Murphy's Law of Leopards

Hello from Nairobi, the busiest and probably biggest city in East Africa. We're taking a couple of days here to get our bearings and decide where to go next. But for now, I'd like to write about our time spent in the Ngorogoro Crater and Serengeti National Park.

This experience is probably what most people picture when they think of Africa. Five days and four nights of watching Africa's finest wildlife in its most famous parks. If you've ever watched any shows about African wildlife on The Discovery Channel or Animal Planet, they were probably filmed here. Ngorogoro Crater is the remnants of an ancient volcano that collapsed and left a caldera (about the bottom 1/8 of the volcano) intact. It's the only unbroken and unflooded caldera in the world, and the concentration of wildlife in it's 300 square kilometers is unmatched. The plains of the Serengeti are world famous and are the home of postcard sunsets and dramatic wildlife experiences.

Kim and I booked a budget camping safari. It was hardly "budget" and barely camping. The company provided us with a Toyota Landcruiser with a pop-up roof for wildlife viewing and a driver and cook. Each day our staff would set up/take down our tent, prepare our meals, serve them at a table, and drive us around. We really had it rough! The first day in Ngorogoro we were totally awestruck by the animals there. Our excitement built as we descended the 615 meters into the crater, and when our 4 hours were finished we were left completely satisfied with the experience. We saw our first cheetahs, as well as many lions, flamingos, hippos, and more.

We left early the next morning for Serengeti National Park with a short stop at Olduvai Gorge. There is a small museum there dedicated to one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world. It is where Louis and Mary Leakey discovered bones, tools, and other fossil evidence that opened science to hundreds of thousands of years of early human history. We were able to see many stone age tools and some fossils of animals that have long been extinct.

As we drove on to Serengeti Kim and I discussed our hopes to complete "The Big Five." Most people, and all safari companies, recognize five animals as rounding out the complete wildlife experience--Lion, Leopard, Rhino, Cape Buffalo, and Elephant. They are named "The Big Five" because they were considered the most difficult animals to hunt on foot (when hunting these animals was popular), and now the name remains primarily as a marketing tool. We had spent plenty of time in parks so far, but had still not seen a leopard. We decided that we would not leave Africa until we had!

Our first night in Serengeti we camped at Lobo Camp in the northern part of the park . We had a wonderful day, saw many lions and others, but no leopards. The next day we relocated to Seronera Camp in Central Serengeti. We had another excellent morning, but no leopards. As we were preparing to embark on our afternoon game drive, I noticed that the battery on our video camera was getting low. Since we were planning to take our hot-air balloon ride the next morning, we wanted to make sure there would be plenty of juice. Our campsite had no electricity, so we brought the camera to a lodge to charge the battery. At this point, Kim made the outstanding observation that now without our video camera for the first time, we would probably see a leopard, and worse (or better) we'd probably see it make a kill. We had started to think that leopards were mythical creatures and people who claimed to see them were part of a secret society dedicated to perpetuating the myth!

As you may have imagined, about 30 minutes after we dropped off the battery, we saw a leopard. But of course it gets better. She came down out of a rock outcropping, followed soon after by two adorable leopard cubs. We watched them for about 30 minutes as the cubs nursed, were groomed, and practiced climbing small trees. They were just like kittens as they stalked each other (and mom) and practiced their pouncing! But soon after the mother's demeanor changed. She seemed to be looking off in the distance with a new intent. Then we spotted it, a lone Thompson's Gazelle browsing under a leafy Acacia about 600 meters away, blissfully unaware of its impending doom! We watched her stealthily approach, keeping very low to the ground, moving silently. The hunt was not without its challenges however. There was a dirt road, and several patches of bare ground between her and her prey, but she was an expert stalker. She moved quickly through the places with no cover, and slowly through the taller grass, until she was less than 15 feet from the gazelle. Then it was over. One sudden pounce and the life of the gazelle had ended. About 2 minutes later we watched as she dragged her kill into the safety of tree's highest branches. We were completely exhilarated!

We had another day in the park, and early in the morning we left for our balloon safari. The flight was only an hour long, but we had champagne at our landing site, and a full English breakfast in the bush. I would absolutely recommend a balloon ride to anyone! It was a fantastic experience. We didn't see many animals from the balloon, but we still had a wonderful time.

I think that's about all for now. If you ever make a trip to Africa for the purpose of wildlife viewing, do not miss out on these two parks!

Asante sana squashed banana

We've said goodbye to Zanzibar, but I hope it's not goodbye forever. Before leaving we went SCUBA diving off of the coast of Stone Town. There was a lot of colorful coral that was in great condition. We saw shrimp for the first time--boy do they look like bugs! We also saw a blue spotted ray, sea cucumbers, and lots of starfish. After the first dive we ate lunch on the boat. They cut up fresh pineapple, mango, and papaya, and we also had samosas, spring rolls, and chapati. Mmmm! We've been eating well! Then we did dive number two (no hour wait before swimming). The next day we left Zanzibar on the ferry while the water was awfully rough. It's a good thing they were prepared with a lot of seasickness bags. I was feeling pretty relieved that we wouldn't be taking any more ferries for a while.
So we took a bus to Lushoto in the Usambara Mountains to do a little hiking, and what do we get? Motion sickness bags for the winding bus ride! Luckily my stomach is much tougher in the car. The mountains are beautiful. For a good portion of the six hour bus ride there were flat plains to the right of the highway, and the mountain range a few hundred meters to the left. The change is very dramatic--no foothills at all. The mountains here have a lot of vegetation which include banana trees and coconut palms. We hiked for about seven hours on our second day in town. The views were fantastic. We hiked down dirt roads, through backyards, farms, hotels, and a national park rainforest. We hired a guide named Simon at the tourism office, and he answered about a million questions for us throughout the day about his family, local farming practices, religion, Tanzania's education system, and a lot more. He said he didn't mind! For dinner we went to the local market and bought fresh veggies. An avocado goes for about 9 cents here. We make delicious guacamole!

Now we're in Arusha and trying to book a safari, but it's Sunday, so we're not having much luck. I'm missing Lushoto. We can't leave our hotel without men hounding us to go to one safari company or another. Back in Zanzibar all you have to do is say, "Hakuna matata," and they'll move on to the next person. Here it doesn't work so well. We figured out their system this morning when agreed to go with one to a safari office that's in our guidebook. The guy told us he is a porter for the company. When we got to the office it was closed, and he tried to take us to some other office. Why would he take us to another office when he works for the first one? Turns out that the different offices just pay whatever guy brings in the tourist, so they are usually trying to sell you a trip with whatever safari office you're closest to at the moment. The "porter" confirmed that's how the system works, and then said, "It's better than trying to rob you, right?" So it is! I think we might go watch some Olympics now. USA! USA!

I'm not gonna cook it, but I'll order it from Zanzibar!

It's 80 degrees, the sun is shining, the Twins are in a pennant race, and we're in Zanzibar! Life is good. We have spent a little over week here in Zanzibar, and we've enjoyed it throughly. We started in Zanzibar Town, better known as Stone Town. Totally fascinating. This little town is an absolute maze in every sense of the word. The streets are very narrow, go in every direction except straight, and most of them have a concrete pillar that prevents car traffic. They do not, however, prevent the scooters, motorbikes, and bicycles which abound here. Whether we're walking down a one-way street (wait, there are cars going in both directions, they just have to stop and back up to where it's a little wider) or an alley that I can touch the buildings on both sides, we have to keep our heads on a swivel!



It is also next to impossible to find the same place twice using the same route. We changed hotels after the first two nights to a place we found the previous day, but we couldn't find it the next day! But the atmosphere here is infectious, and it has extended our stay. The "streets" are lined with shops and restaurants and cafes. Some of the people are a little overly aggressive with the tourists, but in all it's a very laid back place. We've eaten Indian and Swahili food while listening to live Taraab music, and we even had some fresh crab claws grilled on the street. But a trip to Zanzibar wouldn't be complete without a trip to a spice farm and the beach.


We took a "spice tour" one afternoon. We had a van ride about 30 km to what I expected to be like the plantations of the American south. I was way off. It's more like a forest with a few trails in it that happens to have spices growing around each corner. It's obviously organized and the spices grow only where they are planted, but to my untrained eye it just looked like any other stretch of woodlands. It was really fun to get a chance to see the spices, and of course taste them fresh from the ground/vine/tree. I thought of all of the women of my family who love cooking and wondered if they knew where all those bottles of powdered spices come from (now they probably come from Asia, but in the 1200-1700 era they would have at least passed through Zanzibar). Kim also got a tremendous laugh at me in my attire fashioned by the boys at the spice farm!

Kim told me that she was going through beach withdrawls since we hadn't seen the ocean in four weeks, so we headed to the beach village of Bwejuu on Zanzibar's eastern coast. I can not justly describe exactly how beautiful the beach was. The sand was bright white and soft as powder, literally powder. It reminded me of unmixed drywall putty when it was dry, and mixed putty after the tide went out. The beach extended for miles in both directions and was lined with palm trees--not towering resorts. The weather was perfect for all four days, sunny and warm with a gentle breeze. That said, there was very little to do there beyond relaxing and reading and getting a sunburn. We learned a couple new card games and ate dinner (mostly a mixed vegetable salad and french fries) at the same place each night. The place we stayed didn't really have much in the way of lighting, so we walked back, about 1 km or so, along the beach after dark each night. There were SO MANY ghost crabs on the beach during those walks! I would hold the flashlight and we would stop, jump, studder step, screech, and run as the crabs tried to do the same. There were some big ones! Looking back I think we would have been better served to leave the light off and just pretend the crabs weren't there.

We also spent one afternoon at Jozani forest with the red colobus monkeys. It was mostly just a nice relaxing walk in the woods, but the monkeys are so calm in the presence of people and photogenic it was worth the quick mention.

We're back in Stone Town for a couple nights to do some SCUBA diving and to try to arrange our trip to Serengeti National Park and Ngorogoro Crater. Just enough time to eat a little more Swahili food and remember the cool vibes of Stone Town.

ps. Did anyone get the Tenacious D reference?