Oprah’s Mojo Kidogo Sana

Oprah’s Mojo Kidogo Sana

OprahWrongSideOprah Winfrey’s just completed her Tanzania safari, but she was on the wrong side of the river: the migration is in Kenya.

If Oprah can get it wrong, I suppose I shouldn’t be so upset that so many people get it wrong. And then, again, we don’t really know Oprah’s motivation for her very short 7-day safari, or why she chose Tanzania. Maybe she shares my politics and is critical of the Kenyan regime.

But it is migration season in Kenya, to be sure. And if you’re on the wrong side of the border, today, you’re out of luck.

Lots of photographs on Twitter and Facebook of the migration, today, crossing and recrossing the Mara river in Kenya. This really is the culmination of the migration, the furthest north they can go, the last good bits of grass before the whole region dries up by October.

A nonsensical straight line divides the unique Mara/Serengeti/Ngorongoro ecosystem into mostly Tanzania and bit of Kenya. And this bit of Kenya, the top of the ecosystem, is where the migration is today.

About four weeks ago I was in northern Tanzania where Oprah went to see the migration last week, and we saw the final bits of it as it was crossing into Kenya. It was a truly magnificent site, and we had made the long trek from Seronera (a 12-hour day) knowing that we might be too late.

Fortunately, we weren’t.

From the Balagonjwe gate west and north to the Mara and Sand Rivers was pretty solid wildebeest. This is about a five-mile corridor along the border. The rangers said there were still plenty of wildebeest south and west of here, over ragged hills that had no tracks, so there was no way to confirm this.

But from the slopes where we ate lunch we could see well into Kenya. We were just west of the Mara River Bridge and could see carpets of wildebeest already on the Kenyan side.

The family I was guiding knew quite well that the specific dates they had to travel were a bit late for the migration in Tanzania, and they had decided not to go to Kenya for a couple reasons: first, when the trip was being planned, the political situation in Kenya was unresolved.

Second, July is always an iffy month for predicting whether the migration will be in Kenya or Tanzania. I’ve seen the migration cross into Kenya as early as the first week of June, and I’ve waited despairing on the Kenyan side for it to arrive in late July:

Oh for the long gone days (before 1979) when the border was open and you could simply go back and forth truly following the herds.

But not since then has that been possible. The wildebeest we could see on the Kenyan side, perhaps 15 minutes from us as our Landcruiser could have made it through the low Sand River, were actually more than a day away from us.

We would have to fly back to an official Tanzanian border post. The nearest one (by travel time) would be Kilimanjaro airport, and after exiting Tanzania we’d fly to Nairobi, enter Kenya and then fly to the Mara. On scheduled service we could leave the area where we were watching wildebeest around 8 a.m. in the morning and arrive the other side of the river about 5 p.m. that same day for a travel cost of around $700 per person.

The closing of this border in 1979 was the result of a Cold War dispute, really, between then socialist Tanzania and capitalist Kenya. The two countries are the best of friends, today, but Tanzanians worry that the tourist industry they’ve spent the last 35 years building up would be consumed by the bigger capitalists in Kenya.

And frankly, the Kenyans are worried that their drivers and mechanics and pilots wouldn’t be treated very well by the Tanzanians suspicious of their motives.

So as best of friends, the two countries are quite content with keeping the border closed. And not even Oprah has the mojo to crash it.

Only gnu got this mojo, dude.

Imminent Generation of Practicality

Imminent Generation of Practicality

Jim&Cheetah.626.sheilabritz.serengeti.mar13Predicting how you as a consumer or as an investor will successfully choose your properties for the future of safari travel is founded almost entirely on the philosophy of “luxury travel.”

Don’t get ahead of me: I’m not concluding that “luxury” will be the winner, quite to the contrary. But to understand this, you need to first understand what luxury travel has meant for sub-Saharan Africa.

Luxury travelers break down into two categories: those who believe “If you’ve got it, spend it” and who’ve got it; and those who haven’t got it quite as much but want to “treat themselves.”

There are, of course, rich travelers who are eminently practical, too, and who will choose their accommodations after they choose their place. A good example of this is the Serengeti where East Africa’s foremost luxury company, &Beyond built its first two properties in the Serengeti in areas that rarely experience the migration (Grumeti and Klein’s Camp).

Both properties are at the bottom of the company’s performance charts.

But such affluent travelers are rare. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I like to think that most of my own affluent clients are more schooled in what they want to see, but for the vast majority of rich travelers, “what” isn’t as important as “how.”

So it was a no-brainer for investors in sub-Saharan Africa over the last two decades, as the world grew more and more divided between rich and poor and the rich became much richer much quicker.

It didn’t matter to these “If you’ve got it, spend it” folks that they would miss the great migration. What mattered was very comfortable beds, good food and service, privacy and space. Of course there had to be animals, but there was little motivation to find the “best game viewing.”

This was a real boon to investors, because many of the choice locales for the best animal viewing had long before been bought by the tried-and-true (Thrun) properties. So this dilemma of not necessarily being able to build in the best place went away.

The other category that considered “treating themselves” during at least part of their safari was attracted by the hoopla associated with the ultra luxury in East Africa, which until it appeared all of a sudden in the late 1990s seemed quite out of context.

I speculate that as many as a third of the those staying at Ngorongoro Crater Lodge do so for the effect, and that likely the rest of the places they stay are much less costly and luxurious.

Crater Lodge has the benefit of being in a good location, too, something unusual for the early luxury properties.

The Great Global Recession aggravated the world’s traveling markets and accentuated the luxury. Luxury travel didn’t really decline much after the initial shocks of 2008. The rest of the markets literally withered up.

But what’s emerging now is quite different from the nineties when use and investment in luxury travel began its prime. Travelers of all market niches are returning to Africa, and the growth is steady and slow just as the economies of the world are growing steadily and slowly.

But the rich market is turning. I know it’s still around, and where it’s going is hard to say. But our anecdotal evidence is that potential safari travelers are much, much more interested in “what” than “how.” And that no matter how rich you might be, value really matters now.

It didn’t before.

I’ll speculate why. I think we’re headed world-wide for higher taxes and a greater redistribution of wealth, and that will certainly trickle down to travel practices. Second, the older generation of wealthy individuals that supported the investment and use of high-ticket travel is dying. That was also the generation of high rollers in derivatives and other nasty things.

Their children know better.

There is some interesting evidence that the luxury companies know this is true.

Wilderness Safaris is an excellent mostly southern African company that basically cornered the market on luxury properties, originally in Botswana and later throughout much of southern Africa.

Last month Wilderness announced it was moving its headquarters from South Africa to Botswana.

The company provided little fanfare with this announcement, and for good reason. There is only reason that any travel company would move from the near-perfect environment of Johannesburg to the only capital city in Africa that has no direct flights from Europe, Gaberone: reduced taxes.

Other up-market companies give us similar indicators. &Beyond is “renovating” Kichwa Tembo in the Mara, which does allow them to champion a million dollar investment. Kichwa was the only non-up market camp in &Beyond’s portfolio, a left-over from its early purchase of Thrun properties from Abercrombie & Kent in the 1990s.

What this means is that &Beyond doesn’t want to conflate the two markets. I suspect they understand the upmarket is shrinking, and that the competition for it will grow more intense. Not a good idea to have a pizza delivered into the kitchen of a gourmet restaurant.

And another wannabe luxury company, Sanctuary Retreats, has just announced a seventh luxury small cruise ship in Myanmar. This means the company which was defined by luxury African lodges will now have more than half as many boats as lodges.

These big, enormously successful companies are doing the right things. They can’t remake themselves into something less for the future, so they are preparing to be more and more competitive for what I think is going to be a diminishing luxury market.

And that means, of course …

… that the Thruns will return. The “thoroughly reliable and unspectacular” properties I wrote about in Thursday’s blog will reemerge, I believe, as the dominant market in safari travel in the next 5-20 years.

A generation of practicality is upon us.

Versailles & The Moso Mantra

Versailles & The Moso Mantra

maasaiversaillesSafari travel beginning at the turn of the century has been increasingly defined by luxury. It’s a trend that’s been fabulously successful for investors and consumers alike.

Broadly speaking there are three types of places to stay in East Africa when on safari: Tuesday I wrote about the “flash-in-the-pan;” yesterday of the thoroughly reliable and unspectacular [“Thruns”] and Monday I’ll predict for both investors and consumers the future opportunities for all three types.

As any tourism market matures and grows more competitive, “luxury” is added to “price” as a sales point. It starts first with existing middle-market properties that are similarly priced as a reason to choose between them.

But with time “luxury” becomes a sales point all to itself, quite apart from price, and with exotic markets like East Africa in particular, it just seems a natural component of a destination that is expensive to begin with.

Everything modern in emerging countries (except mobile phones, it seems) is expensive: Cars are more expensive, modern homes are more expensive, modern clothes and so forth. And so is travel.

This is because all those things depend on imports: Fuel, building supplies and parts, many foodstuffs … and often, even staff, must come from abroad.

As this expense grows with time and relative to similarly distant destinations whose economies are maturing faster and therefore producing those necessary items locally (like China), it becomes more difficult to justify the higher costs.

Unless, of course, someone spreads rose petals up to your steaming four-claw Victoria bathtub which is placed beneath a giant chandelier and in front of an 12-foot window that overlooks Ngorongoro Crater.

And then the race to see who can make the most luxurious property is on. And the winners corner that extremely valuable part of the traveler market, the one that is pretty immune to even the near cataclysmic ups and downs of a global recession: the market of the rich.

This is what I call the moment’s splendor [“Moso”] type of East African property, and I choose that descriptor advisedly. Once outside of your four-claw bathtub back on the road, you won’t be able to avoid the innumerable bumps, horrible dust and lack of air-conditioning.

You won’t be able to easily replace your shampoo if you spill it, and the national grid might be down so no matter how good the wifi is in the room, there might be no internet. Plenty of hot water, when there’s water at all if the urban property dares to rely on mainline supplies.

The luxury is very confined to where you eat and sleep at night, and when something goes wrong, like no lights, you suddenly notice the wilderness more than you ever expected to.

And even when everything is going according to scheme (which I’m happy to admit is more and more with every passing day), and you are taking pictures of that magnificent lion pride out on the veld, you as the luxury traveler feels and experiences nothing more than the pensioner staying at a modern hostel who is in that old minibus on the other side of the lion pride.

The splendor can be quite limited.

But it seems to have worked. There have been few “flash-in-the-pans” and virtually no Thrun properties built in East Africa for more than a decade, but there is a plethora of new, luxury places to stay.

The most famous one in East Africa is Ngorongoro Crater Lodge, which we call “Maasai Versailles.” I’ve often stayed there and often written about it, positively in the beginning and negatively with time.

With time you begin to realize how “momentary” the moment is in the context of a good safari, and then the costs start to seem outrageous.

Prices at Crater Lodge vary between $1000 and $1650 per person per day, and when bundled with the other costs associated with a safari (fees, transport, etc.) this can be up to 10 times the cost of staying at a “thoroughly reliable and unspectacular” property, like the Serena Lodge about ten minutes down the road from it.

But it takes time and multiple visits to realize how “momentary” the moment is, and there is little question that the good luxury properties in East Africa do their trick. At least part of it. Reviews are pretty solid and good. What remains to be seen is if they – like the Thrun travelers – return multiple times.

We don’t have statistics for this, but my sense is that they don’t. Thrun travelers are among the most repetitive travelers in the world, returning 3-4 times during their lifetime of travel.

I don’t think that’s the case with Moso travelers, and that’s the part of the trick that might be missing with them. (More about this on Monday.)

Crater Lodge is hardly my favorite in this category. My favorites include Gibb’s Farm (which straddles this category with the Thruns), Dunia Camp (Serengeti, as well as many of its sister camps in the Asilia chain), Sarara (northern Kenya), Sand Rivers (The Selous), and Swala (in Tarangire).

Today, travelers accustomed to luxury won’t give it up just to have an exciting safari. Indeed, they did in the 1970s and 1980s. But times have changed, services have improved: There are no more 19th century aristocrats who dress for catered dinners in Kensington but use ferns as toilet paper while hunting lions. Today, there is a choice, however flawed it can be, for a “luxury safari.”

That’s the Moso mantra, and it’s what drives both investment and use of luxury safari properties in East Africa. But will it last?

See my next blog, Monday.

The Tried-and-True Thrun

The Tried-and-True Thrun

ndutucampfireThe “reliable and unspectacular” places to stay in East Africa [Thruns] are often my favorite, not just because they aren’t overpriced. Like many of the earlier properties built for safari travel, they were built to last and on prime space.

Tuesday’s blog was about the “flash-in-the-pan” properties and tomorrow’s blog is about the moment’s splendor properties. And then Monday I’ll summarize the series and let both investors and consumers know what I think the future holds.

This second category is in many ways my personal favorite, because I’ve been traveling to Africa for years and hope to continue doing so. To me the Maasai Mara is the draw, not Bateleur Camp. So main Governor’s is just fine, thank you.

These are the good ole places, the places that have been around for years and work well. They aren’t fancy, but you know when you go there you’ll be well taken care of, and because they’ve been around for a while and started early, there are usually plenty of them that got the best locations.

My favorite of all time is Ndutu Lodge in the Serengeti. But chain lodges can fit into this category, too, and Serena is the example. Serena Mara is absolutely the best lodge in Kenya’s best game park.

And there are many other examples, and they tend to all divide into this big gap between the single, owner/manager property like Ndutu and the mid-market chain like Serena. What they have in common is their inability to make much money for investors.

Mid-market properties are like the airlines. They cash in big during the good times and they dig into deep pockets during the bad times. They develop very loyal customers, but rarely are the customers very rich.

So right now, when only the rich are traveling as we laboriously recover from the Great Global Recession, things aren’t going very well. Long-term? That’s difficult to say.

What they have going for them is remarkable consumer loyalty.

Single owner/manager Thruns like Ndutu Lodge, Ndali Lodge (in Uganda), Ndarakwei Camp (near Kilimanjaro), Gibb’s Farm
(near the crater), Governor’s Camp (the Mara), Larsen’s Camp (Samburu, which does have a sister mid-market but nonperforming lodge in the Mara), the Aberdare Country Club and The Ark, Galdessa Camp (Tsavo East) are examples of single owner properties that have been around for a very long time and technically serve the mid-market, more or less.

(Gibb’s was seriously upgraded several years ago by its new owners to serve the upmarket. It’s a spectacular, wonderful place, but its location and need to command higher prices is problematic.)

I’m sure I haven’t exhausted the list, because what these Thruns have in common is the most loyal clientele in the market: (So even after 40 years of guiding in East Africa I’m personally unable to learn them all.)

These stand-alone properties were built with lots of equity sweat and love by their original owners, and if they’ve been purchased since (many original owners have died) the legacy continues.

The best story that comes to mind is Ndali Lodge in Uganda, where when the father died, the children returned from abroad to run the place because it is so dear to their hearts.

Like any home that is loved and taken care, you can expect to get more than your money’s worth. Some of that statement may validate itself in the low prices to begin with, so don’t expect filet mignon with premium wines or feather pillows fluffed up by your butler at The Ark. But the excellent dinner buffet and cozy old room with a fireplace is worth more than you paid for it.

And that could be the problem with stand-alone Thruns, as I’ll expound more on Monday. The markets below the luxury market dried up in the Great Global Recession.

Monday I’ll tell you if they’ll be coming back.

There aren’t a lot of mid-market chains that meet this second category criteria for me. In fact, there’s only one, Serena.

That’s because these chains are unable to make money for anything beyond the short-term. Serena has maintained its good service, its compact but always working rooms, and its decent foods, through thick and thin.

And in the East African market there’s been a lot more thin than thick since Serena appear in the 1970s.

The most outstanding feature to me of Serena is its people, in particular its lodge staff. They are exceptionally well trained, well-dressed, speak multiple languages well including the language of assuaging aching backs and packed sinuses that often accompany a dry season safari.

The staff behind the scenes, including the mechanics and cooks, couldn’t be better. And they are pretty well paid. Today, this is where a young person begins on her way up the ladder of hotel management. And remarkably, Serena is able to retain huge numbers of its better staff, through good salaries and benefits.

The reason Serena can command the investment long-term that provides a long-term, reliable service that builds clientele is because it has a deep pocket, the Agha Khan, with a mission so appealing he can get significant capital from places like the World Bank.

His appealing mission is to invest in emerging markets in emerging countries. Serena was one of the first first-class hotels in Kabul, for instance. Serena appeared in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda when investment there was considered risky.

And they’ve stayed and survived.

Personally, I choose the single owner/manager properties over Serena mainly because Serena lodges are too big for me and too uniformly styled. But Serena is often a bit less expensive than the stand-alone Thruns, and much less expensive when you buy multiple places. And since they are so perfectly located on the safari circuit, an excellent safari can be wrapped entirely with Serena.

Serena will survive for as long as the Agha Khan’s mission is a valid one. The single owner/manager Thruns are of course more problematic, and I’ll have more to say about that Monday.

Built To Tumble

Built To Tumble

AlreadyFallingDown If you haven’t visited the spectacular Soroi Lodge in the Serengeti yet, you better do so soon, because I don’t think it’s going to be around for a very long time.

The story of Soroi Serengeti Lodge is the story of investment in African safari lodges virtually from the onset of safari travel in the 1960s.

It’s the story of small business trying to cash out quickly on trends, and then always, failing. Only now, as Africa develops its own safari traveler are things looking up … but not for the likes of Soroi Lodge.

Below is my detailed review of Soroi. I stayed there while guiding the Felsenthal Family at the beginning of July for two nights. On Thursday, I’ll generalize in this blog to what’s happening throughout Africa with its lodge investment, tell you which few investors are doing the right thing and why, and what warning signs we’re now getting for the mid-term for safari travel.
pool.soroi
Set about half way between Serena Lodge and the Grumeti airstrip in the southern half of the western corridor, Soroi is one of the most beautiful middle-sized lodges I’ve ever stayed at. The design avoids the cliche of avant garde but is creatively modern with lots of angular twists and turns, multiple levels and daring concepts like putting a pool next to the bar and lounge.
trestle.soroiserengetilodgeSome of this is probably mandated by its limited space, the top of a 600′ high hill 25 kilometers off the nearest road, resulting in an absolutely fantastic and intimate view of the grande dame of African wildernesses.

The 25 thatched cottages and suites are connected by long and sometimes meandering walkways like trestles through outer space, views everywhere.
bathroom.soroi

The bathrooms are about the same size as the bedrooms, which are adequate and heavily wooded, and the piece de resistance is that massive deck overlooking the Serengeti. I estimate the view from the deck stretches at least 35 miles over the Serengeti. There are no other lodges and only one track in this immense area, fulfilling every safari traveler’s dream of being alone in the remote beauty of Africa.
bedroom.soroi
And that’s it folks.

Hardly two years old, this artistic masterpiece is already not working.

Much of the room finishings are breaking off. The thick lustrous wooden stain is already down to the bare wood in the bathroom and there is already significant corrosion on all the brass plated fixtures. The patio doors between the room and the deck no longer close well, leaving a gap for you know what … bugs. The screen meshes on the perfectly designed canvass windows are buckling and tearing.

There is no communication between the distant cottages or reception and management: no phones, no walkie talkies as is often customary. So there is no way to communicate danger, other than a pitifully small whistle attached your key chain, and yes there could be danger. I spotted lion and hyaena tracks regularly on the walk from my room.

There is a bouquet basket of teas and coffees, sugars and sweeteners framed by two lovely china cups on the rather small writing desk in your room, but no tea or coffee maker, and the only way to use them is to order hot water. Staff deliver hot water on demand, but there is no way to order it except to walk up to reception – might as well get it yourself.

And even that is complicated by the lodge edict that you can’t walk around at night by yourself. I learned from an askari who claimed to shoo the lions away every night. But there is no way to call for an askari at night … except your whistle.

And consider the beautiful and large four claw bathtub elegantly described in much of the lodge’s promotional literature. The briefing we got when arriving explained that there wasn’t enough hot water to fill the bath more than … maybe, once. So … don’t use.

Laundry is something that every African safari lodge and camp provides, albeit at various costs from free to outlandish. Soroi’s website and its information packet describes that two pieces of laundry are free and additional will be charged.

But at the briefing we were told there couldn’t be more than two pieces accepted, at any charge. And the complicated maize that management has thrown up to us weary warriors in need of a clean T-shirt included the fact that laundry is only accepted at night, for return the following night. This is exactly half-cycled from what is common virtually everywhere else, morning to that same evening, which further complicated anyone’s laundry plans particularly if they were only staying for two nights.

One of the six rooms my group was assigned didn’t have enough water to flush a toilet.

And my three drivers apologized to me the night after we arrived that they weren’t allowed any water to wash the vehicles.

So what do we have? We have a lodge that doesn’t have enough water, which has not been built to last, and which is declining fast. An investment with a quick R.O.I.

It’s a lovely sand castle, but the engineering won’t withstand the next strong wind.

This beautiful, very artistic but so temporal investment is the perfect example of why investment in African safari lodges is so tricky, and probably so misplaced.

For that, come back to this blog on Thursday.
DeckView.Soroi.500

Revealing Egypt

Revealing Egypt

fearitselfThere’s a side to Barack Obama few ever notice. It may be the same side, the same expression of every President since our revolution, but it troubles me gravely in today’s modern, interconnected world.

It’s the obsession with defense.

I’ve written often about how incredibly militaristic Obama is in Africa, as we pursue the War on Terror. Now a study just getting notice but completed nearly two weeks ago by the University of California-Berkeley charges the Obama administration with direct involvement in toppling the Egyptian government of President Morsi.

“… a review of dozens of US federal government documents shows Washington has quietly funded senior Egyptian opposition figures who called for toppling of the country’s now-deposed president Mohamed Morsi,” the study which was published in AlJazeera reveals.

So you see the difficulty: I didn’t support Mohamed Morsi and his undemocratic if authoritarian rule. Ergo, rid the anti-democrat with anti-democratic initiatives?

There is a time in every young and emerging great politician’s career when “example” is held higher than “force”:

“To overcome extremism, we must also be vigilant in upholding the values our troops defend – because there is no force in the world more powerful than the example of America,” young Obama once intoned to America.

Either the questionable if immoral foreign policies of America have now become part of the “values our troops defend” or young Obama has strayed far from his founding principles.

Yes, the Obama Administration’s who-knows-if-they’re-legal policies have calmed today’s troubled waters a little bit. And that’s the point. America’s covert funding of anti-Morsi forces violated Egyptian law and may have violated U.S. law as well.

It would hardly be the first time one country violated another country’s law in the arena of global power. More to that point in a minute.

But violating U.S. law may have become little more than a past time of American administrations obsessed with “security” and “defense.” In my own life time we have everything as pitifully irrelevant as the invasion of Granada to earth-shattering wars in Vietnam and Iraq, and now to the wholesale disregard of human rights in the Administration’s interpretation of the Patriot Act.

You see the intellectual difficulty. What if we are more safe? Who cares about the moral costs?

“The State Department’s programme, dubbed by US officials as a “democracy assistance” initiative, is part of a wider Obama administration effort to try to stop the retreat of pro-Washington secularists,” writes Emad Mekay, the brilliant young Berkeley student who authored the article.

Read the whole article to learn the fascinating and intricate details, almost as clever and carefully orchestrated as spying during the Cold War. And I have nothing against spying or pursuing foreign policy cleverly.

But times have changed.

There is no Cold War. China and America, the world’s two greatest protagonists are so incredibly dependent upon one another that “live-and-let-live” has been reduced to “self preservation.”

All that’s left, really, is the War on Terror. It’s a high-tech version of Bobby Kennedy’s destruction of the mob. There’s nothing illegitimate about it, and more to the point, there’s nothing overly American about it.

The War on Terror actually came a bit later to America than to Britain, Germany, Japan and a host of other countries. We may have been the site of the greatest single terrorist event, but I for one believe that was because of a bumbling administration who failed to see simple warning signs.

It was a failure of that one administration, not a failure of policy.

The blurry edge of legality, particularly in a global perspective, gives enormous latitude to those in power to fiddle with morality.

Obama’s gone too far.

It’s NOT Hot in Africa!

It’s NOT Hot in Africa!

in_hot_africa_800Ok, it’s hot. But it’s NOT “Africa Hot.” That phrase is racing around twitter as a way to describe unusual heat in the U.S., and … it’s blazing wrong!!

Now, historically, and probably for the whole futures any of us will ever have, most of the United States is hotter than most of the Africa in which I guide and spend nearly half my life.
TempComparisonsUSvsAfrica
And for that life of me I’ve spent my career trying to understand why people think otherwise.

Was it the Tarzan movies? Johnny Weissmüller’s hair was always perfectly slicked down, so I suppose you might think that was because of sweat.

Was it because of movies like Africa Queen? Or histories of the early explorers who were always drawn sweating off their clothes?

Or… was it because we associated Africa with slavery, and we associate slaves with the South, and we associated the South with heat?

To be utterly and completely fair, West Africa is a pretty hot place, and North Africa (Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt) can be extremely hot. If I compiled those statistics I’m guessing it would be a near draw or slight advantage for those parts of Africa as hotter than the U.S.

But those are not the places that most American visit, today, or for that matter have visited in the past.

Sub-Saharan Africa has always been the American destination on the continent (with the notable exception of Egypt, whose tourist market share has fluctuated with great volatility over the years).

Look at my chart. Of the ten most visited places in the U.S. and the ten most visited places in sub-Saharan Africa, 5 of the top 6 hottest destinations are in America!

In fact, by a lot! The most popular safari destination that I guide today is northern Tanzania. That averages ten degrees cooler than where I grew up in Chicago.

By now I hope you’ve realized that I might be ever so slightly manipulating the statistics, so I’ll come completely clean, because I’ll still prevail:

America’s temperature spread, from hottest to lowest in the year, is much greater than for most any other part of the world, including sub-Saharan Africa.

A chart showing my 20 destinations by their averages results in 3 of the top 5 hottest all coming from Africa (Zanzibar, Botswana & Central Tanzania) with only 2 from America (Orlando and Las Vegas).

But that’s not the point, either. The real study would take these twenty places during the times that they were most visited, and remarkably in almost all cases, that’s the end of the year, the holiday periods in December.

Doing that, Africa wins by a long shot, because it’s the coldest time in America and it tends to be the warmest time in Africa. So that’s probably why the “myth” of “hot Africa” exists. It’s when most Americans have visited Africa, during its hottest time.

But I’m not done. Although the end of December is the highest tourist season for most Americans visiting Africa, it shouldn’t be. It’s really not the best time to go, and that’s not because it’s the hottest time. It’s just not a good season for anything, not animal viewing or city touring, or even for experiencing Victoria Falls.

So if we did a chart of when it’s the best time to visit each of those twenty places, the hottest would definitely be almost exclusively all in America.

This is because America’s best city touring is usually during our summer for the eastern and northern cities, and during our winter for the southern cities.

And because for Africa the best time tends to be their coolest times.

That comparison would definitely show that America is hotter than Africa!

So don’t tweet today that it is “Africa Hot!” It isn’t. It’s “America Hot!”

Just Justice

Just Justice

willweeverknowthetruthThe bizarre story of the world trials of Kenya’s leaders grew ever the more bizarre yesterday and when bundled with incidents like Trayvon Martin shows just how fluid, uncertain and perhaps even meaningless justice is.

Whatever else you concluded about the George Zimmerman trial, you must agree that its outcome was based as much on technicalities as “justice.” And by that I mean that Zimmerman shouldn’t have shot Martin, but somehow, he got away with doing just that.

Kenya’s president and vice-president are widely presumed world-wide, by diplomats and journalists and scholars alike, if not directly causing the terrible violence of 2008, certainly encouraging it. They’re widely presumed responsible in some significant measure for the deaths of more than a thousand people and the displacement of a quarter million.

The distinction between “causing” or “encouraging” is the point of the trials. Causing is criminal. Encouraging may not be criminal. And that’s the task assigned to the World Court in The Hague … finally, by the Kenyan Parliament.

But even were a successful trial in The Hague to find both President Uhuru Kenyatta and Vice President William Ruto innocent of “causing” the violence, real democratic societies would not allow them to continue as leaders.

Real democracies do not tolerate leaders whose citizens those leaders allowed to be massacred. Historically they could be seen as having tried to begin a civil war, but if so they lost that war. Kenya is still Kenya, whole if scathed. Jefferson Davis did not become the President after Lincoln. Kenyatta and Ruto shouldn’t be Kenya’s leaders. They are. And they might be for a long time.

Two of innumerable cases worldwide where justice has been lost.

The George Zimmerman trial is over. The just concept of double jeopardy makes it impossible that he be tried for murder or manslaughter, again. But the trials of the Kenyan leaders haven’t even yet begun.

The President’s trial has been rescheduled to begin November 12. The Vice President’s trial has been rescheduled to begin September 10.

The legal manuvering in the World Court has been considerable. The most significant of many unexpected twists and turns are the reduction of the witness list and the adjudication of whether these national leaders need necessarily attend their trials in person.

The former is much more salient to achieving some level of justice than the latter, and besides, who in their right mind believes if found guilty either of the men will resign, take the first plane to Amsterdam and let themselves be incarcerated?

It’s a foregone conclusion that regardless of the outcome of the trials, Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto will never be behind bars in The Netherlands.

But many of us would like to know if they really are culpable. We could be wrong, couldn’t we?

Africa is rife with Shakespearean mysteries. Perhaps the defendants’ claims that each and every one of the witnesses against them is either lying or being extorted is true. It seems unlikely, but “beyond a reasonable doubt” is something that only a good court can ascertain.

And that part is becoming less and less likely. Witnesses have been dropping out like flies. The reason given by The Court is that they fear for their security.

There’s every reason to presume this true. Kenya’s most historic murder trial was of the politician Robert Ouko, likely killed in the then Kenyan dictators’ residence. Witness after witness either dropped out of the trial .. or was murdered.

But this time there’s hope we will know. Kenya’s own parliament declined holding trials or other judicial investigations to determine those responsible for the 2008 violence, and so conceded that right legislatively to the World Court in The Hague.

So we want to know. Kenya’s Parliament wants to know. We know whatever the outcome, Kenya’s current leaders will not go to jail, they will avoid that justice to be sure. But that doesn’t mean we don’t want our own theories validated, or shown to be incorrect.

We want justice, at least the first step of discerning the truth. And I can’t imagine why every single Kenya wouldn’t want the same.

Cranes & Other Conservation

Cranes & Other Conservation

Wattled Crane - Copyright © Grant AtkinsonAfrica’s beautiful cranes have become a maypole for world conservation, but I don’t believe the birds – or the world – will be saved by private initiatives.

Recently I had the privilege of visiting the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, Wisconsin. Founded on the fairy tale conservation story that saved the Whooping Crane, the Foundation today extends its work around the globe, protecting fifteen species of crane worldwide.

I was particularly interested in their work with the four African breeders, the Black Crowned, Grey Crowned, Blue and Wattled.

Each of these birds is incredibly spectacular; the crowned and the other two types have distinct behaviors, and they all get the attention of my clients even those who are not birders per se.

And all of us guides have watched their decline… and, in the case of the wattled, the promise of a comeback.

Hardly a decade ago, flocks of black crowned cranes were common on every grassland wilderness. Although they peal off in pairs to nest, large flocks were common before nesting and among the fledglings.

Their funny low-decibel honking, very much like a goose, often introduced them long before the explosion of colors and ballet of flying together got everyone’s attention.

But the crane in general is an indicator of much more than beauty alone. Cranes are wetland birds. Like so many birds in a variety of ecosystems, cranes indicate the health of the world’s wetlands.

And wetlands – at least for the time being until new technology is developed – is the way the world cleans itself while simultaneously producing more clean water.

Now Africa’s cranes are often found as I’ve seen in near desert environments – they’ve adapted nicely to the desertification of Africa. But they tend to nest in as wetland an environment as possible.

So we might deduce that Africa’s cranes are in the forefront of the decline of wetlands, managing to adapt historical behavior to the decline of good water resources, because Africa’s wetlands are in a more serious decline than elsewhere on earth.

But we may have reached an untenable point in that decline. Over my forty years I’ve watched the crowns “come and go,” so to speak in terms of their anecdotal visible numbers. But in the last 3-5 years they’ve been going and not coming back.

And this stands in marked contrast to the Wattled Crane of southern Africa, which while more threatened to begin with than the crowned, seems to be making progress, albeit slowly.

And this little bit of evidence is why I don’t believe that despite the invaluable work of organizations like the Crane Foundation, the cranes – or for that matter, any world ecosystem – will be saved without massive government involvement.

A lot of people don’t agree with me. Another recent visitor to the Crane Foundation in Baraboo, Carl Gibson, wrote recently in the Huffington Post, “Cranes and Climate Change: Why Our Survival Depends on Local Solutions.”

In a somewhat convoluted way Gibson claims that private initiatives like the Crane Foundation can ultimately control climate change, which he correctly faults for much of the world’s current conservation crisis.

Gibson lauds “small business” and business green initiatives for being “ahead of the federal government … find[ing] ways to generate our own power, run our businesses sustainably, and conserve natural resources and biodiversity if we’re to survive extinction as a species in the next century.”

Like the leadership of the Crane Foundation and many other good conservation organizations, there’s a belief that government either can’t or won’t address the problems they do.

They’re wrong, and it’s time that we change this destructive attitude that’s arising between well-meaning conservationists and their governments. I find so often today a nihilistic attitude by private conservation organizations towards governments. This has got to change.

The reason the Wattled Crane has a current better trajectory for long-term survival than the crowneds is because the governments of southern Africa have more aggressively dealt with wetland issues. It’s that simple.

The remarkable effort by the Botswana government to create boreholes in the dried up Ngami River and its tributaries … for 26 years until they refilled two years ago!… is a case in point. And it’s just one of dozens and dozens.

Now to be sure the Crane Foundation and similar conservation organizations perform just that type of work. But they are uncoordinated with overall environment strategy and often fall well short of what a government-funded project is capable of.

The Crane Foundation is an outstanding organization. And like many others like it, one of its greatest legacies is the scientific expertise that it builds over the years. That is critical to saving the world.

But so are governments. And Carl Gibson is wrong. Our personal resources and initiatives should be directed first to guiding and controlling our government then towards private organizations.

Without government involvement, there is no hope.

Beware The Blackened Honey!

Beware The Blackened Honey!

killerbeeracismRacism on the march, from Trayvon Martin to African Killer Bees … again. From rhino horns that are not aphrodisiacs to setbacks to immigration reform.

It’s a depressing Monday in the free but dumb world.

I know a lot more about inappropriately named “African Killer Bees” than about the Trayvon Martin case, but the fact is that it doesn’t take much for anyone to know about either to realize the implications.

As has been pointed out time and again, there is no such thing as an “African Killer Bee.” It is the same honey bee, the exact same genetic honey bee, as lives all over the world. The behavior of this creature in equatorial Africa developed a bit differently than in the non-tropic world … obviously, don’t we all?

And yes, the behavior of the equatorial bee can legitimately be called more aggressive than its sisters and brothers that have to deal with winters. The best and least disturbing explanation of this was a PBS interview of bee expert, Justin Smith, several years ago.

The bottom line is that the difference in aggression is not considerable enough to even begin to warrant the panic and racist fears that still continue, today. Just as some pet dogs are more aggressive than other pet dogs, you deal with it:

Whether you’re the owner, or the neighbor. Neither dog, and neither bee, is going to kill you if you don’t try to bite it.

But alas, what do facts have to do with any of this? Truth? It just doesn’t seem to matter.

“Beekeepers attribute the aggressive nature of [African Killer] bees to their origins in Africa, where predators range from birds to honey badgers to humans,” wrote Michael Lollar in Memphis’ main newspaper, the Commercial Appeal, just last month.

Where predators range from birds to honey badgers to humans. That sounds like Memphis.

But no, it isn’t. It’s those dastardly creatures whose “origins in Africa” make them so bad.

Lollar’s story was picked up all over the south and his wild and unsubstantiated claims spread pell-mell.

Lollar claimed that Tennessee authorities had determined that one local honey bee they tested proved 17% African. (How much is Obama?) But the Tennessee Department of Natural Resources has no such test available and has a much more realistic appraisal of bees in the State than Lollar.

That appraisal in the link above was for January, 2008, and the department has found no need to make any change.

If anything, we should be grateful for the arrival of the African honey bee, because there’s every evidence they contributed to the successful turnaround against the horrible virus that was decimating bees in North America this decade.

But here’s my real scoop, today, are you ready?

There are worse bees in Africa than the honey bee! More aggressive, better pollinators, probably more dastardly and with a stronger sting! Ouch!!

See below pictures taken just in the last few weeks in Kenya and Tanzania by dudu sleuth Dino Martins!
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And Beware! They’ll be in New Haven by Labor Day!

Hail To The Victor Valiant!

Hail To The Victor Valiant!

Robert Mugabe and Morgan TsvangiraiAfrica’s longest-serving dictator and one of the most evil men in the world, Robert Mugabe, will be validated by democracy as Zimbabwe’s leader again on July 31.

It will be his third “democratic” election and without doubt, his third victory. It will be the third time that his single opponent is the dumbly masochist, Morgan Tsvangirai, who has endured torture, humiliation and the murder of his wife, to spot Mugabe over the last 15 years as the opponent who gives Mugabe credibility.

Through democracy.

I am intrigued by the time and resources that Mugabe has committed to this facade of being a democratically elected and warmly loved leader. Tsvangirai holds the questionable title of “Prime Minister,” and may indeed, hold it again after Mugabe is elected, again.

So he gets a nice house and a stipend for good clothing, but alas, he’s rarely allowed to leave the country and his meetings and rallies are monitored by Mugabe’s thugs who then routinely beat up anyone in the public who seemed engaged.

Most of the time Tsvangirai speaks to himself, and pity to the few earnest supporters putting their lives on the line for such dastardly acts as waving a poster.

Mugabe has expended notable effort this time to get outside observers. Of course, the most respected outside observers of elections – the organization that actually founded the idea – the Carter Center, has been banned.

So instead he will have observers from Russia and Serbia. (There are others, including the more respectable African Union, but that organization does hate to upset its dictators.)

And despite truly heroic efforts by many good Zimbabweans to do such things as register voters, it’s essentially impossible to register unless you prove your loyalty to Mugabe, first.

The private and somewhat secret website in Zimbabwe to help fledgling democrats register is called “MyZimVote.” Illustrative of its primary function is a giant map with red circles counting the number of gross violations around the country where persons attempting to register were denied … or beaten up.

This and a bunch of other laws and regulations that actually does manage to out-shame Texas means Mugabe’s victory is assured.

All in the name of democracy. And while it would be hard for the most poorly trained political scientist to call this “good” democracy, it does go through the motions. It does a little better than Stalin’s 99% wins. And above all it proves that most everyone – even the grossest of leaders – ascribes to the theory that the people should decide who rules them.

And that leads to the marvelous question of whether these pretenders, from Mugabe to Bush, really believe they have been elected by the people, or if they realize it’s a sham from the getgo.

Bush believed. Mugabe knows it’s a sham. I guess that’s the difference between poorly educated and a thug.

Power to the People

Power to the People

obamatanzaniaAmerican presidents one-upping each other is hardly news at home, but this time round it really is news for Africa. George Bush is personally credited with $15 billion for Africa, now Obama with $16 billion.

This year the Obama Administration requested a total of $7.5 billion for USAid to Africa. Twenty percent of that is for Egypt, with the remaining 43 beneficiary countries receiving $5 billion.

Nigeria is in second place, no surprise. If the country can ever solve its ethnic problems its massive oil reserves will make it literally one of the most important countries in the world.
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But what is surprising is third place, Tanzania.

Obama just completed an Africa trip where the signature speeches, most dramatic announcements and largest contingent of Americans traveling with him (800) were in Tanzania. Why Tanzania?

Tanzania’s human rights ranking is terrible. Just before Obama arrived, an opposition rally in Arusha was brutally crushed by police. A month before Obama arrived the Tanzanian government announced wholesale movements of Maasai from their native lands to increase a hunting reserve for Arab princes.

And there’s been scandal after scandal, many centering on the country’s 15-year inability to make money from the discovery of the world’s second largest gold reserve.

Compared to neighboring Kenya, Tanzania is a banana republic with no clear optimistic future.

Why Tanzania?

There are two reasons. The first is because Obama’s predecessor, George Bush, doled out a huge amount of his $15 billion AIDs initiative in Africa to Tanzania. Why Tanzania? Because Kenya wouldn’t have him and South Africa didn’t really want him, either. In fact, because most of Africa did not want to be associated with George Bush.

The Bush Administration alienated most of the world with its invasion of Iraq, Africa included. Its foreign policy was hurtful to emerging countries in virtually all areas, from conservation to economics.

And its missteps were many and severe in Africa. Perhaps the most notable for this discussion was when George Bush became the only leader in the world to congratulate Mwai Kibaki on becoming elected president in 2007. Which he hadn’t been, which was why no other world leader offered the congratulations.

But those congratulations Kibaki immediately published on Kenyan media to consolidate his illegitimate claim to power, and that led to the terrible violence of 2007/2008.

So by process of default, Bush went to Tanzania. Obama has to one-up him. Bush’s $15 billion was for AIDS aid. Obama’s $16 billion is for electrification.

There’s a second reason.

Drones have assassinated no fewer than a dozen terrorists while they were living in Kenya and Tanzania. Kenya doth protest. Tanzania doesn’t.

Aid is a tricky game. I have a sense that Obama has mastered it far better than Bush did, but he’s shackled by his militarism and obsession with killing terrorists, and influenced by not letting his predecessor shine more brightly.

Aid is a tricky game. Morality isn’t. I don’t know how long it will take for America to sync itself into a truly moral stance after our generations of warring, but it doesn’t look like it will be soon.

What does Egypt Mean?

What does Egypt Mean?

Cartoon reducted from original at chrislittleton.com
Cartoon reducted from original at chrislittleton.com
Karl Marx proclaimed a successful revolution was the dictatorship of the proletariat. As of today, the Egyptian revolution is the dictatorship of the middle class.

If ever there had been a truly democratic election in Africa – even including South Africa – it was the election of Mohamed Morsi as president of Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood had trained in western institutions and democracy for years. And they won.

They won because the common Egyptian, the Egyptian of the lower classes, the less educated, the less likely to be employed, the more likely to have been oppressed or even tortured, had the vote. And they voted for the one thing that they had maintained through generations of oppression: their religion.

What’s specially ironic and intellectually stinging is that they were a movement of conservative Islam whose level of violence was low. That isn’t to say it didn’t exist (the horrible murders by the recently appointed Governor of Luxor stands as the example), but compared to Hezbollah, Hamas or the Joker fringes of al-Qaeda, they were choir boys.

Many contend that it was the old dictator, Mubarak, who made them so, crushing them when they misbehaved and rewarding them ever so slightly when they towed the line.

And like African movements across the continent, from the opposition in Zimbabwe to the thrice failed people’s movement in Kenya, they displayed generational patience unfathomable to us in the west. Learning the ropes, so the speak. Patiently waiting to achieve a democratic victory.

But .. All for naught.

The most cogent argument still founded on democracy being used by the supporters of the Egyptian coup is that the Egyptian constitution under Morsi had no feature to allow for impeachment, and that the mass demonstrations of the last several weeks against Morsi were sufficient to constitute impeachment.

Weak.

The second most cogent argument was that while Morsi was elected democratically, he has systematically dismantled government institutions based on democracy and was crafting a dictatorship for himself.

In my opinion this is true. He packed the legislature and tried to emasculate the judiciary, without any constitutional or legislative authority. He started muffling all opposition media. He kept interrupting the otherwise routine schedule of upcoming elections.

In other words, like every dictator before him, he was using democracy to end it.

But what is disingenuous by the opposition is to claim this while suggesting they aren’t now doing the same thing.

The middle class has at least for the moment come to power. This elicits great sympathy from us, because we are the middle class in America. But they did not come to power democratically. And they won’t stay in power democratically. If they remain in power, it will be through a dictatorship of the middle class.

General Sisi and his underlings have indicated there will be new “democratic elections” by the end of the year, and yet another referendum on a yet another “democratic” constitution.

But no sane person believes that Morsi or the Muslin Brotherhood will have much hope of being integrated into this process. They will be excluded.

And the regime will claim they are excluded “because they aren’t democratic.”

We’ve now created the most distinguished non sequitur of democracy: We’ve proved that democracy doesn’t exist.

In America it doesn’t exist because money and other non-issue components drive elections, giving a distinct advantage to the rich. Democracy is supposed to be a debate of ideas, not bank accounts. Yet we see how quickly this gets muddled in America if a democatically achieved idea condones the advantage of money and other non-issue but controlling mechanisms like seniority and filibuster.

So democracy in America disadvantages the poor and weak. Advantage, upper classes. Same as Egypt. And by the way, the mechanism is the same:

In America so-called “democracy” may not be exclusively defined by money, but money is a principal definer. In Egypt democracy is now clearly defined by the military, and for the moment at least, the military and Egyptian middle class are allied.

And what begets the Egyptian military?

About a billion dollars annually from the U.S.

In today’s world, money is power and reigns, whether in the U.S. or Egypt. Those of us in the relative comfort of the middle class are OK with this, because we are rich enough.

But the poor and weak are not OK with this.

In Karl Marx’s time the “proletariat” was the poor and weak but undeniably the largest segment of society. As it remains today in Egypt. But in America today the “middle class” is the largest segment of society.

And in the globally connected world America has now if not imposed at least facilitated the middle class dictatorship in Egypt. Not directly, of course, because we are fooled by our own ideas. But by the very nature of capitalism, by the means by which we defend our own middle class, so must Egypt become.

This paradigm has but a single peaceful and morally correct outcome: that everyone become Middle Class. To the extent America, or Egypt, or Kenya or South Africa – or China – moves rapidly in this direction, there will be peace. To the extent societies don’t move rapidly enough in this direction, or reverse it, there will be war.

All hail the Middle Class. Long Live the Middle Class.

But don’t be hoodwinked by democracy.

On Safari with Babu

On Safari with Babu

GrandpaDriving.655.Jul13Children really do better than their parents on a family safari in all cases, no matter how difficult or how easy it might be. And that makes sense.

The first question I get from a parent or grandparent considering taking their family on safari is what is the ideal age, or actually more often, what is too young to go?

The Felsenthal Family Safari organized by Babu Eddie just ended, and as I reflect on that ten days a lot of the answers I’ve given over the years are confirmed.

Children of virtually any age are as different as any person of any age, so the qualification that my generalization might not apply to your particular child is a very important one. I’ve had three-year-olds that two decades later would recite the days on safari with rapture. And I’ve had many repeat adult clients that for the life of them couldn’t remember what they’d done before.

But generalize I will. The best ages for children on safari are between 8 and 16. The Felsenthals had a 5-year-old and two 7-year-olds and the safari worked well. And last year I guided a family with university students, and they were outstanding safari travelers.

But in general kids under 8 lack the stamina a safari requires, and kids over 16 lack any interest for much except being home with their friends.
HoldingUpBoulder.NgongRock.Jul13.655
How this generalization was torn to smithereens by the Felsenthals! To begin with, I was amazed at how much they wanted to do as a family. With near unanimity the family pressed the envelope of reasonable game driving. According to my notes, we had four game drives of 12 hours!

And quite a few of ten!

Part of this was because a family safari usually does better with all-day drives with a picnic lunch, than with the traditional early morning and late afternoon drives separated by a long mid-day period in camp with lunch.

It’s easier for a family to get going in full light and without an early wakeup. But in my memory I don’t remember such enthusiasm as the Felsenthals.

We were unable to get satisfactory accommodation near the expected whereabouts of the migration in northern Tanzania, and that became the motivation for the 12-hour day. We left the central Serengeti around 7 a.m. and traveled to the Kenyan border, returning around 7 p.m.

And … we found the migration! Big time, in fact. It was a relief to me, of course, and the family was fully aware that the information we had garnered might not have been accurate. But as it turned out, it was.

And on the way back, 7-year-old Nate simply fell asleep on the back seat of the cruiser, certainly the most bumpy part of the car!

I was amazed day after day how these young kids all chose to go out for hours longer than the average adult safari. But then I’d learned long ago that the stress of such a long day really hangs on the parents, not the kids.

They are understandably worried that such a trial of bumpy roads and long periods of seeing nothing foments the boredom that often turns into anxiety or peevishness in kids. But it doesn’t. And my saying so from experience after experience doesn’t seem to convince anyone.

But it doesn’t. Kids always … and I mean always … end up doing better than their parents on safari, and particularly when the safari is challenged by long drives and bumpy roads.

That isn’t to say they’re constantly enthused and wrapped in attention. It just means that the parents do more poorly than they do.

So the maxim stands: analyze your own stamina and interest, parents and grandparents, as the threshold of what the family safari should do. The kids will always work into it just fine!

I can’t thank the Felsenthals enough for giving me such a fine experience, too! Our elephant encounters in Tarangire were exceptional and so exciting. There was even a trunk into the pop-top roof!

In one morning around Seronera, we saw four leopard and twelve lion. Not to mention several hundred zebra, and a giant croc guarding its zebra kill.

We found the migration, a beautiful and always awe inspiring site. And as usual with migration experiences, there was something extremely unusual and dramatic: we saw at least four hundred vultures collected together near a bit of water drying their wings.

The Felsenthal kids spent a good hour or two mingling with school kids from Arusha on a field trip safari, and taught them tic-tac-toe! The Felsenthal boys played frisby on the endless plains of Lemuta, not another car in sight for 50 miles, even as a single Maasai teenager walked across this enormous veld to greet us.
LionFromCar.655.jul13

We saw hyaena relocating babies that couldn’t have been more than a day old. We watched a family of lion unsuccessfully hunt warthog that successfully held up backwards into a hole!

We walked around the actual place where Zinj, the Nutcracker Man, was found, and walked over the Shifting Sands hills that themselves walk over the veld. The kids pounded the magical Ngong Rock with granite stones to recreate the dream booms that called Maasai to their last conclave in 1972.

And for icing on the cake, hardly a half hour before we took off on the charter that started the journey home, a lionness flopped in the shade of the kids’ safari car!

There’s just nothing as good as a family safari. And no one as happy as the kids!
NateAsleepInCar