am looking at wearing a Tux on our game drives. That might be fun for 10 minutes or so. Looks like we are going to have to make a decision to go back to Kilimanjaro to go shopping.
We spent 17 nights on a Cunard liner, the Queen Elizabeth. It was an interesting time and we had fun. We won’t go back on a Cunard ship. We were quite aware that crowd would be elderly and English. They were. An English woman and her vivacious 78 year old mother in law said, “blimey this feels like a wax museum.” I give these people credit for getting out and living but I’m not ready to join that club yet. The food, service and ship were all exceptional. One real was positive was the portion size of the food, reasonable and just enough that you didn’t feel stuffed when you left.
They didn’t have near the activities that we have found on other ships. They did have a ships choir, we didn’t join to save the glass wear on board. The formal nights were fun. We brought along the proper clothing, see above, and enjoyed dressing for the occasion. Julie caused a minor stir when she wore a bright pink sequined dress with her six inch heels. Some of the English ladies, with glasses on the end of their noses, were looking down their noses at her. The husbands seemed to appreciate it. Live and learn so we toned it down. We did feel like guests at your stuffy aunts home.
One formal night. We were told that we made a handsome couple.
The highlight for me was when I was knocked unconscious and suffered a minor concussion. We were four wheeling in the Namibian desert and tearing around like the old TV series, “Rat Patrol.” The driver hit a huge bump and, despite a tight seatbelt, I smashed the top of my head against the roof of the Land Rover. Out like a light. The fun part, since I wasn’t hurt to badly, is I was shooting a video as it happened. I will post it on you tube and link it. It’s funny to see the video spinning around, going dark and Julie say, “David are you ok?”
Here is one of the hills we flew down.
The offending Land Rover.
A day later one of the other people in the car asked me, “if the driver wanted compensation for the damage I did to his roof.”
To finish up with the cruise, the ship had some interesting characters. A mother and daughter from DC on their 35th consecutive Cunard world cruise. We met a real life version of Mrs, Thurston Howell III(Lovey), down to the glasses and white gloves she wore all the time. She was up shaking to 70s disco music. She had to be around 80.
Good for her.
We did a drive-by, okay a sail-bye of St Helena island. Abba sang, “At Waterloo Napoleon did surrender…” St. Helena is where the Brits dropped him off. It is one of the most remote places on the earth, more than 2,000 miles from any significant land mass. We looked at visiting it during the world trip. At that time it was a three week round trip on a Royal mail ship. They are to open an airport sometime in 2016 and hope to attract more visitors. About 1,100 people live here and it part of the UK.
We have found out that piracy is alive and well on the high seas. Blackbeard and his gold? Nope, on ship internet. It is expensive and slow. Tis the main reason we haven’t updated as much as we would like to have. To my old telephone friends, this makes LD calls of the 80s seem cheap.
Most of the start of our journey is at sea. This particular cruise does not have many stops, despite the length of the journey.
We are on an English ship from the Cunard line. Even though we have shared history and culture, we aren’t the same people. Not just the way people say things, although we have started using “lovely and Que.” a lot. Julie and I have been nicknamed the young fit Americans. That may give you an idea of the average age on board.
We have interesting dinning mates. This ship is assigned seating at a fixed time. I much prefer an open seating plan, so you can meet more people. An English couple and he is quite a bit older. Retired pilot from the RAF and a former British defense attache to several countries. On the subject of some the worlds challenges he mentioned the Cuban missile crisis. He was on the runway, fueled, carrying two nuclear weapons with an attack plan of the Russian Baltic naval base at Kalingrad, former Prussian City of Koenigsberg. It was very close to happening.
Our journey started from Southampton where we joined the Queen Elizabeth. The weather was a little bad and we bounced around the Bay of Biscay for a couple of days. To paraphrase Dean Wormer from Animal House, “Jet lagged and seasick is no way to go through life son.”
First stop was Maderia, an island of Portugal. Famous for their wines. Lot’s of fun. Rode the hop on hop off bus. Took the gondola to the top of the island. Those crafty Austrians have figured out how to sell ski equipment to temperate islands. Amazing views
They have old fashion wooden toboggans that you ride down. Two guys run down the hill with you to control the speed. We didn’t ride but it was fun to watch. By chance we saw our dinning mates getting into one for the ride down. Howard Hughes, not kidding and Penny – Moneypenny.
Did I say wine, of course we had to have a tasting and purchase what little is allowed back on the ship. Alcohol is another form of piracy on a ship.
Julie at the Maderia winery. Who would have guessed.
Will update with some pics soon. Internet is struggling with them.
Heading to the UK on January 8th. We will depart on a cruise from Southampton that will end at Cape Town South Africa on 1-27. We have stops at Madeira Portugal, Gran Canaria Spain, St Helena Island, Walvis Bay Nambia and on to Cape Town.
After a day in Cape Town we fly to Nairobi Kenya and on to Kilimanjaro airport.From there bus to Arusha Tanzania. Her is a photo of the map of our travels.
First stop: Tarangire National Park – birds and elephants.
Second stop: Ngorongoro conservation area and Ngorgongoro Crater.
Third stop: Oldupai Gorge thought to be the birth place of man. Then hope to see the large migrations of herds of animals. We have a hot air ballon ride over the animals set up.
Fourth stop is the western Serengeti more animals and stay over night in a tented camp.