The past few days had been really quite warm, on Sunday I almost worked up a sweat when I walked into town and at one stage even took my jacket off. This ended today and there was a freezing wind blowing down from the Siberian steppes to remind me that February is still winter in England. It was back to thick jackets, gloves and a scarf when I finally ventured out of the house late in the afternoon.
I had arranged to meet a friend for a curry in Shoreditch; which was extremely convenient as one of my favourite street artists, Stik, was painting a wall very close by…
I decided to walk to Shoreditch as it is only a few kilometres from home and meant I could walk through the old business heart of London around Fenchurch St and Aldgate, an area I had to walk through, unexciting as it was !
But it did allow me to walk through Brick Lane an area I had yet to fully explore for street art. There was plenty to see and a few other people photographing it as well.
I really like this Jana and JS piece, I am going to have to try and find some more of their work. I have seen two and both are fabulous.
I love these huge arrows sticking out of the side f the building.
The walls of the Village Underground are the site of regular organised art works and yesterday and today there was a joint painting project organised by Street Art London. Thierry Noir is a French artist who has been part of the street art scene for decades. He was made famous in the 1980s when he painted large sections of the Western side of the Berlin Wall – at the time a risky business as the East German government were very unhappy with people approaching the wall, from either side. Thierry was joined on this project by one of my favourite English Street artists – Stik. I really like his figures and this one from Brick Lane today is definitely my favourite.
I stood and watched them paint for a while, had a brief conversation with Stik before moving on to a nice warm curry house for dinner.
Today was really the first day in ages when I had absolutely nothing planned at all. The forecast was average at best and I really didn’t fancy getting soaked. However I was itching to do something so I made a quick plan with the help of Google maps, packed my camera, got dressed and walked out the door.
My first stop was to hunt down this piece of street art from Space Invader and I was surprised it was still there as it has been here a couple of years apparently. This is on a wall just off Holborn in the central city and there is almost no art or graffiti in the middle of downtown, so a rarity. Apparently there used to be a Banksy around here as well, but that is long gone.
I walked down Drury Lane (muttering Monty Python sketches as I went) down to The Strand. There is an incredible amount of churches in London city.
I was visiting Sommerset House and the Courtauld Gallery inside. In a stroke of good luck the gallery is free on Mondays. To balance my good fortune there was an exhibition by Cartier-Bresson that finished yesterday and I had no idea it was on ! I have yet to find a really good single spot to find good exhibitions in London and only stumbled upon the Courtauld by accident.
The Courtauld is an amazing gallery, quite small but it has an incredible collection of art works, including a really good collection of early 20th century pieces from the likes of Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Degas, Renoir, Seurat etc. Basically the period I like the best, they had some lovely Seurats.
They also had a good collection of very old religious work and I really liked the altar pieces, especially this one from 1345.
The gallery is great and I highly recommend it to anyone who has not been, unlike the bigger galleries it was also quite empty!
To counter-balance the work of some of the old masters I crossed the Thames and looked around for some work from more modern, and less appreciated artists! It was cold and starting rain as I crossed Waterloo Bridge and it was looking like my plan would be thwarted before I was halfway.
Like the centre of London the South Bank has few designated areas for graffiti, and someone had obviously broken a rule here as this has mostly been scrubbed off the wall.
Though these were obviously in the right place.
I walked past the South Bank skate park and took a couple of pictures, the skaters were a bit off-putting, a bit of macho posturing so I didn’t go far into their lair and take pictures, though what was there was mainly graffiti which is not so much my style. I had lunch after and waited until the rain stopped.
I love the South Bank in the rain – very few tourists. On a sunny day this area is heaving.
My last planned visit was the Graffiti Tunnel near Waterloo station, I walked through and took a few pictures, but again, mainly graffiti and not what I call art. At the far end there was a group of the Met’s finest standing around talking to someone so I decided to not take pictures there just in case, you never know what the police think when it comes to cameras!
I then passed the interestingly shaped Plaza Hotel.
Before crossing Westminster Bridge
Past the Houses of Parliament and back to Tottenham Court Rd tube station for the journey home. It was a good few hours out, if a touch damp on occasion.
My camera had a few hissy fits today, and had to be shutdown a couple of times. Fingers crossed it is not the start of a complete failure – though I guess I could upgrade then 🙂
After a fairly busy past week I had fully intended to spend today doing not much at all. I am well into a Rebus novel on my e-reader and have one chapter left in the real book that I bought myself for Christmas. It just seemed like a good day to do nothing more than read and listen to music. However, the weather forecast for the week has taken a turn for the worst – or better, depending on your point of view of course, and the snow that was due tomorrow is no longer arriving – at all. Bugger !
Today was obviously going to be the day I went to Kensington Gardens to see the snow in more park like surroundings. I was hoping to be there as it was falling so I could capture some images of fresh snow. unsullied by humans and their pets, but as that was not to be I wanted to at experience as much of a white world in London as I could.
Even with a planned activity for the day I still managed to laze in bed for a while before dragging myself out into what was actually quite a nice day. Sadly for the snow it was relatively warm and once I had reached the park gloves and woolly hat were no longer necessary. I walked around for a couple of hours, taken pictures here and there, but mainly just enjoying the relative lack of people in such beautiful surroundings.
As the scenes were quite monochrome, I have just nudged them all a bit further in that direction.
On the way home from the park I stopped by what seems to be my new favourite organic cafe for a coffee and a wee slice of chocolate chip flapjack. Heavenly.
Posting will be really sporadic for a while, I will only post when I have taken some photos or done anything that is even remotely interesting.
I guess the rolling over of another year, especially the successful rolling over of another year when the world was supposed to end, is worth recording.
New years eve was not exactly riveting, not that the last few have been either! I had been pondering walking down to one of the bridges over the Thames to watch the fireworks, but lost interest as it got closer to midnight and the thought of a forty five minute walk there and back in the cold just was not tempting enough. So I spent the night in as usual, though I did make it to midnight and watched the spectacular ten minute fireworks display on TV.
So, it is another new year, what does it hold for me ? at this stage who knows !
The first day of 2013 was by English winter standards, lovely, clear skies and not too cold – to start with anyway. I decided I had to go out and do something so caught the tube up to central London to watch the London New Year parade. I managed to get an OK spot, though the guy next to me kept up a non-stop inane monologue to his family that finally drove me to leave – and I had headphones on, he was loud too ! As it turned out virtually all my photos were crap, I was shooting at far too low a speed to get anything good and I deleted most of them as soon as I got home. A beginners mistake and I should have known better.
I loved this wee steam truck.
On my way out of the parades route and away from the supposed 500,000 people who came to see it, I came across this marching band getting ready to merge in, they played a more funky style of music to the traditional English style and were quite good.
I had decided to walk home via Portobello Rd.
I had visited there on a rainy Boxing Day to try and find the Rough Trade record store that is a feature in a book I bought myself with some money from my mum (thanks mum 🙂 ), however it had moved. So I did the smart thing and looked up the address this time and found it easily. Unfortunately it was closed !
The second reason I visited the area was to try and find some street art, as the west of London is slowly being gentrified the street art is slowly disappearing and is quite rare. I knew there were a couple of pieces around so was keen to find them, and I found more than I expected, including this lovely wall at Notting Hill, I do not know who the artist is but I loved it.
Up Portobello Rd I found
A Banksy, yay 🙂
A CODE FC
An Alec Monopoly
A couple of Paul Don Smiths
This one commemorating the slaying of two police women last year.
And some others.
I enjoyed the hunt, and seeing some of these pieces as I am sure they will not be there for long !
Day 330 – Gorilla Day, Volcanoes National Park, Ruhengeri, Rwanda
Once the singing and dancing group had finished the nine of us from the truck were split into two groups. Only five groups are allowed in to the forest each day and each group has a maximum allowable size of eight people plus guides. The five of us in our group were joined by an American couple, who were doing three trips into the forest, lucky buggers!
Each group goes to visit a different gorilla family and are only allowed one hour with the family. There is only one trip per day to the gorillas so their exposure to humans is minimised. At $750 USD per visit it is a very expensive hour !!! Fortunately the hour only starts when the gorilla group is found, some of the groups can be a three or four hour walk away from where the vehicles can access.
We were joined by two guides who introduced us to the forest and the family group we were going to visit.
Our trip is in the Volcanoes National Park which is located in the Virunga mountains and part of a massive national park with areas in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. This is the only place on the planet where mountain gorillas live. The park has an altitude range of 2400 – 4500 metres, so all walking is tough going !
There are eighteen family groups commonly found in the Rwanda part of the park and eleven are visited on a regular basis, the others are just monitored by researchers. We were going to visit the Agashya (The news) group, which is twenty three strong and like all the groups, is named after the dominant silver back.
The gorillas in the park face numerous threats, however their numbers are growing steadily since Dian Fossey first took a stand on protecting them back in the late 1960’s. All the families are tracked 24/7 by armed guards. The gorillas have no natural predator and are rarely directly hunted, however they do get caught in traps and snares set by the local villagers who trap antelope and other mammals for food. Like their human cousins the gorillas are also susceptible to disease and colds. In fact if you are sick you are not allowed to go and see the gorillas.
Once we given the run down on the day we jumped back into our vehicle and drove for about twenty minutes to a small village near where our family was currently located. We were all given walking sticks to use as the way is slippery, steep and FULL of stinging nettles, and the nettles are head high in places. We were all told to wear long pants, long sleeved jackets and everyone except me were told to bring gloves ! oh well !
We met our armed guard here, there are still illegal poachers working in the forest who do not take kindly to meeting strangers and there is always the potential for danger from some of the other wildlife living in the forest,such as buffalo and elephant – however rare they are. We are also very close to the border with the Congo and much as no one likes to talk about it there is armed conflict between the Congo’n government and Rwandan backed insurgents.
The first fifteen minutes walking was through farm land. No longer a danger to the forest fortunately, the forest area is marked by a stone wall now, partly to clearly define the boundary but mainly to prevent grazing forest wildlife from raiding crops. The farms look to be very productive and the soil looks amazingly fertile.
We soon crossed the stone boundary wall and were immediately into thick forest.
As the gorillas roam around we were not entering via a defined path into the forest, so there was a bit of hacking of undergrowth for a while until we hit a buffalo path that we followed before heading up a hill through some heavy nettle infested foliage. Our guides were on the radio to the gorilla trackers and after about forty minutes of clambering around we caught up with them near the gorillas, I was soooooooooo excited !! We were told to drop our bags, water bottles, walking sticks, any food from pockets and just take cameras as we were going to move up towards the family.
I hummed and hahhed about camera lenses and decided I would take a punt and just take the 50mm lens for the Canon 5d Mk1 as well as my little Panasonic point and shoot as I wanted to do some video – though I had never done it before ! I didn’t want to have to change lenses in the forest and the wide angle zoom may have been too wide.
We were given clear guidelines by the guide.
– Not to go within seven metres of the gorillas, unless they come to you.
– If you are in the way, move slowly out of the way, they may want to eat the tree you are under.
– Keep low down so you appear subservient – especially to the dominant male !
– Don’t look them in the eye as it may be seen as a challenge.
-If they are walking down a path, get off it
And then we were off up the hill for our first glimpse of the real thing in the real wild… and this was the first photo, crap I know but it was the first one, and with a 50mm lens – we were close…
We seemed to have arrived in the middle of a family walk as we only found three smaller gorillas. We watched them for a couple of minutes while they munched on things before they headed off to join the rest of the group – in our direction ! We moved out of the way to make a gap and two of them passed through the gap , the last one however decided on a different route and went between the legs of the American woman, it was a massive wow moment for all… They really don’t pay us any mind at all, completely unconcerned by our presence, amazing.
Over the course of the hour we probably only saw ten or so of the group, we assumed the others were about but we didn’t see them. It was good and bad that the group moved around a lot, it was very hard to take photos as the jungle was dense in places and they and we were constantly on the move. It was also quite dim, so high ISO’s and wide open apertures were essential to get any chance of capturing a motionless face. However, I would rather this than watch them sitting in a sunny clearing doing very little like the group our American friends saw the previous day. Plus, those who know me, know there is nothing I like more than scrambling around in the mud in the bush. The thought of snakes and spiders and sharp thorns just never came into my head – for a change !
We followed this small group up through the nettles for a while until we came across a dense patch of bamboo near a path and low and behold there he was – Agashya himself. Wow, he is just so magnificent, you could feel his strength – not just the physical, you could feel his strength of character, that he was the dominant character in this group, incredibly powerful. Yet, watching him later interacting with the young members of the family, you can see how gentle he is as well.
I spent most of the hour observing rather than taking pictures, as I said it was tough photographic conditions so rather than take hundreds of rubbish pictures I elected to watch and wonder instead, I think that was the right option.
We followed the group down the trail for a bit and then ohhhhhh, the baby, Iwacu !! I really didn’t expect to see Iwacu, and though we saw it a few times, I only managed to get one shot worth keeping.
We then stopped to watch the next oldest male stop and eat for a bit.
The group spent a bit of time on the move after this, at times they crashed through the dense (for us humans) bamboo forest and other times they were on the more open buffalo trails. Our guide managed to short cut a section of forest and we were on a piece of path as they were coming down, we crouched down low to the side and for once, I decided to shoot some video.
[edit] Just learnt a lesson. I cannot upload video using the free version of WordPress 😦 I have just created my first YouTube video. lets see if it works 🙂 [/edit]
Wow, they came so close, one of the others said in the group said he saw the silver back brush me as he walked, so regally, past me. I did not notice a thing. It was very very cool and I was so glad I chose to video, not the best video ever, but they were so close I would not have got photos anyway. I love the two young ones at the back having a bit of a play, though I was bummed to have not quite got the baby on mothers back very clearly.
We followed them through a thick section of vegetation, where again they stopped for a feed.
And then they were off again, we managed to get ahead of the last couple.
We were following the guide down this section of path when he stopped dead in his tracks and started backing up. “Elephant” he whispered. I was third in line behind Martina and Chantil and just around a bend in the track. As they came slowly back I got a glimpse of an ear and what appeared to be a large tusk through the bush. Even though our guide was saying they are perfectly safe, we beat a rather rapid retreat straight up hill !
Once we were safely a few metres away, our guide said that though we had five more minutes of our hour left we would have to leave, the gorillas had taken off once they had gotten wind of the elephant and the elephant would be agitated after smelling the gorillas. We all concurred – it had been a magic fifty five minutes anyway.
We spent a further twenty or so minutes crashing around in the jungle, with the guide on the radio to the others and then we came across them by the wall, with all our belongings.
We bade farewell to the trackers and followed our guide back down over the farmland to the vehicles.
For a rough rock and roll ride down the worst road I have ever been on !!!
It was a magic morning, a wonderful experience and one I will never forget. The mountain gorillas are the most wonderful animals, lets make sure we protect them. There are only a few hundred left.
All the gorilla photos were shot on a 50mm lens and are, in the main, uncropped. that is how close they came to us.
Day 326, Sunday 25 November 2012 – Kampala, Uganda
Today was supposed to begin at 6:00 am, but thankfully last night this was delayed until 9:00, and thankfully again I was told before I had gone to sleep; I removed the alarm I had set on my phone. I was up before breakfast at 8:00 and managed to get a hot shower in before the power went off. I was feeling pretty good considering a lack of sleep – and the vodka tonics we were drinking were not exactly made with top class vodka.
I went for a quick walk out of the camp and got a photo of the guys making the rolleggs that some had for breakfast and I had for a late snack last night. They are pretty damn good.
I also loved this tree right outside the campground gate.
As we left the village we all spotted this sign on one of the buildings, I hadn’t seen it before. Apparently it is to remind people to get to work on time !
We were on the road on time and made good progress into Kampala – the capital city of Uganda. We were expecting congestion but had not counted on the Kampala Marathon being run that day and the main streets were clogged solid. It was a long wait in fairly humid conditions – luckily there was just enough breeze to make it not too uncomfortable.
We only just made it through the city to the shore of Lake Victoria at Entebbe. The last boat to Ngamba Chimpanzee Sanctuary, an island in the lake, left at 1:30 and we arrived at 1:25. It was a fairly rough ride on the way out, there was a bit of a swell and we were heading into it and the wind. Everyone got pretty soaked. Luckily this is Africa and not England so we were all fairly dry not long after we arrived.
The sanctuary has been set up to look after rescued chimpanzees, most of them are young when they arrive and they do not get released back into the wild as they would not survive. They live in a fairly large section of bush and are protected from the human predators that caused them to be there in the first. Though they are not aggressive, they are immensely strong so we were given a safety briefing on arrival and pointed to the emergency point near the lake, chimpanzees do not like water.
We were there to watch the afternoon feeding session, the chimp’s are all behind electric fences so photography was not simple. I wanted to get some ground level shots as I like them more than shooting from above, but we were not allowed down there.
This was my favourite.
The keepers throw fruit over the fence for the chimps to collect, there was a little squabbling but they all know they will get fed so it was pretty tame. I love how they put their hands up – so human.
And this one sits just like I do when I am sitting on the ground eating fruit!
Once the feeding was over some of the smarter chimps got sticks to get the food that was caught under the electric fence, amazing to watch !
It was one of those experiences that I really enjoyed but was a bit like a zoo. Unlike at the cheetah rehabilitation place in Namibia the people here talked about the chimpanzees, their plight in the wild and what the sanctuary was doing. I guess for these chimps the only other option was death.
We had an enjoyable, late, lunch on the island before heading back to the boat for a fast and smooth ride back to the mainland and on to the truck. There were quite a few water monitors here as well.
We stayed at the Backpackers Camp on the outskirts of Kampala. It is the guys least favourite campsite in all of Africa ! It was not the worst place in its self, but the music from nearby was seriously loud, it was like being at a gig and it went on to 2:30 am… I was not amused. It also had the most amazingly tight driveway, I was really surprised we got the truck through the gate and down the hill. Great driving!
It was another early start to the day, considering it was the first day off between trips – my gorilla tour does not start for a week, so there is plenty of time to kill. Breakfast in the hotel was pretty good, though I did not eat much. I am not entirely sure how long the day will be and what facilities will be available – my stomach is only feeling about fifty percent normal, so caution it is. Plus I can do without eating like a pig three times a day!
Leonie has been sponsoring Mutoni a twelve year old Kenyan girl for a number of years through World Vision. As the village is only a hundred or so kilometres from Nairobi – and in an area not subject to tribal violence or the kidnapping of westerners by Somali gangs we are going to pay a visit.
We were collected in a World Vision (WV) Toyota Landcruiser by our host for the day Solomon.
Solomon lives in the town of Yatta, where we are heading but had to come down and stay the night in Nairobi to be able to pick us up as the traffic here is notoriously bad. However, we were fairly lucky, the ride through down town to the “super highway” was slow but not too terrible. For safety, we were seat belted, bags on the floor with doors locked and windows up. It is not called “Nairobbery” for nothing and carjacking is not unheard of – though we did not see anything that raised any suspicion.
The super highway is a fifty kilometre section of new motorway from the centre of Nairobi and is a surprisingly good piece of road, they are still building pedestrian bridges across the highway so every few kilometres there is a section of speed bumps preceding a crossing. The only highway I have ever been on with speed bumps – amusing ! Nairobi is a big city, with the exception of Cape Town way back at the start of this journey it is the most western city I have experienced, there is a lot more apparent infrastructure here, a lot more permanent looking housing (well as permanent as Africa gets) and a lot more schools and universities surrounding the highway. Parts of it could easily be in New Zealand.
It is still Africa though and unlike New Zealand they just LOVE football – and by this I mean the game you play with your foot, not the one you play with your hands ! Manchester United is the most popular team in the world and it is easy to see why, there are posters, banners and stickers everywhere.
The highway ended at the town of Thika and we stopped at the local mall to do some shopping, part of the deal with WV is Leonie provides some supermarket basics for the family as a gift. I also needed to get some Kenyan cash and do some shopping for myself. The rain yesterday morning turned the Snake Park campsite into a bog and as we had heard that there had been heavy rain up in Uganda I wanted to get some cheap gumboots just in case, I had not replaced the jandals (flip flops) that disappeared in Malawi. I also wanted to get a Kenyan sim card for my phone, apparently the cell network in Kenya is very good. The sim card, 50 minutes of talking, 500 texts and 500mb of data cost me just over $9NZ, WOW – how can it be so expensive in New Zealand. They also had a very good range of Kiwi shoe products : )
From Thika we made our way to the town of Yatta where the WV office for the area is located. The road has a vast number of police checkpoints that we pass through without being stopped. They are mainly stopping the local buses coming from the opposite direction. According to Solomon they are looking for members of Al Shabaab a Somali terror group. I asked him how far away the border was and he said very close – about 800kms. I guess the perception of close in Africa is different to the one in NZ.
I think this mini-bus was a bit off course – Manurewa is an Auckland suburb!
At the WV office in Yatta we were introduced to all the staff and were given a morning tea. It is clear (and good) to see that the offices are not flash, there are no fancy trimmings or luxury here. The staff have different areas of expertise with the main being in food management and water and sanitation. WV provide some resource, such as wells, but focus on education and training, the old “teach a man to fish” scenario. I am not sure how hard they actually work though.
After morning tea we took a ride out to Nialani school to meet Mutoni. The school was about ten minutes from Yatta, and once off the main road we were on a rough dirt track, I now know why WV drive Toyota land cruisers!
The school had obviously been prepared for our arrival, and it was fairly obvious that WV have spent a lot of time working with the school. There were a few WV signs around the place. There was also a fair amount of Christian messages, though the state schools are agnostic.
When we got out of the vehicle the children in the nearby classrooms came charging to the windows, laughing and calling “muzungu, muzungu”. Muzungu is Swahili and basically means a white person who wanders around aimlessly – which pretty much sums me up ! In most cases, like here, it is meant in good spirits. They very rarely get muzungus in Nialani and we were the highlight of many children’s day. I just loved the look of joy on their faces and the huge huge smiles. I don’t think all the teachers were amused by the distraction as we walked past the open windows of the classrooms.
After visiting the deputy head teacher we were introduced to Mutoni and her class, she is twelve and was incredibly shy and embarrassed about the whole thing, I really felt for her ! We had to introduce ourselves to the class and the Mutoni had to introduce her best friend. I was kind of glad when we left and took the poor girl with us.
On the way out we walked past the new entrant class and they were very keen to see us and say hello, I am not sure if the youngsters in the last photo had seen a muzungu before, they look a bit wary.
We drove out through the village to where Mutoni lives with her mother and grandmother, there are no adult males alive. Mutoni’s mother showed us around their small holding, the two houses and the separate kitchen. There is no electricity here so everything is done on a wood fire. This is the kitchen.
We presented the family with the food that was purchased in the supermarket, it was all fully documented by the people from WV, not entirely sure why and I didn’t ask.
We then all piled into the car and drove back to the WV office for a very large lunch – that was paid for by Leonie. Mutoni and her mother and grandmother obviously do not eat like this very often – they had a lot. We all posed for photos afterwards, Mutoni and her family had obviously dressed up in their finest while embarrassingly we were in our normal scruffy travelling clothes.
It was mid-afternoon now and time to head back into Nairobi, the drive was not too bad, a lot of traffic once we hit the centre of town. There are a lot of half finished buildings on the way, a lot just have a single storey completed with room for a second to be added. In many cases families will start to build a house as soon as they have money, if they have enough for one wall, they will build one wall. If they don’t use it then there is a chance the money will just get wasted on booze by the men, saving for a future is not common here, for many there is not much of a future to save for.
Once back in the hotel we had a quick dinner and then I sat in my bed and blogged for a while.
It was an interesting day, it was good to travel into a part of Kenya where not many westerners go.
I am using a new version of Blogdesk to put together the posts before I upload them. They have changed the way adding photos works, the sizing is different to how it used to be, I liked the old version better – grrrr, sometimes change is not good!
I am about three weeks behind in photo editing, writing and posting again and aim to catch up completely over the next week. It is the last full day of my Africa tours today so I will have some time soon – before reality, and hopefully a job, finally catch up with me.
I couldn’t wait to look at my gorilla photos from the walk yesterday and after a quick scan here are the best of them. I will do a proper blog on the trip in a few days time. needless to say it was very very cool!
These were all shot using the Canon 5d mk1 with the 50mm lens. Only the second and last photos have been cropped, we were that close!
Day 309, Thursday 08 November 2012 – Kudu Camp,
As seems to the tradition on this leg of the trip I was up far too early again, but today was all worth it, a game drive in the Ngorongoro Crater, something I have been looking forward to for days. The crater is a long extinct volcano that did not explode, it collapsed, creating a large natural bowl that is full of wildlife. A lot of the animals can get in, but cannot get out again. it is also one of the few parks where there are no giraffe – they cannot make the steep climb.
We were warned to take warm clothes as the drive up can get quite cold and while it was hardly freezing it did get a wee bit chill as we made our way up the side of the crater. On the way into the park we saw the only elephants of the day, and I have no photos as I wasn’t ready. The road in the crater is pretty bad so we have hired four wheel drives and guides to take us through. Our guide was Dave.
We stopped at a view point above the crater for a look down inside. Gorgeous !
At the view point we met a large group of Maasai men herding cattle and goats into the park, as I said in yesterdays post the Maasai are allowed to feed their live stock where ever they like. Naturally we were not allowed to take photos – though there was a funny moment when a bunch of goats made a run for it and the Maasai and half our group were trying to herd them back – ever seen a New Yorker in his sixties herding goats – I have…
If you look carefully you can see a Maasai wandering under the trees.
Wilderbeast
Ostrich.
Not long into the game drive we found one of the things we were looking for – Cheetah ! and so did everyone else 🙂
This was shot at almost the full extent of 200mm lens plus the 2* extender, so it was a way off. The closer shots have been cropped – a lot, so not the sharpest.
Awesome, we watched her (we think) for a while, but she didn’t seem to be that interested in doing much at all so moved on further into the crater.
A zebra crossing!
A closer view of a hyena, though this one appeared injured as it was limping when it finally got up and moved.
We stopped for lunch by the hippo pool. We were all advised to eat in the vehicle as the kites will take food out of your hand. We followed the advice and then watched as a small group arrived and sat down by the pool side to eat. The kites were soon hovering over head – not that they noticed. We all got out to await some action, but sadly one of the other guides told them to get into the vehicle. We, and the kite, left disappointed.
We watched the hippos for a while – I have never seen hippos roll over before – something new. The pool was quite shallow and there was a lot in it, so I guess this is how they stay wet and cool.
We saw Buffalo – but not vast herds.
A kory busterd
Wart hogs (I still love them)
Wart hogs and jackals
And the real highlight of the day – a lion at a fresh kill.
We soon found a lion couple resting in the wind. They took the opportunity of us all watching to have a quick shag on the road side.
On the way out we spotted a white rhino – there are six in the park, it was a long way off and we waited for it to come closer but it refused, so this long distance shot is as good as it gets !
On the way out we passed the Maasai cattle herd, well more like we had to negotiate the cows on the way out, as they weren’t that interested in getting out of the way.
Once back at the campsite and getting chores out the way Will, Brett, Leonie, Nancy and I went into the village of Karatu and visited one of the local bars for a couple of beers in the sun. As dinner time approached we hired a motorcycle each to take us the kilometre back to camp, it was a load of fun, but the battery died in my phone before the bikes and it was the only camera.
(sorry, if you hate the photo, it is the only one of the five of us!)
I ate a huge meal, drank a couple of whiskies and went to bed. Another awesome day !
Day 308, Wednesday 07 November 2012 – Kudu Camp, Karatu, Tanzania
I slept well until a pre-dawn chorus from about 4:00. Starting with dogs, then roosters, bells and the morning call to prayer. Oh well, at least it was an early night. The good news was the sky was almost clear and we had some great views of Mt Kilimanjaro to enjoy over coffee.
There were also some fabulous viewing to be had from the roadside once we were through the town of Moshi.
Mt Meru was not so cloud free this morning.
The countryside around this part of northern Tanzania is the lushest I have seen in Africa. There are small patches of quite dense native forest scattered amongst the small crop farms – it is all quite green. As we approach the city of Arusha it is obvious that there is more money around here than in the south, more and larger houses and far more private vehicles.
Arusha seems pleasant enough. Everyone on the truck, bar me, is going to do an overnight Serengeti tour in a couple of days. I have elected not to do it as it is close to 600NZD and in my mind not worth it. While they were all off getting frustrated with organising their park entry and accommodation I went and had fish and chopati at a local cafe with Will and Ebron, nice.
We all went to the mall in Arusha for coffee, cake, internet and shopping – I bought a six pack of beer and a bottle of whisky. There is still a long way to go on this trip 🙂 Security is obviously an issue here!
We stopped at the cultural centre for those that were interested in buying Tanzanite (a precious stone). I went for a walk around and looked at some of the carvings.
Lunch was had at Snake Park camp just outside Arusha. We will stay here in a couple of nights time and were here to do a Maasai village tour. While the countryside entering Arusha was lush and green it was the complete opposite on the way out, dry and arid plain lands. The land where the nomadic Maasai people tend their herds.
The Maasai village tour started with a walk through a cultural museum (and associated retail opportunities) followed by the local clinic – which specialises in snake bites. Snake bite is very common within the Maasai community with admittances daily. The clinic is not funded by government and nor do they charge their patients. The village tours help to fund the anti-venom and other medications. There were two children in with burns as well as a woman bitten by a spitting cobra as we visited.
The village was a fifteen minute walk away, it was really the compound of one man, his ten wives and sixty five children and grand children. Each wife has her own house hence the large compound!
We were mobbed by the younger children when we arrived. I am not normally a small child magnet, it’s not that they run in fear, they just normally select someone else over me. Inexplicably today was totally different and I spent some time swinging the smaller children around – until I was too dizzy to do it anymore.
These photos courtesy of Leonie (though she doesn’t know it yet – thanks :))
The village visit was interesting, we learnt a bit about Maasai life, this holding was one of the permanent camps an had been in this location for thirty five years. They also build small temporary camps as they move their herds around the area. The Tanzanian government have allowed the Maasai to roam where they like so they can move into areas restricted to other people – where ever there is food for the cattle, goats and sheep. They still practise male circumcision, though female circumcision is illegal. It was unclear if that was in reality still done. Our Maasia guide Olly, and his recycled tyre shoes.
After the visit we were back in the track for the drive up to Karatu and Kudu Camp our home for two nights. The cloud formations as we were leaving Arusha were fantastic, I have been really enjoying the clouds here. I even stuck the Canon out the window, for the first time…
The road to Karatu is flat and new, even though there was no wildlife to see, Will said we could open the top hatches to give those on the second leg an opportunity to stand up while we were driving. I took a few photos from out the top and then the glare guard on my 70-200mm lens blew off the lens and was run over by the following truck – Shite!
The road soon starts to snake steeply up into the hills and we passed by Lake Manyara which looked very nice in the fading light. It surely is a beautiful piece of Africa here.
Malaika 🙂
We arrived in Kudu camp just on dark and popped tents up before settling in to dinner, and for me an early night. It was a great day, one of the best on the second leg, lots of different things to see and do, so much better than driving all day.
It seems that we are going to have another four years of President Obama, much to the relief of all on the truck !
Where is Phil now? 
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