I have to constantly remind myself how wonderful – especially for first-timers – the dry season seems. To me it’s worse than the worst ever winter in Chicago; it’s earth challenging its own creation. What I see through the billows of dust are all the battles being lost to survive.
But the battles won are by the cats as they pick off the sick and wounded like turtles. For the cats it’s their heyday. That’s why the visitors love it so.
Shelly’s pride is one of the most famously studied groups of lions in the Serengeti, probably the most photographed by professionals and tourists alike, and without doubt the most tame.
There are 19 in the pride and when we saw them a grand male and female were (literally) hanging out on a thick, low horizontal sausage tree branch together, their majesty rather compromised by various appendages and supple parts of their engorged bellies dripping from the branch like pancakes on a grill.
It’s not easy being an American in Africa, today.
There’s been a slow swell in criticism of America ever since Trump came to power, but now, with the story of child immigrants being abused the criticism is severe. The frowns, the delayed services and lack of previously wonderful engaging conversation with locals makes me feel more and more alone. America, you are absolutely becoming cruel and fascist in the eyes of the world.
I can wallow under a giant rain shower or soak in a bathtub even larger than the 19th Century four-claw tub at my home.
Our hotel housekeeper constantly refills our 4 2-liter bottles with purified water for more than just basic drinking needs, and plenty for our massive tea or coffee consumption. This is the Zanzibar Park Hyatt where each guest on average uses 30 times more water than the average Zanzibari.
EWT and other foreign guests wouldn’t come here were it otherwise. But it isn’t sustainable and many progressive Zanzibaris are growing increasingly vocal about it.
I was very worried. To begin with I don’t particularly like the dry season. The enormous amounts of dust kicked up by the rovers when traveling is constantly irritating, but more generally I just don’t like seeing the beautiful veld so dry and stressed.
The silver lining is that the cats are in their heyday, picking off weakened animals like flies.
We were ready to leave the crater at the end of the game drive when Tumaini noticed far away near the down road a huge group of wilde running down the side of the escarpment.
We stopped and turned around and with my binocs I could swear I was in the western corridor watching a couple thousand frantic animals in their endless search for better grass. But we were far, far away from that place.
Tarangire was much wetter than usual but cold as usual. The odd combination kept the tse-tse somewhat at bay but really reduced our finding the transitory elephant in the southern half of the park. The northern half was chock-a-block full of elephant as always, and that’s where the most productive game viewing was.
On the way to our Sopa Lodge we passed elephant fighting on the rim and arrived just before dark.
The day in the crater was wonderful. I love these margins of the season, when the tourist rush hasn’t yet totally clogged out the crater and a drizzle every now keep the beautiful yellow biden-biden blooming so that the veld is covered in yellow.
When we went down there weren’t many wildebeest. We saw lots of zebra and quite a few lion – all fat and sassy from previous kills – but as we ended the morning a long line of wilde ran down the side along the down road.
They were kicking and blarting and the males were still actively rutting, which should have already come to an end. I couldn’t figure out why so much commotion and such clear migratory behavior in these 400 or so wilde, since they were headed in the wrong direction!
But that’s … nature! With so many beasts there isn’t an uniform movement, and for some reason this group – totally healthy and enthusiastic – either got turned around by a bee or the smell of new grass on the crater floor.
Whatever it was it was great fun to watch them. I’m having a particularly wonderful time, since this is my family. I guide a family safari every ten years. This was the 4th one!
From here it’s on to my favorite place in the world, the Serengeti. Stay tuned.
[Apologies from the bush. My laptop is having serious problems, and I’m going to great lengths to post blogs. Will do my best!]
The night was as still as a ghost but inside the mess tent there was almost riotous laughter as the millenials recounted a recent wedding gone awry, the old folks proudly compared whose child was eating the most barbecue and poor Charles, our waiter, searched the back pantries for still another bottle of Spier shiraz.
I stepped briefly outside the warm solar lit canvas box into a crisp Tarangire night. It was a half moon. The thick overcast which begrudgingly was giving way to a long dry season momentarily cleared. Every star in the firmament twinkled. It was so still that the terrifying screeching of an elephant fight made its way all the up from the distant river almost like a far away old-time radio trying to catch its signal.
I’d hardly walked to the camp fire, maybe 15 meters from the dinner party, when the rhythmic groans of a couple lionesses triumphantly walking the main park road back to their cubs announced to any who cared that their kill was over: At least for this night there was no further need to hide.
Tarangire in this cold end of the rainy season is like an old man at the bar. The struggles under massive thunderstorms whose rain nary touches the ground because it’s so hot, the new acacias swept away by flash floods, the endless fighting of the elephant in muskh and the thousands and thousands of open-bill, white and other migratory storks all vying for a piece of the great Silale swamp was over, now. It was time to sit on a quiet stool in the corner and look fondly at your beer as the foamed slowly dies away.
Africa is a cycle of death and rebirth like no other place. It bans our anxieties over the next election, the dumphesses who think they can control the planet and the ticket clerks who can’t find our luggage into some uncertain but undeniable future.
They’ll be another day. The droll almost-hoot of the Verreaux’s Eagle Owl insists (blink). Just rock a little in your chair and let the morning wind warm you up.
There are few places in the world as diverse as the Addis Ababa airport. Ethiopian Airlines is Africa’s most connected carrier. It’s a hub for the entire continent and the panoply of nationalities crowding its terminal is mind-boggling.
It’s been the same for my nearly half century traveling through Africa, with the important difference it’s now so much bigger and there’s so many more people from virtually every part of the world. There is one additional noticeable difference, though:
I’m in Ireland on a slow route to Africa. But unlike Donald Trump who arrives the day we leave, we did not refuse the allure of Dublin for the “greatness” of Trump’s Doonberg Golf Club.
Never have I felt so ashamed despite a life filled with dangers unchallenged and compromises poorly made. Right now I’m sitting in the van Galder bus to Rockford having just returned from several months on safari, writing my mea culpa at O’Hare’s Terminal 5 before it, too, seems too ordinary.
It was incredibly crowded. According to my automated entry receipt the time was 12:57p, Saturday, April 6. I normally cruise through immigration and customs, boasting that I know the best lines and routes, but today I lamented not having Global Entry.
I’m on my way home after a series of great safaris in Kenya and Tanzania, and one of the unexpected bonuses was how few other tourists were on the circuit.
It might be Brexit, it might be the onset of a recession, but the vacancy rates at popular venues like Crater and Ndutu Lodge was striking. Often my group were the only clients there!
The rains had finally restarted. For at least a month before they finally returned the buffalo in the crater wandered back and forth searching for every blade of grass that still grew. Cyclone Ida had stolen every drop of water from East Africa for her tempest against southern Africa.
The ton-heavy buff could withstand a month or so with little to eat. They’d spent their lives chomping down 20 kilos of fodder daily, building the most formidable muscles on the veld, and the crater still had good sources of water and salt.
Seventeen very intrepid and persistent safari travelers found the migration with me, today, big time. We figured out how the unusual weather has impacted the herds, and we spent several awesome hours just driving slowly through them, observing thousands and thousands of wildebeest.
The Old Man Giraffe was all alone. Easily stripping the delectable little acacia leaves from the healthy branches, his old tongue only occasionally got stuck on one of the thick thorns the tree used to try to deter him. In fact he had his choice of dozens of blossoming trees! He was the only giraffe we saw all morning long in Lake Manyara National Park. We usually see 20-30.