Up the Mountain Slowly, Very Slowly (New York Times Magazine)
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Kilimanjaro Article in NYT
I promise we'll stop posting things soon and clogging your inboxes, but the timing of this article was just too good!
Up the Mountain Slowly, Very Slowly (New York Times Magazine)
Up the Mountain Slowly, Very Slowly (New York Times Magazine)
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Wildlife Videos
A lion eating a bit of impala. (Stonybrook Game Reserve, Tanzania)
A big ol' hippo. (Lake Manyara National Park, Tanzania)
Two African Slideshows
100 of the very best shots from our trip.
A baby animal slideshow (just for you, Barb!)
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| 100 (or so) Best of Africa |
A baby animal slideshow (just for you, Barb!)
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| Baby Critters |
Friday, October 26, 2007
Ostrich Videos!
We are back in the United States safely as of last night--38 hours of travel from Zanzibar. We have plenty of pictures and videos to share. We'll start with these two from Highgate Ostrich Farm, two of the funniest videos of the whole trip.
Sarah rides an ostrich.
Feeding an ostrich
Sarah rides an ostrich.
Feeding an ostrich
Monday, October 22, 2007
Hakuna Matata!
Greetings from the sun-kissed island of Zanzibar, where we are whiling away the last few days of our African vacation on the beach. Our biggest lesson so far: go ahead and pay the absurd local prices for nice sunscreen, because the budget sunblock from Greece (!?!) on sale here appears to actually be moisturizer.
We spent our first two nights in exotic Stone Town, where the Omani influence on this island is clear--it's like you've been transported to the Middle East, circa 1850. We did some shopping, took a spice tour, and dined at a restaurant named in honor of local hero and Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury (for the record, Freddie: the restaurant stinks). We then took a very long and strange minibus journey (highlight: buying toilet seats on the way) across the island to Matemwe Beach Village. It was a lovely, low-key place, very pleasant and full of young couples. We didn't get out of the hammocks except for feedings, sailing, and cheap outdoor massages. We're now at our final stop, the Zamani Zanzibar Kempinski hotel. It is quite a place--really the lap of luxury, especially after our Kilimanjaro experience! Today we didn't manage to leave our pool chairs for seven straight hours. Very rigorous.
Red but happy, we're looking forward to being back on US soil Thursday evening, and we look forward to seeing many of you all soon (or at least talking to you on a phone call that doesn't cost $4/minute like it does in Tanzania--yikes!).
Hakuna matata!
At the Kempinski Hotel, on the east coast of Zanzibar.
Sarah skippers our boat through the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.
We spent our first two nights in exotic Stone Town, where the Omani influence on this island is clear--it's like you've been transported to the Middle East, circa 1850. We did some shopping, took a spice tour, and dined at a restaurant named in honor of local hero and Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury (for the record, Freddie: the restaurant stinks). We then took a very long and strange minibus journey (highlight: buying toilet seats on the way) across the island to Matemwe Beach Village. It was a lovely, low-key place, very pleasant and full of young couples. We didn't get out of the hammocks except for feedings, sailing, and cheap outdoor massages. We're now at our final stop, the Zamani Zanzibar Kempinski hotel. It is quite a place--really the lap of luxury, especially after our Kilimanjaro experience! Today we didn't manage to leave our pool chairs for seven straight hours. Very rigorous.
Red but happy, we're looking forward to being back on US soil Thursday evening, and we look forward to seeing many of you all soon (or at least talking to you on a phone call that doesn't cost $4/minute like it does in Tanzania--yikes!).
Hakuna matata!
At the Kempinski Hotel, on the east coast of Zanzibar.
Sarah skippers our boat through the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Tanzanian Safari!
After we came down from Kili, we thought our death-defying antics in Tanzania were pretty much wrapped up. Boy, were we wrong! Drivers in Tanzania are generally terrible, but our driver for the two hours back to Arusha from the foot of Kili made most Tanzanian drivers look like models for Driver's Ed. Some of the highlights: talking on the cell phone while driving, blind passing, texting while driving, talking to passengers and facing them while driving, speeding, barely swerving to avoid animals and pedestrians in the road, using both lanes (of a two-lane road) as available travel lanes, etc. We were flabbergasted when he apologized for hitting a massive speed bump at about 50 MPH, considering that was one of his few driving habits that did not make us fear for our lives.
The low point of the entire trip, though, was when he said he would be our driver for the next three days of safari! After making it back to our lodge and almost kissing the ground in relief at being alive, we called our safari operator and told her that under no circumstances would this wannabe Demolition Derby driver be our driver for the next three days. She quickly changed our driver and we waited to find out what a clown he was.
As it turned out, John, our new driver and safari guide, was an excellent driver, a knowledgeable guide, and a very friendly travel companion. We spent three days on safari--one day each in Tarangire NP, Lake Manyara NP, and Ngorongoro Crater NP. Each park was quite different from the others, and collectively it was a very different experience from our South African safari. The highlights:
1. Obviously the #1 highlight was at lunch the first day--a picnic lunch outside. Several baboons were circling our table, eyeing our lunches. John chased them off several times with a stick. At a moment when we were all concentrating on our lunches, a pretty large baboon jumped up on the bench that Sarah and I were sharing--literally 8 or 12 inches from our faces. Sarah, in her own words, ran off screaming like a "4 year old girl," but had serious trouble getting out of the bench and ending up dumping part of her lunch on the ground. Thinking quickly, Thomas turned to face the baboon and roared at it like a lion. The baboon was not fazed. Finally John ran it off with a stone. We knew Sarah had made an impression on the many, many fellow picnickers when John was speaking with another guide later in the day and the guide looked at Sarah and said, "So you're the friend of the baboon?" Hilarious. Another reason Thomas liked John is that he mentioned this incident about every two hours for the next three days.
2. We saw LOTS of baby animals (you would have loved it, Barb): a baby giraffe, baby zebra, all sorts of baby baboons and vervet monkeys, a baby hippo, baby antelope of various sorts, many baby elephants, and many baby warthogs. There was apparently an eight day-old rhino in the Crater today, but we couldn't quite spot him.
3. We also saw a lot of animals we had not seen up to this point, or got a better look at some we had seen only at night. Most notably, we spent a good amount of time observing the hippos in Lake Manyara and Ngorongoro Crater parks. The funniest hippo incident was when the dominant male of one group lumbered out of the water right in front of us and marked his territory by (sensitive audiences skip the next part) pooing and scattering it all over several bushes with his tail. This was only topped by the fact that when he got back in the water, he sat right on another hippo's face. Friendly! We also spotted several nasty-looking hyenas out for a morning hunt, a cheetah stalking some gazelle, and a number of cute little jackels.
Tomorrow morning we head for Zanzibar, a small island off the coast of Tanzania known for its rich Arab heritage and ancient spice plantations. We'll spend two days in the historic Stone Town, and then five days soaking up rays on beaches lapped by the Indian Ocean. We'll hopefully blog several times from there before we head home a week from tomorrow.
The low point of the entire trip, though, was when he said he would be our driver for the next three days of safari! After making it back to our lodge and almost kissing the ground in relief at being alive, we called our safari operator and told her that under no circumstances would this wannabe Demolition Derby driver be our driver for the next three days. She quickly changed our driver and we waited to find out what a clown he was.
As it turned out, John, our new driver and safari guide, was an excellent driver, a knowledgeable guide, and a very friendly travel companion. We spent three days on safari--one day each in Tarangire NP, Lake Manyara NP, and Ngorongoro Crater NP. Each park was quite different from the others, and collectively it was a very different experience from our South African safari. The highlights:
1. Obviously the #1 highlight was at lunch the first day--a picnic lunch outside. Several baboons were circling our table, eyeing our lunches. John chased them off several times with a stick. At a moment when we were all concentrating on our lunches, a pretty large baboon jumped up on the bench that Sarah and I were sharing--literally 8 or 12 inches from our faces. Sarah, in her own words, ran off screaming like a "4 year old girl," but had serious trouble getting out of the bench and ending up dumping part of her lunch on the ground. Thinking quickly, Thomas turned to face the baboon and roared at it like a lion. The baboon was not fazed. Finally John ran it off with a stone. We knew Sarah had made an impression on the many, many fellow picnickers when John was speaking with another guide later in the day and the guide looked at Sarah and said, "So you're the friend of the baboon?" Hilarious. Another reason Thomas liked John is that he mentioned this incident about every two hours for the next three days.
2. We saw LOTS of baby animals (you would have loved it, Barb): a baby giraffe, baby zebra, all sorts of baby baboons and vervet monkeys, a baby hippo, baby antelope of various sorts, many baby elephants, and many baby warthogs. There was apparently an eight day-old rhino in the Crater today, but we couldn't quite spot him.
3. We also saw a lot of animals we had not seen up to this point, or got a better look at some we had seen only at night. Most notably, we spent a good amount of time observing the hippos in Lake Manyara and Ngorongoro Crater parks. The funniest hippo incident was when the dominant male of one group lumbered out of the water right in front of us and marked his territory by (sensitive audiences skip the next part) pooing and scattering it all over several bushes with his tail. This was only topped by the fact that when he got back in the water, he sat right on another hippo's face. Friendly! We also spotted several nasty-looking hyenas out for a morning hunt, a cheetah stalking some gazelle, and a number of cute little jackels.
Tomorrow morning we head for Zanzibar, a small island off the coast of Tanzania known for its rich Arab heritage and ancient spice plantations. We'll spend two days in the historic Stone Town, and then five days soaking up rays on beaches lapped by the Indian Ocean. We'll hopefully blog several times from there before we head home a week from tomorrow.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Pics from Kili
We're at a safari lodge with a veeerrrrry slow Internet connection, but hopefully we can post these pics from our Kili adventure!
Up on top of Kilimanjaro, with our guides Philbit (left) and Said.
Mr. Tom, party of 11! The whole crew that helped us up the mountain. They were great guys, even if they never did get Sarah's name. [Try to find the cook. He looks like Akon. Answer to follow.]
Up on top of Kilimanjaro, with our guides Philbit (left) and Said.
Mr. Tom, party of 11! The whole crew that helped us up the mountain. They were great guys, even if they never did get Sarah's name. [Try to find the cook. He looks like Akon. Answer to follow.]
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