Episode 5: Rwanda: gorillas in our midst July 22, 2014. Greetings everyone from the charming country of Rwanda in central Africa. We have been here in Rwanda for about five days now and have visited the Mountain gorillas in the Northwest of the small country. More about them in a moment. In contrast to the dirty chaos of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and Kampala (Uganda), the Rwandan capital, Kigali, was a pleasant surprise. It is mostly very clean and orderly, with little rubbish, and with shiny new cars and smartly dressed people. Many of the women wear brightly coloured dresses with matching head garments – very pretty. Rwanda has banned plastic bags, which goes some way to explaining the tidy nature of its capital (plus, on the last Saturday of the month, everyone must take time ... read more

Episode 3: The best time in Northern Tanzania (with a few photos added) Firstly, I apologise up-front for the length of this blog, but it has been several days since my last entry and there was a lot to document - and this ain’t the half of it. Anyway, we have been on safari in the middle of the Serengeti and elsewhere, where the internet is, well, superfluous. We have just spent eight days in the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater and the lesser known but equally spectacular Tarangire National Park. It has been utterly brilliant, with wonderful landscapes, superb wildlife, warm sunny weather, a great guide called Emmanuel, and wonderful lodges along the way. To get here, we flew from Zanzibar to Kilimanjaro Airport. Flying into Kilimanjaro airport, we spotted the eponymous mountain rising from the plains. ... read more

Episode 1: Hello Tanzania – Dar es Salaam. 23 June, 2014 Hello to all. Our trip up to Tanzania started off well when we learned that we had been up-graded to business class on the three hour South African Airways flight from Johannesburg to Dar es Salaam. Excellent food and service. Anyway, Dar es Salaam (Dar) is the capital of Tanzania in everything but name, a large, bustling and rather chaotic city of some 3 million souls (local Swahili folks, Muslims and descendents from the German and British colonial days). The airport in Tanzania was organized chaos, with officials simply mingling with the arriving passengers in one big mess and snapping up the $50 required for on-the-spot visas. While waiting in the crowded mess, we encountered a group of teenagers from – of all places – ... read more

September 22, 2013 Brazil Postscript: Photos Dear all, Below are pictures from our Brazil trip in August. It took great restraint on my part not to post heaps of animal photos (only a subset is shown here). Click on individual pictures to enlarge, then scroll thru. Best, Craig (and Ross)... read more

Episode 4: The Magnificent Pantanal 25.8.13 How can I describe what an excellent week we have just had in the Brazilian Pantanal? We have been spotting toucans, macaws, jaguars and other critters. It has been fantastic. We flew from the Amazon to Cuiaba, one of the entry points for the Pantanal. The Pantanal is the worlds largest inland wetland, choc full of animals. It is seasonally flooded, but now - the hot dry season - it is a mosaic of woodlands, grasslands , rivers and isolated ponds full of fishes. Plus, right now, there are these pink flowered trees in bloom. Imagine whole areas of jacarandas across the landscape, but pink instead of mauve. If you look at a map of South America and place a pin in the centre, this is roughly where the pantanal ... read more