Kilimanjaro Waiting

(I wasn't able to post this entry last Saturday so here it is now. )

October 24, 2009

Our safari adventure ended today and we left Bob and Clarence at the Tanzanian border to head to Moshi where they will begin their Kilimanjaro hike on Monday morning.  Yesterday when we arrived at Amboseli we couldn't see the top of the mountain but it was a different story this morning!!

Along with our wakeup call at 6 a.m. were the words, "The top of the mountain is clear."  You notice that it's a flat top since Kilimanjaro is a volcano and has a huge crater at the top.  The guys will approach it from the other side in Tanzania.  Yes - they do have strict instructions to take many, many pictures!!

And within minutes these two were dressed and out in the garden, checking it out!  They are excited to finally begin this trek that brought us to Africa -
this adventure that they have been planning for more than a year.
 Please pray that they will be safe this week, that they will have all the energy they need, that sickness and injury will not bother them and they will enjoy every minute of the experience.
 I know that God has a plan for these two adventurers and they are under His care and protection now.

Sandra and I are missing them alot, already!!  And we are just doing a bit of organizing and then trying to grab a few hours of sleep before we are picked up at 2:00 a.m. for our 4:30 a.m. flight to Cairo - insane, I know!!  Talk to you soon from the land of the pyramids :))

Editted to add:  It's now Saturday, October 24th, nearly 4 p.m.. and Bob and Clarence should be celebrating at the Keys Hotel in Moshi - maybe even clean and showered already!!  We've heard nothing - which is actually good news!  But we are waiting with a great deal of suspense to hear how it went.

 I will post as soon as I can after we meet up on Monday morning.

Thank you for covering them over with your prayers this week :))

Cruising the River Nile - Editted

We are alive and well, cruising down the River Nile on a 68 passenger boat, called the Nile Adventurer. 
Internet service is not great here - there is no such thing as a wireless connection!  So that explains my lack of posting - I have so much to tell you!  Uploading pictures also appears to not be an option so I'll have to save those until we are in Cairo on Saturday and Sunday.

This was one of the views, as we cruised, from our room.

This boat has been renovated and is only on its 3rd trip since then.  Everything is shiny and new and there are only 24 passengers onboard this trip.  The crew numbers 65 so we are being totally spoiled.  The food is fantastic - lunch today was:  Caesar Salad or Beef Carpaccio, Pea and Mint Soup, Red Sea Prawns with Tomato Rice and Ginger Sauce or Lamb Chops, and Baklava or Carmelized Chocolate Walnut Tart.  We had breakfast outside on the deck today.   And tonight is an Egyptian buffet!  The meal schedule goes -
breakfast - 7:30 - 9 a.m.
lunch - 1 - 2:30 p.m.
afternoon tea - 5 p.m.
dinner - 8 p.m.
I don't even have a chance to get hungry!!

The boat has 5 decks with the top most one being a swimming pool and lounge area. 
Under that is an outside lounge and library as well as the presidential suite, which is occupied by a lovely couple from England.  They have travelled extensively and are great to visit with.
The next floor has an airconditioned indoor lounge and rooms, including 3 that have a family from England with 2 little girls, ages 6 and 8 as well as a grandfather accompanying them from Florida.
The next floor has the dining room, reception area and rooms, including ours #205.
There are more rooms on the next floor down and I think there's one more with crew facilities and working rooms.

I'm thinking that my hour time limit is nearly up so I'm going to post this now and save the rest for later.
We are off at 6 p.m. to visit Kom Ombo Temple, dedicated to the Crocodile God.  So far we've visitied the Pyramids and Sphinx in Giza, Karnak Temple, Luxor Temple, the Colossus of Memnon, the Valley of the Queens, the Valley of the Kings (including the tombs of King Tut and King Ramses III), Esna Temple and Edfu Temple.  We have pictures galore!!!

Sandra and I are both missing Bob and Clarence alot!  They should summit the mountain in 48  hours, if all is going well.  Please pray for both of them, especially that altitude sickness will not be a huge factor for them.

Love to all - we'll be home in a week!!!

Moving On!

This is our last day of safari and we head out of the Amboseli Park area tomorrow morning.  Today was a hard day as this park has been hard hit by the drought and many animals, especially zebras and wildebeests are dying.  We saw more carcasses than any of us liked - the reality is harsh here.

For the past 2 weeks this vehicle has been our home!  It had 4000 km on it when we started out and there are nearly 8000 on it now so it's been well used.  Every night a group of carwash guys clean and wash it so it's always in great shape for us.

There are lots of safari companies here in Kenya and Tanzania!  Everywhere we go there they are!

We have been so lucky to have Chris as our driver and guide.  He is careful, considerate and so knowledgeable.  We are definitely going to miss his help and he will be a big part of our memories of safari!

Ngorogoro Crater

  We drove out of Serengeti National Park this morning and as we chatted up a storm, Sandra suddenly exclaimed from the back seat, "Wait, wait - Chris, stop, stop!!  It's a leopard!!!"  And all the rest of us, sitting in front of her, had missed it!  Even our driver, Chris who has 40/20 vision it seems, was concentrating so hard on his driving that he went by without seeing it.

Sitting on a termite hill (there are millions of them!) right beside the road, was this marvelous cheetah (Sandra was close - it was a cat!)  He got up and posed -

and then walked alongside the road right over to another termite hill, which he proceeded to check out, and then moved on through the field.  The 2 other cheetahs we've seen haven't been so close so this was a huge treat!!  And Sandra won the 'Spotter of the Day' award!!

Our next stop was the Ngorongoro Crater, the largest intact caldera in the world!  We came onto the rim and right there before us was the 102 sq. mile crater floor.  It was formed about a million years ago when the top blew off this volcano and now the floor is covered with volcanic ash, a soda lake, grasslands, some watering holes and some forest.

The third couple in our group is Albert and Iris, from Lac La Biche.  What are the chances that we'd come to Africa and be teamed up with another couple from so close to our homes?!!  Chris, our driver, is in the middle of the picture.

And 180 degrees away from our group picture, some local herdsman were taking their cows up out of the crater where they bring them twice a week for water.  The crater is 600 metres deep and these cows just slowly walked up the sides of it.

We met 2 groups of donkeys, loaded with saddle bags full of water containers,  coming up the road too.  Water is such a precious commodity here - it's humbling to see how much it is valued by people in the countryside.

The crater is very, very dry and many animals have moved out because of the drought.  At first glance it looked almost empty but as we drove around the roads, we found lots of surprises, including this pride of about 10 lions that was very concentrated on watching the herd of Cape buffalo moving across the grassland savannah.  There were at least 4 cubs with the group and Chris thought they might be closing in on a hunt but during the 30 minutes or so that we watched, nothing really developed.

Wherever a little creek runs, things immediately grow and the land greens up.  This twisted trunk of a yellow fever acacia tree was interesting.

And then we had to climb up the one-way road and get to the top of the crater to find our hotel.  You can see how the road switchbacks to make the grade.  Our Toyota safari vehicle had to go into four-wheel drive to make it out.  And tonight our hotel balcony looks out over the crater - truly a magnificent sight!

Not Just Animals

I thought you might like to hear about a few other things, not just the animals we are seeing!  So here's a quick look at a few of our hotels, just before we head down to supper tonight.

This was where we stayed last night at the Serengeti Serena Lodge.  Each hut had 3 rooms - we were in the one on top and Clarence and Sandra were in the bottom left hand one.  Zebras were grazing right out our front window this morning.

 On the shores of Lake Victoria at Speke Bay, we each had one of these little huts.   I was standing on the beach to take this and the sound of the water was like a lullaby.

My favourite hotel was so far was the Masa Serena Lodge in the Masai Mara Game Reserve.  Each room is one of those little pieces and the balconies look out onto the plains.  Inside they were cool!!

Each lodge has one of these signs so we always know where we are!!

More later!

The Day of the Lion

It was the day of the lion today - we saw about 20 of them, in different spots doing different things throughout our 8 hour game drive.  I've been wanting to see cubs and we found some but they were fast asleep in the shade under an acacia tree.   A large herd of Cape buffalo caught our eyes and then we found 5 female lionesses who were watching too!  And the grand finales were 2 big male lions - one walking towards some shade and one with 2 females, who appeared to be courting.  It was quite a day - just like every other one has been here on our safari!

In the Serengeti

Early Sunday morning we left Masai Mara National Park in Kenya and crossed the border into Tanzania.  The border experience went quite smoothly but took a long time.  Leaving Kenya, they were more concerned that our Toyota safari vehicle was not a stolen vehicle than anything else.  Apparently there's a huge market for 4-wheel drive vehicles in Tanzania.  Standing on the Tanzanian side and waiting for the bureaucratic chain was like watching a carnival!  The streets were packed with trucks waiting and many of them had to unload all of their cargo so the authorities could check for contraband or goods that hadn't been declared.   Young boys were selling peanuts by the cone, girls walked around selling baskets of bananas that they were carrying on their heads and all kinds of pull carts went back and forth transporting goods.  One that really caught our eyes was loaded with sheets of corrugated tin (used for roofing and building) and was pulled by one man with 4 others pushing on the sides and behind to get it up the slight incline.  Bob and Clarence were hoping they had a braking system so they wouldn't have a runaway when it started downhill!

We stayed on the shores of Lake Victoria (the largest lake in Africa) at Speke Bay last night and entered Serengeti National Park today.  It's a huge park and we drove 136 km on a gravel road, averaging 50 kph, from the park gate to get to our hotel.  Along the way we saw some very cool animals!!

A very big giraffe was standing in the middle of the road as we approached and he posed so we all got a picture with him in the background.  The blanket you can see on the front of the vehicle is covering the 2 bags Clarence and Bob have packed for their Kilimanjaro hike.

And then we came upon the coolest thing yet!!!

It started with a few -

and they just kept coming -

and pretty soon 28 elephants, of all sizes, had mudbaths!!!

The little babies were so sweet as they ran alongside their mothers to arrive and they plunged right in and laid down, without getting squished or stepped on!  You can see 3 of them in the picture above.

And pretty soon they were off and the fun was over!!  15 minutes earlier or 15 minutes later and we would have missed it all.  It happened only about 75 ft. from the road so we had perfect seats for the show.

This afternoon we saw another hippo pool with about 200 hippos, I think.

And then we caught the sunset as we drove home.  We had to be at the hotel by 6:30 according to park rules so we couldn't wait too much but I like this picture anyway!

Denise and Esther asked about the weather -

In Nairobi it was about +25 and very nice for sitting outside beside the pool :)

At Mount Kenya it was a bit cooler but we only used our jackets in the middle of the night when we came out on the balcony, checking for a hyena.

Samburu was hot - Clarence's backpack temperature gauge said +33 at 4 p.m..

Lake Nakuru was in the mid-20's.

Driving to the Masai Mara was a cloudy but warm day and we drove through some rain.  It's very dry in most parts of  Kenya that we've seen so this rain was very welcome.

The Masai Mara was warm but still no need for jackets.

Now we are in the Serengeti and the temperature is up again.  It was 30+ when we headed out at 4 p.m. for our afternoon game drive today.

Luckily when the sun goes down, so does the temperature, especially at these higher elevations.  The sign outside our hotel says we are at 4895 feet here.

Tomorrow's day starts with us leaving at 7:00 a.m. so I'm off to bed!