Amazing vacation

I have wanted to go on a safari for years and years and finally did.  I was afraid that it would not live up to my expectations but it exceeded them. Tanzania is a beautiful country and we saw so many animals. I should have known it would be good when our driver/guide introduced himself as Good Luck, which is his actual name.  It was just the two of us (a woman from the UN and myself)  and Good Luck in our car so we could run back and forth to see everything without disturbing anyone else.  The safari vehicles are good for that  You are not allowed to get out of the car so the whole top of the car lifts up and you can stand and take pictures to your heart's content.

Wildebeasts and zebras were among the first animals that we saw.  We had missed the migration but we had not missed the wildebeasts.

Our first lion encounter turned out to be the most memorable.  I just happened to turn on the video and captured something unexpected.

Apparently during the mating season the lions get up every 15 to 20 minutes to procreate.  I did not capture the female rolling around on her back after their very brief interlude.  The guide told us that the king of beasts is not the king in all areas and the lioness has to roll over on her back to ensure that the sperm gets where it needs to.

We saw many, many elephants and I have some nice elephant pictures but I thought I would post this one to show how close we got to them.  Good luck said that the elephants have really bad vision and that is probably the explanation for this lady's behavior.  She walked right next to the vehicle rather than crossing in front of it.  I was looking down on her when I took this picture.  If I had been sitting rather than standing in the vehicle and rolled the window down I could have touched her.

We saw many baboons and they always came in a parade.  The monkeys and the baboons amazed me with their human like hands.  They could pick up the tiniest things -- just like humans though I think a tad more wild.

The Serengeti was so beautiful especially in the early morning light. The acacia trees are so graceful.

Wart hogs were Good Luck's favorite animal.  He had an "I Love Warthogs" sticker on the window. I have to admit that they were kind of cute in their own ugly way but were very skittish.  I opened the curtains in my hotel room and was face to face with a wart hog.  However by the time I grabbed my camera for a closeup he was dashing away.

Hippos lead the good life.  They have no predators so can be as lazy as they want.  They have no natural way to cool off so during the day they lounge in pools of water, throwing mud on their back with their tails and make grunting noises.  At night when the temperature drops they get out of the pools. Hippos kill more people than any other beast in Africa.  Here you can see just a few of them during the daytime.

We were fortunate in our leopard sightings.  I was having serious camera envy with the leopards since I only had my little digital camera and saw plenty of people with giant lenses on the SLR type cameras. Good Luck said that he normally saw leopards on one out of 5 safaris.  We thought we had seen fiveleopards on our trip but when I put my pictures on my computer, I realized we had actually seen seven. Three of them were in one sitting.  None of the 3 of us realized it while we were watching.  We just focused on the one on the lower branch and never saw the two above it. This is the best picture my little camera could get.

I will end the animals as I began with the king of beasts. They were usually slinking around or sleeping in the brush.  But sometimes we saw them on giant monoliths that are scattered around the Serengeti so no brush to obscure the view of them.  Here was a sleepy guy hanging around on the top of a rock.

         Here is another guy hanging around on top and under a rock.

Saw many more animals, all of the "Big 5", and it was truly amazing.  If any of you are thinking about it, save those pennies, it is worth it.

The craziest part of the entire trip was on the way out.  We left Zanzibar late due to "operational reasons".  We did not make the next flight because they overbooked the plane and there was only one seat left.  Then the next flight was late due to "operational reasons".  We were not too nervous because we were leaving later in the day for our next flight.  However one of the ground crew told us that the "operational reasons" were that the airport was on fire in Nairobi.  Since we were supposed to be flying to that airport in the evening we were a little concerned.  Two days and many dollars later we made an evening flight that was the first flight on which they allowed passengers with connecting flights to go to Nairobi. We had almost paid for tickets with Ethiopian airlines to go home through Ethiopia two days later but luckily they were not able to confirm us yet so no money changed hands. Once we arrived in Nairobi it was crazy.  All of the things they normally did for international arrivals and departures were all done in big tents.  It was the first night for through flights so things were pretty chaotic.  Everyone was trying to get to 5 agents using laptops to get boarding passes and let us say that it was not done with orderly queues.  Elbows were necessary. I also ended up paying $20.00 for a transit visa I did not need because they did not tell me to exit through the side of the tent.  But we did got out on the first flight to Dakar the next morning and made it home only 2 days late. I have been held up on flights for a lot of reasons, but the airport burning down is a new one and I certainly hope it remains a unique event for me.

Below is picture of just a third of the tent.   The heater is because it was cold but I was not complaining knowing I was going back to The Gambia.

 View of some of the tents from the airplane as we were leaving.