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Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania

We arrived here yesterday, by the time we had checked in and had lunch we had time for a quick 2 hour Game drive. The drive from our lodge down to the crater floor is about 40 minutes, you decend 6000 meters! Unlike most of our other stops the crater is just over run with vehicles. Any time some one spotted something interesting or there was some action...vehicles would congragate like flies. Game viewing here is poor compared to the other camps we were at...but the landscape is breathtaking. You look back up to the top of the crater and there are clouds cascading over the top of the crater rim. The accomadations here are great, opulent as ever. We leave tomorrow to come back home...African adventure complete ( almost ).

Sabora hot air balloon ride

We were up at 5am this morning for our hot air balloon ride over the Serengeti. It was just the 2 of us....very cool. We saw the migration trails of the wildebeest, they seemed to go on for ever. We also saw some herds of elephants, one had over 60 members in it. K is feeling the signs of something coming on...so I think she will probably just nap this afternoon and see if she's up for a game drive at 4pm. Tomorrow we are off to Ngorongoro Crater, in Tanzania for 2 nights...then it will be time to come home. This place has been absolutely amazing...head and shoulders above the rest. From quality of quide and vehicles to the extremely high level of pampering you get here. It will be hard to leave! Pics are on FB.

Sabora Tented Camp, Singita Grumeti Reserve, Tanzania

Well all I can say is our camps keep getting better and better! The best way I can describe this place...imagine a Four Seasons Hotel, in a tent in the middle of the Serengeti. We were woken up at 2am by a giraffe chomping on the top of a tree, 20 yards outside of our tent. On our first game drive we ran into a pride of 9 lions, a herd of breeding male elephants, with a huge dominant male, tons of zebras, wildebeest, antelope and some hyenas.

Sayari Mara part II

On Monday morning I woke up still under the weather with a head cold, so I was debating going out on a game drive. Boy am I glad I did! We waited for close to 3 hours watching a herd of about 3000 wildebeest running back and forth between 2 potential crossing points. They are very skiddish and the smallest thing throws them off...but they finally crossed WOW! That was our highlight for the day. The next day we were leaving for our next camp in Tanzania, Sabora Camp...but we still had time for a game drive in the morning. We decided to focus on the cats, more specifically leopards. 5 hours of hunting and no success, they are elusive! We had a 20 minute flight to our next camp Sabora Tanted Camp in the Singita Greumeti Reserve, in Tanzania. All I can say is OMG I'm glad K didn't see this place first it would have spoiled her trip to date...this is just decadent! We start our game drives here tomorrow. I'll post pics on FB asap.

Sayari Mara, Tanzania

Arrived at Sayari Mara in the Serengeti on Saturday, Aug 13. We had one connecting fight from Kigali to get to our camp and we were the only ones on board!...on both flights. Met Albert our guide at the airstrip and planned out our day. We decided to go directly to camp and do the meet and greet and unpack and have some lunch. Our hostess Tanya is a native South African, who was born in Ottawa!....so we hit it off. After lunch we went for our first Serengeti game drive, just me K and our guide Albert...there was going to be another couple joining us but they had not arrived yet. The Serengeti is huge, so we ran in to very few others out doing their thing. We saw a bazillion Gnus aka wildebeest, but none that were ready to take that famous crossing across the Mara river. We also saw lions, giraffe, crocs, hippos, gazelles, impalas, zebras, vultures, storks, elephants, hyena and a plethora of birds.
We were out from 4:30 until almost 7:00. Dinner was at 8:00 and it is served in the dining tent. It is a communal dinner at a 60 foot long table. We all introduced our selves swapped stories of the day's and past events. Since our tent is in the middle of the Serengeti and it was now night time we had to be escorted back to our tent for the evening. Were heard all kinds of animals all night...lions were calling, hippos were grunting, hyenas were yipping....and there were the grazers around our tent all night. 

Sunday we had a 5:50am wakeup call, wakeup calls out here consists of bringing you coffee, tea and cookies. Then it was off on our game drive at 6:30am. We spent most of the morning running back and forth from several possible crossing points where the wildebeest were congregating. We saw 2 crossings, but both were really small and they were from quite a distance away. The first was a handfull of zebras and the second was also just a handfull of wildebeests. Wildebeest are very finicky they will all gather at a crossing point and then change their mind and all turn about and head back out to the plains. It's a little bit like fishing trying catch them crossing at the right time. We got back from our morning game drive at 12:30, just in time for lunch. I was starting to come down with a head cold so we decided to just chill for the remainder of the day and stay in camp. Tomorrow brings more adventure!

Rwanda gorilla trek part deux

Today we were lucky enough to get to visit with the Sabyinyo family. This family has the largest silver back gorilla in the world, he is 41 yeas old and weighs in at around 250 kilos. We had a great viewing of the family and caught sight of the 2 month old baby. K seems to be a major attraction to the males in these families, as another silverback rushed by her by about 1.5 feet and we thought he was going to grab her leg but didn't. It was all bluster and with the vocalizations from our tracker the silverback continued along the path. We have now wrapped up our 2days of gorilla trekking and had a scenic drive back to Kigali. Off to see 'Africa' night performances in the hotel! Next stop the Serengeti in Tanzania.