Today was a full day of going to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. This area, named after the Ngorongoro Crater, which is the world’s largest inactive, intact and unfilled volcanic caldera. At roughly 3,202 square miles in area, this UNESCO World Heritage Site has a wide variety of wildlife, including the big 5. Today’s game drive was mainly within the crater itself. The big opportunity today was getting to see Black Rhinos. We were not disappointed as we were able to…
Where the previous night we had dinner with the elephants, this morning we awoke to have breakfast with zebra. I wondered if we had stayed there the entire day what other animals would have come to visit us. What a great way to begin the morning. But our day was not to be spent with the wildlife, but with a chance to visit the local community of Mto wa Umbu, which translates to “Mosquito River”, and have lunch with a…
Nothing but breathing the air of Africa, and actually walking through it, can communicate the indescribable sensations. – William Burchell (English explorer) Today was a full day of game viewing in Tarangire National Park, with a picnic lunch furnished by the camp for us mid-day. As I said yesterday, this park is full of birds. Everywhere you turned, there was another unusual looking bird flying in the sky, perched on a branch, or scurrying on the ground. With over 500…
Today was a travel day. Up early and on the road from Amboseli National Park to Tarangire National Park. This 1,100 square mile park is best known for it’s Baobab trees and the high density of elephants. With over 500 species of birds, it is also a bird enthusiasts wonderland. Overall, it was a very long day of traveling by Land Cruiser with no A/C, seemingly hitting every bump in the dirt roads we were traveling. By the time…
We arrived late Saturday afternoon in Amboseli National Park, worn out from our long drive from Nairobi. Amboseli sits in the southeast corner of Kenya and is around 3,100 square miles in area. But one of its most spectacular features is Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest single free-standing mountain in Africa at over 19,340 feet. It dominates the scenery from almost everywhere in the park. Someday, I hope to return to this place and attempt to climb it. Today, instead of…
Today was our final morning in The Mara. We flew back to Nairobi and then a four hour drive to Amboseli National Park, our camp for the next two nights. However, we were able to squeeze one more game drive in as we left the park. We had been so lucky so far in seeing such a wide variety of animals these past few days, including getting to see all of the Big Five. But The Mara was saving its…
Another early morning, but I think my internal clock is finally getting acclimated. Since arriving in Kenya, I have not fully recovered from the jet lag and have yet to get a full night’s sleep, often waking up an hour or two before I needed to. The nine hours difference takes a while to get used to. Today’s game drive started off very slow, only seeing a few animals here and there. As always, there were plenty of zebras,…
There is something about safari life that makes you forget all your sorrows and feel as if you had drunk half a bottle of champagne – bubbling over with heartfelt gratitude for being alive – Karen Blixen, author of Out of Africa. Little did we know that the first day on The Mara only gave us a taste of what was to come. Day two, we were off and going at 7:00 am on our game drive. Where the day…
This morning was an early one as we are headed off to Maasai Mara National Reserve via chartered plane. The Mara, as it is locally known, is a 580 square mile reserve located in the southwest corner of Kenya and boarders the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. We landed mid-morning at Keekorok Airport in the middle of The Mara. It is called an airport only because you can land a small plane on a dirt landing strip. The only facilities…
On our last day in Nairobi, the morning and the afternoon were quite a contrast of experiences. As part of Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT), one of their goals is to expose travelers to not only the beautiful parts of traveling, but also the sometimes unpleasant parts of the areas you are visiting. For example, this morning we went to the Kibera Slums, within Nairobi, to talk with some of the residents and activists that live in these slums. The Kibera…