Last full day on the Serengeti.

In the morning, we slept in, which was kind of heavenly!  We had an 8:30 wake-up call and met Gene for breakfast in the dining hall as the others had gone on their balloon ride!  It looked like a perfect morning for a ride, calm and crisp, and I was excited (only a little bit envious) to hear about it, but nonetheless we enjoyed our relaxing morning immensely.  We had a great time getting to know Gene a little better; he has led an amazing life and has traveled all over the world, to include a climb on Everest which Mike couldn't hear enough of!  It sounds like he is truly living "the good life", and we were all feeling pretty grateful to be where we were, in life...and in Africa!
The group returned from ballooning and they'd had a great time seeing the Serengeti from above!  We all hung out in the lobby area, open-air, decorated in old English antiques and beautiful tapestries, and downloaded some of our memory cards and tried to catch up on emails when the internet cooperated.  I got a quick message from Allison saying everything was fine at home...it seemed to me that her abrupt attempt at changing the subject was odd, but I was trying not to worry about Ashley and her pregnancy as her due date was still a couple of weeks away.
We had a yummy lunch, really yummy food at this place, and headed out on our last game drive, Mike and I with Lyle and Sue and Godfrey, followed by the rest of the gang!  We first went to a river crossing where there was a group of hippos hanging out.  This group seemed to have a much better life than at the hippo pools, clearer waters for sure!  And then we asked Godfrey to move on...we told him we wanted to see, on our last day, big cats, or little kitties!  So we went on a cat hunt!
First we saw a few dik-diks, very shy, little fawn-like animals.  Then Lyle pointed out some jackals (small, pretty coyotes) and Godfrey followed them down a dirt road, saying that jackals like to hang around lions!  About the time he said that we came around a curve to see a momma lion and 3 beautiful cubs!  I almost peed my pants!  The day I had stayed at Dunia the group had seen lion cubs and I was sorry to have missed them...and now here they were, on our last outing!  Mom was sitting up, regally, and didn't seem to care that we were there, as soon after we arrived, squealing and cameras clicking, she flopped down for a nap!
The babies were so cute!  Fuzzy and healthy looking, all laying together...one boy and two girls Godfrey told us, probably about 5 months old.  We moved up as close as we felt comfortable so as not to disturb or upset them and just watched them...while they didn't really do anything other than watch us in return!  The two girls laid next to each other and Sue & I called them Makenzie and Harper (our grand-daughters!)!  I took way too many pictures of those lion cubs, but I couldn't help myself, I was so happy to have seen lion babies!
We made our way back to Kirawira, got ready for another amazing dinner, (four courses including delicious desserts!) and talked about our favorite places (Dunia was everyone's favorite overall, I think) and favorite sightings (lions on the hunt, black rhinos, baby cubs, cheetahs, leopards...impossible to choose!) and then we retired to pack our bags for our journeys home...and, in our case, our journey to Zanzibar!


Hippos!

Dik dik.

Momma!

Imagine how I squealed when we came around this corner!

Girls!

Beautiful momma.

Seriously, this is about as much "action" as we saw, but I loved them!

Sweet faces.

Makenzie and Harper!

Look at her paw! 

So funny!

Watching us, watch them.

Found a bug to play with.

Now I know that when you see pictures of those ferocious looking teeth in this pose, it's oftentimes a yawn!!!

So pretty.

Gazelle.

Impala.

The sunset view from our deck at Kirawira.

From Dunia to Kirawira!

Another journal entry...

Breakfast at early dawn in the dining tent...yummy fresh fruits and breads, pancakes, coffee and teas and cold juices...and then we loaded up all of our gear and luggage for another game drive on our way over to Kirawira, our next tent camp.  Lots of stops today, first to talk our way out of the ticket the ranger cited to Godfrey and Martin, our amazing and patient drivers/guides!  Then, we stopped at a little rest area/park to sign up for a hot air balloon ride that some of the group would be taking the next morning (we opted out).  We stopped for a little bit of a lunch break to enjoy another yummy boxed lunch (a piece of boneless chicken, a roll with caramelized onions, a chunk of cheese, and apple, a yogurt and mango juice - that was a typical lunch - all served at noonday temperatures, but somehow tasting really yummy!).

Once we got all of our paperwork done and the ticket cleared up we made our way to the hippo ponds!  First reaction, ewwwww!!!  We probably started smelling the hippos long before we actually saw them!  Close to 100 hippos in thick greenish, yucky pond...all together, mostly underwater, surfacing moments at a time, snorting and spewing water to keep cool...it was quite a sight!  I did manage to get a picture of one of the big hippos out of the water with his mouth open wide...and we heard three of them fighting for territory, impressive sounds and impressively large animals...but probably not my favorite spot!  Stinky!

While making our way across the Serengeti to Kirawira Camp (Godfrey says "about 20 minutes" every time you ask him how long it is to anything!) we watched as the landscape changed to a more lush green, plains with groves of Acacia trees.  Amidst the trees we spotted lots of elephants, bigger and darker ones, and so beautiful lumbering across the fields.  Lots of impalas and gazelles and topis too.

Kirawira was another "tent" camp...this time stilted and tucked into the trees a bit, along stone pathways overlooking an amazing view of the Serengeti!  The view was really incredible, panoramic, expansive...and the lodge itself was British-inspired luxury.  Seriously, they must've employed one person for every guest!

We got our bags and were escorted to our tent, (#2, same as Dunia) and took the most amazing rainfall shower!  The bucket showers at Dunia were unique, certainly sufficient and added to that tent camping experience, but these were really wonderful!  It allowed you to feel really clean again, until the humidity kicked in and made you sticky!  The tents themselves were huge and elaborately furnished...including a huge netted bed!  Each tent had a nice big deck and while standing on ours you could see elephants below munching on trees! 

We all met for dinner, four course delicious meals served with more dinnerware and silverware than you could possibly use!  Dinnertime was always fun as we had each experienced different things, so we went around the table taking turns saying what our favorite parts of the journey thus far had been...  It was really hard to choose and as soon as you did someone would remember something different and you'd say "oh, yes, that was so cool too!!"  We really did have a great group of travelers in our group and it was fun to share this experience with them all!

We were escorted back to our tent, you always had to have an escort at night at these places...a reminder of where you actually are, while surrounded with this amazing luxury!  We slept under another rainstorm, this time it sounded like the thunder was right on top of us as the canvas walls of the tent sucked in and out with the swells of winds!  Crazy, the whole thing seemed crazy, another of those wow moments...that we were tucked into our luxury tent, listening to rain and thunder, with elephants munching on trees right below us, in the Serengeti, in Africa?! 

What a life!

A baby!

Showing aggression!

Wow!

A crocodile!

A baby giraffe...hard to judge size until they are standing by momma!

...like here...!

Baby giraffe!

Elephants and zebras...cool to see animals living in their environment together!

A range of sizes...see the littlest one?

An African scene!

I love their big ears, even the little ones have enormous ears, which they use to keep cool!

A "tent" at Kirawira (taken from the Kirawira webpage)!

View from front deck (taken from the Kirawira webpage).

Africa - Headed to the Crater

More from my journal...

We met the gang of fellow travelers in the courtyard in the morning.  They had all arrived a day or two early, so they seemed refreshed and ready to go, while we, it felt, were still trying to figure out where we were and how we got here?!  Henry, of course; Gene, a very sweet, vital young guy from Boston; Lyle and Sue, a really nice couple from Southern California, who also spend some time in Island Park (which is close to our backyard); Margaret, a British-Arizonian with a great sense of humor; and Debra, a soft-spoken, kind-hearted, charming Louisianan. 
And, after a nice breakfast, which for me included a couple of cups of coffee, we were off!  In two safari vehicles, with Martin and Godfrey, our guides for the safari, loaded down with lots of luggage and even more camera gear - we headed out towards the Ngorongoro Crater.
We stopped at a couple of Maasai galleries to look at trinkets and such, and we tried our hand at negotiating a bit for a zebra mask that we hope to find again towards the end of the trip as it would've been pretty cumbersome to carry.  As the day and the kilometers passed it got hotter and the roads became bumpier!  The landscape was pretty sparse, for the most part, as we passed through a few small villages and then lots of open spaces with small herds of cattle or goats and young Maasai boys tending the herds in arid fields.
We were riding with Lyle & Sue and quickly found our shared interests, among them - photography, yes...animals, Yellowstone...and grandchildren!  They, too, were expecting their first granddaughter (which was their 1st grandchild too) and they had discovered, through the wonderful world wide web, that their daughter had begun her labor, a couple of weeks earlier than expected!  So, Sue and I talked about daughters and babies, making Lyle and Mike, I am sure, want to jump ship because neither of them came to Africa to talk about babies (though clearly they were both enamored at the thought of having granddaughters)!  That shared place in life helped us "bond" with them and the conversations were easy and fun.
We arrived at the lodge near dusk, weary but excited.  This lodge was brand new and really amazing.  The "rooms" were actually large individual cabins laid out along one hillside, overlooking a tree filled valley and an adjacent treed slope.  The cabins themselves were enormous and really lovely; meticulously decorated, with large living areas, a pass-through fireplace into the enormous bedroom and bathroom, with a fabulous deck overlooking a hillside covered in those sweeping trees you imagine when you dream of Africa (Acacia).  It was a pretty incredible place!
We met on the lobby deck for a yummy dinner, a limited, but delicious, chef-specialty kind of offering.  After dinner, we headed to our rooms to sort out our camera gear and ready ourselves for the descent into the crater early the next morning.  It was hard to sleep, we were so excited!

Some of the trinkets...made of Acacia wood.

Wisdom.

A herd of Maasai cows.

A Maasai village.

Amazing what and how much they can carry on a bike...?!

I would surely tip over with this load!  This takes talent!

The Exploreans Lodge entrance gate.

Our amazing room.

Our amazing balcony!

One of the rows of cabins...all with incredible views.

The entrance to our little "room"!

The view from the deck.  You could occassionally hear monkeys and something munching on trees, presumably elephants!

I know, I know...where are the animal pictures you are dying to see...?!!!  They are coming, I promise!  And you won't be disappointed!

Africa!

Though this journal was purchased much nearer to the sea, as I sit here, in this lovely tent in Africa, I thought it was a perfect place to begin my writing... 

Far from any sea I have seen (yet), I kept thinking yesterday of that MaryAnne Radmacher-Hershey saying "I come to the sea to breathe," always a relevant quote for me.  As I was trying to summarize the experience here so far...I thought I might borrow from her to say "I come to Africa to feel alive!"

(Quoted from my journal entry while enjoying the day at Dunia Camp, in the Serengeti, Tanzania, Africa.)

We went to Africa!  (An amazing thing to say!)  And, it was a truly incredible trip!  I kept a journal on the trip, trying to record as much as possible as it was really hard to take it all in!  In the next few days/weeks, I will be posting my journal entries, along with some IMAGES!  Stay tuned!

Bucket list item, for sure.

Yes!  Definitely a "bucket list" item...we heard about a great opportunity to travel with one of our favorite local photographers, Henry Holdsworth, from Jackson, Wyoming.  Henry put together a small group photography tour and before we had too much time to think about all the reasons we couldn't possibly make this trip or figured out how we were going to do it, we said yes!  And now, with just less than 3 weeks to go, the excitement is building exponentially!

We'll be flying into the Kilimanjaro International Airport near Arusha, Tanzania...traveling to the Ngorongoro Crater for a couple days of safari in the crater, from there into the south-eastern part of the Serengeti for our first taste of tent camping in the wilds of Africa, and then to the West, towards the Grumeti River for another tent camping experience and more wildlife watching!  After 8 days of safari, we are headed to the island of Zanzibar for a little beach time!

Yes, the excitement is building!!!  We are going to Africa!!!