Sorry if you have been looking for a new post as intensely as this hippo was watching us, but the trip became challenging for a bit, although we are now fine and we are beginning our journey home later today.
The gruelling itinerary started with a half day drive from Amboseli across the Tanzanian border for a one night stay in Arusha, then a tough 9 hour drive to the Ngorongo Crater, inhaling dust the whole way while bouncing around in the vehicle like a ping pong ball in the wind. We felt so awful the next day that we saw the doctor at the hotel who said we both had upper respiratory infections. So we stayed at the hotel the whole day while others ventured into the crater and visited a Masai Village. After a two night stay, we had another very long drive to the Serengeti national park, stopping at Oldupai Gorge to learn of the work of many paleontologists at the site, including Mary and Louis Leakey. The excavations have revealed 3.7 million year old footprints and the 1.8 million year old skull of a human. The museum details evolution and the arrival of Homo Sapiens 200,000 years ago.
We were two nights in the Serengeti before we took the drove to an airstrip, flew to near the border with Kenya, drove to the border, then flew again to the Masai Mara in Kenya, where we finally started feeling better and had three wonderful nights. One reason for all this detail is that if you are considering a group trip, you might want to check more specifically then we did about how much driving over rough roads and one night stays there are, as it does take a toll. Because of our illness and the exhaustion, we really enjoyed the Massai Mara the best.
Arusha, when we were still feeling well.
Uldupai Gorge
Serengeti
Weather forecast for Serengeti, hot, dusty and dry.
Traffic Report for the Serengeti: A lot of traffic. (Unlike our trip to South Africa or later in Masai Mara)
We stayed with the same six new friends on the same van from the start in Nairobi throughout the trip.
We had no volunteers willing to count the number of sleeping lions.
Hippo Hangout, part 1
Huge Crocodile
We took our first ever balloon trip.
And the grand finale of this post was Hippo Hangout Part 2, just upstream from another crocodile
And here is Jane with our new Masai friend, Nickson.
The van gang again
And another of Jane's sunset pictures.
