Weekend Photos: Serengeti and more

Hoping to finish up our Tanzania Safari today, but we shall see. The final two days were as jam-packed as all the rest, and photos were manageable only because I had some technical difficulties that greatly reduced the number of acceptable shots. You know it's been an amazing trip when you are actually glad to find horrible pictures that can be deleted without hesitation.

Also: I'll respond to comments eventually, but this is posting automatically while I'm out backpacking.

So far we have Arusha, Tarangire National Park, South Serengeti Part 1, and South Serengeti Part 2. In that report we actually moved north and into Serengeti National Park, and we resume the trip in the park, where we stayed at the Embalakai Camp, another tent camp but permanent, and very luxurious.

As usual, we were up before dawn and ready to leave as soon as there was enough light to see the animals.

Dawn on the Serengeti

The lodge.

The animals are perhaps most active in the morning, and the light was perfect.

Impala

More  impala. We saw a LOT of impala, all of them beautiful.

Our first and main goal for the morning was the Hippo Pool, where we could count on seeing hippos by the dozens.

They occasionally stuck up their faces enough for a photo.

Mother and youngster. They generally graze during the night and nap in the water during the day, to avoid the excessive sun.

A large band of baboons provided entertainment for a while. They are pretty cute, until you get a good look at their teeth, which are large and scary!

The band had lots of little ones, who ride on their mothers' backs until they can keep up on their own, or when they are tired.

We had a picnic lunch at the park Visitor's Center, where monkeys and mongoose are all too adept at begging and thievery.

Banded mongoose. Mongeese? Mongooses?

After lunch we were back to making time along the corrugated roads, a fatiguing drive broken up by some cool animal sightings.

 

Speaking of cool animals--the whole pride of lions appeared to be napping in a culvert, happy to have a bit of shade!

Female ostrich

Male ostrich

We had only one more stop before out hotel, high on the rim of the Ngorogoro Crater. We made a short visit to a Maasai village, one I think set up rather thoughtfully as a model to show to tourists. As with most such things, it felt rather artificial, but did allow us to see a little bit of their lives.

The main occupation in the village is the greeting and entertaining of tourists. Based on what we saw from the roadsides, however, the traditional dress is still the most common wardrobe choice for the Maasai people.

They demonstrated making a fire the old-fashioned way--without matches. It took a lot of work, and the three men traded off smoothly on twisting the friction stick.

It didn't take all that long to get a spark in the drill hole.

The spark is dropped into some very dry elephant dung, which is mostly grass, and they blow on it carefully until it catches.

Since they didn't need this fire, as soon as it got hot enough to burn fingers, they dropped it and stomped it out, to go on and show us their houses. Note that behind the mend doing the demo we have tables full of crafts to sell to us.

They split us up to show us into their tiny houses. They are dark and a bit smokey, but keep out the worst of the weather. Walls are of a wattle-and-daub variety, with the sticks plastered by a very durable mixture of mud and dung.

Our guide, explaining how the house was made. Of course, the men don't actually do it--that's women's work. I suppose the women can't guide tourists, or perhaps they get less chance to learn enough English to do so.

The village also has a kindergarten, a sort of combination model classroom and starter class for children to learn a few basics before they are sent to school in one of the towns. 

The clustering of all the desks at one end of the building was clearly meant to leave room for visitors--and a conspicuous donation box. These "kindergarten" children seemed to range in age from about 4 or 5 up perhaps to 10; when and if they go away to school I gathered has a lot to do with how many younger siblings need watching.

They were learning to count only in English, but were also learning to match English and Swahili names for animals. I wish I'd paid more attention to the Swahili alphabet in blue on the far right.

This little one wasn't old enough for classes but enjoyed hanging out.

On to the Rhino Lodge! This was probably the least fancy of our lodgings, but was blissfully cool at over 8000', and had lots of animals roaming around--we were instructed to keep close to the building as we walked to and from dinner, and not cross the courtyard, where one might have a distressing encounter with a buffalo.

Sunset and new moon.

As I feared, I only managed to do one day! Next week we'll head down into Ngorogoro Crater, the floor of which is teeming with wildlife--including rhinos, too far off to photograph but identifiable with strong binoculars or zoom lens.

 

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2024
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