Our African Safari Continues...Masai Mara!!

I sure hope that all of you are still enjoying reading about our African Safari and seeing our photos.  I've gotten some great feedback from people at Boulder Hills Golf Club who have looked at our Facebook albums...I really like to hear the feedback, but the fact is that I took all my pictures with a "snapshot" camera - point-n'-shoot style.  It's a Sony and it seems to have a pretty good lens and decent zoom.  I have not even done a "Best of Amy's" album...I think she took over 2,000 pictures...I will get around to it, I promise.

On to this episode:  We left the Serengeti National Park, prepared for what our itinerary said would be "...a LONG drive (and the) road will be rough and unfinished...the total drive to Masai Mara will take approximately 6-9 hours depending on game drives and any breaks taken."


The road we were supposed to take ended-up being completely washed-out and un-passable in certain places...meaning we had to take the long-way around the mountain...it took almost five-hours to get to the border-crossing - it was the bumpiest part of our journey, by far!!  We had a few places where our guide, Christopher, had to really concentrate on making it through some washed-out sections.  We crossed the border at a place called Isebania - and the same program exists going from Tanzania to Kenya: check OUT of one country and check IN to the next... thanks to Christopher and Infante who got us moved-up in the lines.  We said our sad goodbyes to Chris...and - then asked how long it would take from the border to the Masai Mara "camp" - - and he said "five hours"!!


Amy's response was classic and I will never forget - - she exclaimed: "FROM HERE???"  


Well...it ended up being quite a bit longer because we had to go another "long way".  We picked-up a passenger at the border...one of the managers from the Kensington Mara West Camp.  The road remained rough and some parts were really tough to cross...total time in the cars - driving from the Serengeti to Masai Mara - 12-HOURS!!  The last hour-or-so was in the dark!!  We were just wasted from the drive...and - we were hoping the new camp was going to be nicer than the last one.  Well - - we hit the jackpot - this was an awesome place!! You almost couldn't call the chalet we stayed in a "tent".  Yeah...it had a canvas roof and partial walls - - but it also had hardwood floors and french-doors with etched-glass - - and matching etched-glass wine-glasses!!  The view of Masai Mara from our wood-deck was stunning - sunrise in the morning was stunning!  Check out their website (above) - the place is really special!!

The next day we started out in the early morning, right after sunrise and the incredible breakfast served in the beautiful dining-room - for a day-long game drive.  The numbers of animals in the Masai Mara seemed to be down from what we were expecting...but - the animals we did see were awesome!!

Here are three Facebook albums with 88-total photos - - and - the YouTube link is of a leopard that walked right by our van, right out in the open!!  Even our guide said that seeing a leopard out in the open for so long was amazing!!  Enjoy!!

Masai Mara West - The NICE Tent!

Wild Beasts of the Masai Mara...

Masai Mara Hippos and Other Creatures

Leopard in the Masai Mara (YouTube Video)

Leaving the Plantation (Lodge) for Serengeti...

Leaving the beautiful Plantation Lodge was not easy.  But considering that they had booked our Zanzibar Suite to someone else... it seemed as if we had to get back on the road. According to my notes and Facebook status, that was on 2 January 2012.  


Here's my FB entry for that morning: "Off to drive into the Serengeti National Park today....unknown about future Internet connections in next few days....we'll check in when possible. — at Plantation Lodge, Karatu, Tanzania"


As Willie Nelson sang, we were "On the road again!"  And what a road it was!! Our brochures and travel itineraries were filled with warnings about "LONG drives", "rough roads", "6-9 hours driving-time". If anybody else is planning a safari-trip to East Africa...when you see those words printed in a slick brochure...YOU HAD BETTER BELIEVE THEM!!  As India does, Eastern Africa has a rainy season...and it seems that they had a beaut the month before we arrived.  Traveling out of the Ngorongoro are and over to the Olduvai (really the "Oldupai") Gorge - (the name is a misspelling of Oldupai Gorge, which was adopted as the official name in 2005. Oldupai is the Masai word for the wild sisal plant Sansevieria ehrenbergii, which grows in the gorge.) - we crossed some areas where the roads had been completely washed away and large river-rocks were being cleared away by heavy equipment - but much of it was being done by hand by the local villagers.  The tourist-trade and the dollars that travelers bring into this part of Tanzania are all-important - and it is essential to keep the roads open.  Sometimes the "roads" were so poor that you literally had to turn around or go a different way.


We did have a very educational stopover at the Olduvai Gorge.  Made famous by Dr. Richard Leakey and his family - and by the skeletal remains of the 3.2-million-year-old "Lucy", discovered by his wife Mary Leakey in 1959 - Olduvai is one of the most important prehistoric sites in the world and has been instrumental in furthering the understanding of early human evolution. This site was occupied by homo habilis approximately 1.9 million years ago, paranthropus boisei 1.8 million years ago, and homo erectus 1.2 million years ago. Homo sapiens are dated to have occupied the site 17,000 years ago.


Our driver/guide, Christopher, then took us for a little "off-roading" - and - I swear - OFF the road was sometimes smoother than ON the "roads"!!  This was in a flat area of grasslands that seemed to go on forever.  As a matter of fact, the Masai word Siringet from which the name Serengeti is derived means "endless plains, where the earth meets the sky". 


What a perfect name for an awesome place!  We finally began to see wildebeests on the horizon, and drove over toward them. At one point, we were in the middle of grazing wildebeests  as far as the eye could see in all directions.  It was probably the most incredible sight of our entire safari!!  


We were pretty whipped from the drive...and could not wait to arrive at our next stop for the night, the "Kensington Serengeti".  Now - again - I do advise any future safari-travelers to READ THE BROCHURES you will no-doubt receive very carefully and know that words really do mean something.  Our next lodging was to be at a place described as "A tented wilderness camp in the Serengeti, this is and intimate connection to nature in the world-famous park..."


There were no untruths in that description.  It was exactly what we got!!  Unfortunately, having spent the last four nights at the Plantation Lodge - our arrival at the tented-camp was a bit of a shock to the system...especially because - much to my immediate shock and dismay, Amy Suzanne had never slept in a tent!!


After the initial shock wore off (and the fact that they were having trouble with the piped-in water and there was not to be even a cold shower for us (you see, when the water is functioning properly - the staff fires-up a wood-burning boiler that warms the water ... but only once in the morning - so - you gotta be quick.  The water seems to hold its temperature throughout the day, as it's pretty warm in the Serengeti, year-round...but - we were dusty and hot and - well - I wasn't sure if Amy was going to make it through the night.


After a pep-talk from Christopher around the campfire before dinner (and during a glass of fine South African wine - the place wasn't THAT primitive - - and the mess-tent and food were actually quite nice!) - we convinced her that these two nights were going to be an integral part of our "safari experience" and to enjoy every minute of it.  With a new-found positive attitude, I think she really did enjoy our Serengeti stay...but - my beautiful wife is really a "Plantation" girl...roughing-it in a canvas tent.  She was a trooper, I must say. 


We spent the next day on the longest (and perhaps the best!) game-drive of the entire trip.  We saw the whole spectrum of African wildlife...still some remaining wildebeests from the migration we had driven through the day before, elephants (with many babies!), hundreds of hippos, giraffes....and even a pair of mating lions who were enjoying an active sex-life (they do it quite often, so we heard and saw!).





Here are some links to our Facebook Photo Albums for these two days, showing the Serengeti, our camp, the incredible wildlife, and - in retrospect - two of the very best days of the whole trip!! Thank you Christopher...you were right!

Entering the Serengeti and our "Camp"

Serengeti HIPPOS!!!

Out in the Serengeti

There's Lions Making Love (on the rocks)

Next blog....Out of Tanzania, back to Kenya and the "nice tents" in Masai Mara!!  Stay tuned!!

Manyara and Ngorongoro...and the Plantation Lodge

Whoa!!  It's almost the end of January! My birthday is tomorrow and it will be the second one I have spent "At Home in Hyderabad" It is hard to believe that we have been happily living in India for almost 20-months!!  If Amy Suzanne had not gotten her extension, we would be starting the process of ending our ex-pat assignment here and packing for going home in June.  I really need to keep at this blogging project....there is just so much information, so many photographs...and I promised Amy that I'd finish before we go to Goa early next month for the Deloitte USI Partner/Director Retreat there.  We just got back from a quick trip to Delhi for a recruiting trip and I didn't have time to write at all.  Today is "Republic Day" here in India and most places are closed... I think Amy will go into the office anyway to get some things done as the traditional Tax Busy Season is now officially here!


Let's see....where did we leave-off??  After we left Tarangire, we headed for a smaller, more compact game preservation area in a place called Lake Manyara. 


Stretching for 50km along the base of the rusty-gold 600-metre high Rift Valley escarpment, Lake Manyara is a truly a scenic gem, with a setting extolled by Ernest Hemingway as “the loveliest I had seen in Africa”.  Our guide-book said that "The compact game-viewing circuit through Manyara offers a virtual microcosm of the Tanzanian safari experience." Actually...in the "animal department, we were a little disappointed, but the place was certainly beautiful!

From the entrance gate, the road winds through an expanse of lush jungle-like groundwater forest where we saw hundred-strong baboon troops lounging and playing nonchalantly along the roadside and blue monkeys scampering nimbly between the ancient mahogany trees.

There are distinctly different ecological areas within this park area. And they are noticeable as you drive into the park. Contrasting with the intimacy of the forest is the grassy floodplain and its expansive views eastward, across the alkaline lake, to the jagged blue volcanic peaks that rise from the endless Masai Steppes. We saw large buffalo, wildebeest and zebra herds congregating on these grassy plains, and several giraffes – some so dark in coloration that they appear to be black from a distance.

Inland of the floodplain, a narrow belt of acacia woodland is the favoured haunt of Manyara’s legendary tree-climbing lions (although here we didn't see any!) and impressively tusked elephants. Squadrons of banded mongoose dart between the acacias, while the diminutive Kirk’s dik-dik forages in their shade. Pairs of klipspringer are often seen silhouetted on the rocks above a field of searing hot springs that steams and bubbles adjacent to the lake shore in the far south of the park.

Our hotel for the night was up on an impressive hill formed by the Rift Valley millions of years ago.  I must say that the view (and the bar overlooking the lake and valley below!!) was beyond spectacular and all expectations!!  The Lake Manyara Hotel is very well located and built. Management seemed a bit cold going by the overall warm standards of the hotels in this part of the world. Rooms are a bit cramped and food is not so generous as in other competing properties like Sopa.  It didn't help matters any when we found out they had mis-filed our reservations under a different name and it took a while to get things right (we waited in the bar, which helped speed things along) - - also - it was at this hotel that we had to have words with our hotel neighbors.  The walls were very thin and the group of people (and I do mean a GROUP) were noisy-beyond-belief and we asked nicely twice to have them "STFU!!" ...and finally felt it necessary to call the front desk.

The next morning we took a beautiful drive toward the Ngorongoro Crater and our next stop...the Plantation Lodge.  Both are equally spectacular in their own way!!  That says a lot for the Plantation Lodge.

Before we go to the photos...I need to say a bit about both places.  The Ngorongoro Crater is really other-worldly - as you drive down to the bottom, descending through the rain and clouds, it's like going through a time-portal to prehistoric times.  The concentration of wildlife here exceeded all expectations...here we saw lions and rhinos and elephants and - - well - - just about anything you might expect to see on safari.  My comment to Amy was: "Honest to God! If I saw a Tyrannosaurus Rex eating a Brontosaurus - it would look perfectly normal here!"

The "Plantation Lodge" just may be the nicest place we have ever stayed.  And having stayed at the Falaknuma Palace in Hyderabad, the Leela Palace in Bengaluru and the Jai Mahal Palace in Jaipur - this is the highest praise I can give to a hotel.  But the Plantation Lodge is not just a hotel...it's - - well... I will let the photos (below) tell the story.  We stayed in the Zanzibar Suite... a fabulous and huge suite with an upstairs loft and it's own patio and garden.  It was so nice...that we decided that it was too nice to leave...so we didn't!!  We ended up touring Ngorongoro and then staying until after the New Year!!  Once again, Eve Wertsch from Fugazi Travel to the rescue...despite the holidays, she was able to make the arrangements for our staying longer and changed our flight-times home!!

Here are links to two of our Facebook Photo Albums:

Lake Manyara and Ngorongoro Crater

The Plantation Lodge in Ngorongoro