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Posts Tagged ‘african safari’

A Colorful First Glimpse of Tanzania

Posted in African Safari, Travel, tagged , , , , , , on June 28, 2011| 1 Comment »

“At dawn in East Africa the sky bleeds raw swatches of color … the sun rises with passion, like a reckless dangerous lover. It ignites the world in reds and golds and vaporizes cool mists collected overnight. Within minutes the passion burns itself out.” –David Ewing Duncan

African Safari: The President Passes By

An African sunrise, enough in itself to warrant traveling to the Dark Continent. -- Photo by Pat Bean

As I look over the notes I took about the drive from the Kilimanjaro airport, through Arusha, to a coffee plantation where we were to spend the night, I find myself almost as overwhelmed again as I was observing it originally.

Color was everywhere. African men and women on bicycles wrapped in blue, red, orange and purple robes making their way over packed red earth. A pickup truck with a gigantic load of yellow oranges bouncing on the rutted road ahead of us. Grey burros plodding beside the road with green leaves of some sort loaded on their backs.

The banana truck -- Photo by Kim Perrin

There were small boys, whom I thought should have been in school, herding cattle and goats; and women in long dresses walking purposefully with huge bundles on their heads, sometimes with an empty-handed man walking ahead of them.

I watched, and smiled to myself, as a man pulled a load of squawking chickens down from the top of one of the smoke-belching over-packed buses we frequently passed.

And I was amazed at the way our Ranger Safaris driver weaved in and out among traffic and people. I was sure he was going to hit something or someone. But he didn’t. Even when a car decided to create a passing lane down the middle of our narrow two-lane highway and we passed him three abreast.

From my journal -- Photo by Pat Bean

But the strangest thing of all was when a bully of a policeman came along and made everyone pull off to the side of the road. Our driver, who was on the cell phone at the time, didn’t respond quick enough and so was singled out for a Swahili chastising.

Kim and I sat unusually quiet during the confrontation, wondering what was going on. .

A few minutes later, a pickup truck with armed guards standing in the back passed us, and soon traffic was back to its chaotic normalcy.

“That was the Tanzania president,” our unfazed native driver said.

Next Episode: African Tanzanite

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Flying Over Untamed Landscape to Adventure

Posted in African Safari, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »

 “Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Miriam Beard

African Safari: From Nairobi to Kilimanjaro

This is a view of Mount Kilimanjaro that Kim and I did not get to see. I post it so as not to disappoint readers, including one who was looking forward to seeing it,. The Wikipedia photo was taken by Muhammad Mahdi Karim.

Our plane to Tanzania from the small Wilson airport on the outskirts of Nairobi was a Twin Otter with single seats separated by a narrow aisle that held much of our luggage. It was a bottleneck one late-arriving passenger had to stumble through to sit down.

The aircraft’s non-uniformed, Anglo pilot, a grin on his weathered face, twisted around and gave us our flight briefing. He ignored the luggage. It was as different from our KLM attendant’s memorized agenda on our flight to Africa, as our scrumptious breakfast at the Norfolk was to the in-flight meal we were served in a paper sack on boarding.

The entire lunch consisted of a slice of zucchini, a slice of carrot and a leaf of lettuce on a miniature hamburger bun.

The meal reminded me of the sign noting that millions of Kenyans lived in poverty that I had seen on arrival in the city. Just how thankful some people would be for just such a meal was impressed even more on me as the plane flew over an area of Nairobi where salvaged crate box homes were crowded on top of one another.

I decided right there and then that there would be no complaints from me during my stay in Africa. Kim had the same reaction.

Meanwhile, my seat near the front of the plane gave me a pilot’s view of the 50-minute flight. I could easily tell I was not flying over the United States. The landscape below lacked the tidy borders of fences, parallel streets and plowed fields that consume Americans’ sense of tidiness.

But by my own personal criteria and desire for adventure, today’s flight was perfect – even though Mount Kilimanjaro was hidden by clouds, both from the air and when we landed at the tiny Kilimanjaro airport near its base.

“Perhaps it will be less cloudy tomorrow,” said our pilot as he bade us good-bye. I think he was more disappointed than his passengers. Kim and I were already thinking about our  next leg of the day’s journey, one in which all traffic rules, if there were any, were broken.

Next Episode: The Chaotic Drive to Arusha

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Norfolk Hotel: Hemingway Memories and Garden Birds

Posted in African Safari, Birds, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 26, 2011| 3 Comments »

The Norfolk Gardens

“Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.” Ernest Hemingway

African Safari: Rum and Chocolate at Midnight

A hadada ibis. -- Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

As late as it was, and as tired as we were, Kim and I weren’t ready for bed when we finally got checked into the Norfolk Hotel. We stood awhile on the balcony drinking in the night air and looking out over a lush garden beneath us.

Then we raided the room’s mini bar, making ourselves a couple of Captain Morgan Jamaican rum and cokes, and toasting ourselves on the adventure we were about to begin. There’s something to be said for not being rich enough to be well-traveled. The excitement of finally getting away to strange and exotic places that once existed only in your dreams is delicious – as was the small box of “Out of Africa” chocolates that we ate with our midnight drinks.

 

We were met in the evening and seen off the next morning by the Norfolks Green clad doorman.

It all felt a bit decadent. But I loved the feeling. .

The next morning I roamed through the hotel, where it seemed the décor and furnishings were of another era. The Norfolk Hotel opened on Christmas day 1904. It is said no other hotel in Kenya captures as much of Nairobi’s past. President Teddy Roosevelt, Lord Baden-Powell, the Earl of Warwick and the Baron and Baroness von Blixen are all part of the Hotel’s history.

And so is Ernest Hemingway. As a writer, I got a thrill peeking into the bar where he is said to have sat for hours at a time. I was only brought back to the present day when I observed a maid talking on a cell phone.

Out in the garden, I saw my first African bird. It was a hadada ibis, and a dozen or so of them were hanging out in the garden’s trees. I identified it using the East Africa bird guide Kim had given me for my birthday earlier in the year.

My second and third lifers (bird species seen for the very first time) were a baglaflect weaver and a pied crow.

I was as eager to see birds as I was to see Africa’s more famed four-legged wildlife. So much so that I occasionally annoying to my traveling companion, who likes watching birds but was more excited about Africa’s four-legged wildlife than its winged species on this trip.

A modernistic wildlife scupture on the University of Nairobi campus. -- Photo by Pat Bean

There’s the possibility I might also annoy my blog readers. It’s a risk I’ll take, however. I came to Africa to see birds every bit as much as to see lions and elephants.

Pied crow -- Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Meanwhile, Kim joined me in the garden, and we went into breakfast, which included some yummy African sausages that we would eat many times again during our African stay.

Afterward, we took a short walk on the grounds of the University of Nairobi across the street from the hotel. Our stroll was accompanied by a black kite flying overhead, whose sighting I added to my daily bird log.

And then it was off to the small Wilson Regional Airport for our flight to Tanzania to begin our safari for real.

Next episode: A view of Mount Kilimanjaro

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Cattle-Cozy Flight and Eye-Opening Sights

Posted in African Safari, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 24, 2011| 4 Comments »

 “When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” – William Least Heat Moon

African Safari:The Dark Continent Beneath Our Feet

Nairobi skyline at dust. It was all so different, and colorful, and chaotic. I loved it. -- Photo courtesy Wikipedia

A nine-hour, cattle-car flight – well that’s what it feels like if you fly economy – deposited us in Amsterdam, where we caught an eight-hour connecting flight to Nairobi, Kenya. We had left Houston at 3:30 p.m. on August 19, but with the 17 hours of flight time, a short layover and the eight-hour time zone difference, it was late evening on the 20th when our feet first touched Africa.

A Pollman’s Safaris’ driver met us at the airport for the ride to our hotel. He stuffed our luggage and six other passengers into a van that had seen better days. In fact, I don’t recall seeing a single vehicle in Nairobi that didn’t look like it had seen better days.

But the color and intensity of Nairobi at night stirred my blood, as did our driver who would have put a New York taxi driver to shame when it came to dodging oncoming traffic as he zoomed in and out among vehicles that seemed to follow no set rules.

The word Nairobi comes from the Maasai phrase “enkare nyorobi,” which means the place of cool waters. The city, founded in 1899, is better known however as the Green City in the Sun, or the Safari Capital of Africa. It has a population of about 3.5 million and is the fourth largest city in Africa.

The other three pairs of travelers, who had flown in on the same flight as we had, were each staying at different hotels, and they were dropped off first.

The Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya, where Robert Redford and Meryl Streep stayed while filming "Out of Africa."

At one of the hotel stops, guards looked under our van with mirrors. At the next stop, the Stanley Hotel, there was no such safety precautions and we could hear partying and music coming from inside. It sounded like a fun hotel.

As we drove through the city, I observed a sign that said 16.7 million Kenyans live in poverty. In contrast we passed huge well-lighted Toyota and Yamaha factories. More interesting, however, was one car driving on a flat as if nothing was wrong.

Like Dorothy, we weren’t in Kansas, or Texas, any more.

It was about 10 p.m. when our driver finally took us past a guarded barrier to let us off at the elegant Norfork Hotel. The precautions emphasized the travel warning to Kenya which Kim and I had chosen to ignore.

The armed guards made the warning seem more real, but any fleeting thoughts of danger quickly faded when we were graciously greeted to the quaint hotel by a doorman in a long green coat and a tall green top hat.

Next Episode: Hemingway Slept Here

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Yellow Fever Shots, Lost Passport and Sweet Anticipation

Posted in African Safari, tagged , , , , , , on June 22, 2011| 2 Comments »

 “Most travel is best of all in the anticipation or the remembering; the reality has more to do with losing your luggage.” Regina Nadelson

African Safari: The Intrepid Adventurers

Kim, the younger of the African travelers, on one of our yearly adventures to Zion National Park. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Kim and I booked our round-trip flight to Nairobi several months ahead of our August 19 departure date. The cheapest plane tickets we could find were about $1,850 each. By purchasing early we were gambling that the cost of the flight would go up in the coming months and not down.

I think we came out ahead, but I really didn’t bother to check. I was too busy at the last-minute replacing a lost passport (another $125 for expedited service). Of course I found my old passport shortly after I returned from Africa.

Then we followed the instructions the Africa Adventure Company sent to us along with our initial down payment for the trip, the remainder of which was to be paid before our journey began.

This included a yellow fever shot and malaria pills, which were to begin a week before the trip and continue daily through a week after the trip. The tour company took care of arranging for our visas on arrival in Africa.

Of course we had to purchase a few new items of clothing for our safari, and then we had to make sure everything we took for the 16 days weighed no more than 35 pounds. The weight limit was because we would be taking small in-country planes to and from some of our African destinations.

We bought small individual packets of Tide for our laundry and plenty of mosquito repellent. I bought a couple of pair of light-weight cargo pants, an extra battery for my digital camera, and a new pair of sunglasses, which I immediately lost in Nairobi. Kim bought a pair of binoculars for wildlife watching. As an avid birder I was already well equipped in this area.

Me, the old broad half of the Africa travel team, taking a breather on Walter's Wiggles during a hike to the top of Angel's Landing. -- Photo by Kim Perrin

Then, in the mail, came an official notice from our State Department alerting us to the fact that travel to Kenya, while not forbidden, was not considered a safe destination. Kim and I both had the same reaction – what a great adventure we had ahead of us.

Neither of us had even a fleeting thought about canceling. Tenaciousness, such as the time we continued to the top of Angel’s Landing in Zion even after it started to snow, is one of the few traits the two of us share.

During all these preparations, I was mostly gallivanting around in my RV with Maggie, and Kim, who is quite a few years younger than me, was working hard at her job in Utah.

But as the date for our flight approached, I headed to my middle son’s home in Lake Jackson, Texas, south of Houston, and Kim flew into Houston to meet me there. We had chosen to begin our trip here because I could leave my RV and Maggie at my son’s home, and he had volunteered to take us to and from the airport for our flight to Nairobi.

And the couple of days we had before departing for Africa was a chance for me to show Kim a tiny bit of my native Texas.

Next Episode: The Johnson Space Center

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Armed Guard Walk to Top of Ngorongoro Crater

Posted in Favorite Hikes, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , on March 20, 2011| 5 Comments »

 
 

Inside the Ngorongoro Crater -- Photo by William Warby

 “I dream of hiking into my old age.” — Marlyn Doan

Favorite Hikes:

The two weeks I spent in Tanzania and Kenya in 2007 were mostly spent in a Land Rover, bouncing across the landscape in search of exotic animals and birds, or at a guarded or fenced lodge where the wild animals were kept at bay.

Walking through the bush, at least on the tour my friend Kim and I took, was strictly forbidden. Since we spent a lot of time looking at lions, leopards, cheetahs, cape buffalo and elephants, we didn’t complain too much.

 One hike, however, was included in our itinerary. A hike to the top of a ridge in the Gnorongoro Crater. The 100-square-mile depression was formed a couple of million years ago when a giant volcano exploded and collapsed. It’s in this crater, in Oldupai Gorge, where the oldest human fossils have been found. The crater is also the location used for the first monolith in “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

This cape buffalo dude looks like he has the same "I'm-bad-tail-up-strut-attitude of my dog, Maggie, after she's growled at a dog six times her size. Photo by Pat Bean

Our native guide, Bilal, who drove us two single ladies through Tanzania for a week, tried to dissuade us from going on the hike. He said African buffalos, responsible for over 200 deaths annually, were in the area.

But at our insistence, he released us into the care of an armed guide for the trek up to the ridge top. Bilal was allowed nothing more than a large stick as protection from animals in the national parks we visited and also was required to stay with his vehicle.

The hike started out with us swishing through long grass that had me worrying more about snakes than wild buffalo. It soon gave, however, to a steep forested landscape. I remember some thick-trunk large trees as we neared the top of the ridge, where we had an aerial view of the Olmorti Crater below.

It felt really good to be hiking.  The trek, except for the dramatic African landscape we walked through, was quite uneventful. We didn’t catch sight of a buffalo until we were safely back in the Land Rover with Bilal, who visible breathed a sign of relief once we were back under his care.

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