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Published: October 17th 2008
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Hi everyone from Zanzibar, Tanzania.
As expected, internet connections are few and far between in East Africa, and when you get your hands on one, it is usually rather slow :-(
We have been going at a real breakneck speed for the last two weeks since our tour with Absolute Africa started. This is the only leg of our world tour that we are doing via package and we are still getting to grips with group travel, and the speed at which the tour is running.
We were really surprised on day 1 to find our truck roll up completely empty, and just us two waiting at the hotel for collection! We had the whole 28 seater truck to ourselves for the first 3 days, until we picked up one more person. It was not until a week into our tour that things finally started getting a bit more realistic with the truck filling up to its current level of 16 people. This was a really good way to start things as we got personalised briefings on how things work and were lucky enough to have a cook on staff for the first 10 days of our travels
:-)
We started out in Nairobi, Kenya and on our first day we packed in visits to both a giraffe sanctuary and an elephant orphanage. The giraffes were really cool, and had been taught to eat food pellets out of your hands, and even when held gingerly between your lips - resulting in a rather wet and slimy kiss with lots of sticky giraffe saliva. The elephant sanctuary was just for orphaned juveniles collected usually after falling down disused well shafts. These baby elephants were all very cute and were paraded in front of us for an hour as we watched they were being fed bottles of milk and playing in a water hole.
Whilst in Kenya, we spent the rest of our time visiting game parks in a variety of transport from minivans with pop top roofs, our Absolute Africa truck (photo of the big yellow truck attached) to what we actually expected in the form of small jeeps. The first park we visited was Lake Nakuru, which was centred around a alkaline lake populated by large flocks of pink flamingos. This was a relatively small park which didn't have any elephants but which hosted pretty much
everything else. We had an early start that morning and were primed and ready to get started spotting the 'big five' of old school game hunting, being the lion, leopard, buffalo, rhino and elephant. We were really lucky in Lake Nakuru to see a leopard trapped in a tree with its kill by two lionesses below waiting for the leopard to drop its lunch (leopards are rather secretive usually and hard to spot). We also spotted a number of white rhino, buffalo, numerous hyenas on the lake shore along with many giraffe, zebra and antelope.
Our next wildlife experience was at Lake Naivasha, which had a massive population of hippos as well as numerous fishing eagles. We had a short stop here and went out on some local boats, getting a demonstration of the fish eagle at work being thrown fish from the boat, as well as heaps of hippos, including an eye full of two hippos mating (sexy photo attached).
The last park we visited in Kenya was the Masai Mara, the site of the massive migration of wilder beast, zebra and an assortment of antelope (from the Serengeti each year). When we arrived none of the
animals were crossing the Masai river back into the Serengeti, although we did see hillside after hillside spotted with hundreds of wilder beast enjoying the green grass of the Mara while it lasted. There were also a few lion about, and we were surprised to spot a lioness in the bushes eating a lion cub. This is pretty much unheard of but our guide believed she had caught another lionesses cubs undefended. While in the area we also had a visit to a traditional Masai village, which was an actual working village, not something put on just for the tourists. The Masai are pretty much everywhere in Kenya and Tanzania, readily visible in their bright clothing and all decked out in bead jewellery. We were welcomed with a number of dances which usually consisted of the men jumping around and the women singing in lines, then we were invited into the village stockade to check out the interior of one of the mud/dung huts they live in. Not surprisingly the visit ended with the opportunity to do some shopping for some handicrafts made in the village.....
Next we crossed into Tanzania, and again continued with more park visits, this
time into the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater. The Serengeti was really well populated with a number of wilder beast and zebra which had already crossed back over from the Mara, and these animals attracted a good number of the large predatory cats. Here we sighted our first cheetah as well as a whole bunch of lions, usually sleeping under trees. The crater is an interesting geological feature, being a 600 foot deep crater with a circumference of approximately 60 km. It houses its very own ecosystem, including a small lake which was partially dried up to expose a salt flat for the flamingos to pick over. We spotted more lions down here, as well as quite a few hippo hanging out in one of the few remaining water holes within the crater. Cheetah started turning up more frequently in the crater as well, as the usual sightings of lions on the prowl for wilder beast.
We are now taking some well deserved days out at the beach on Zanzibar Island in Tanzania before getting stuck back into things when we head towards Malawi in a couple of days. Zanzibar is bloody hot, but is one of the best beach
stops that we have come across so far. It has silvery white sands and warm waters which are just the ticket after having spent the last couple of weeks covered in dust.
S&S
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