December 2021

I was feeling much better the next morning so we were loaded up and out at 630a. We were joined by Hennessy from Germany since the vehicle he was in had broken down. Of course, we stopped off at the giraffe carcass first. There were two male lions watching over things.

Brenda taking pics of me taking pics of lions

Lion #1 hiding in the bushes

He decided to venture out

Lion #2 looking pretty fat and full

The vervet monkeys were having breakfast in the nearby trees.

Next up was an elephant family with some adorable little ones.

They looked like they were trying to figure out how their trunks work.

We made our usual pit stop for food.

And a bathroom break.

Go away bird

Giraffe

Another elephant herd

Baby zebra catching up to his mom

Kudu pair

Baobab tree

Elephants digging down below the surface for water in the river bottom

The baby was a little tired.

Mongoose family

Agama lizard

Dik dik

Giraffe

The aptly named candelabra tree

Warthogs doing what they do...running with their tails up

We came upon a river with actual water in it and followed it for a while

Cape buffalo

There was a group of self-drivers down by the river repeatedly getting in and out of the car.

Apparently they didn't see the four lions watching and stalking them but we did.

Rock hyrax

Impala with yellow-billed hornbill

Kudu crossing

We were able to catch some of the sunset before getting back to camp late around 630p.

I felt up to dinner but I wished I hadn't after eating it. The celery soup, lasagne, and pie left a lot to be desired but then again, we weren't here for the food. It was light's out after dinner and showers.

I woke up feeling like a sinus infection was coming on so I took what I thought was a Claritin and a Mucinex in hopes of staving it off. But because we didn't have any electricity and I was taking pills by flashlight, I ended up taking a Claritin and an Imodium (which wouldn't turn out to be all that helpful). We were in the vehicle and on our way by 630a. It was very cold so Jimmy brought blankets for us to use to wrap our legs and feet. Before getting underway, we stopped off at the giraffe carcass but there was nothing much going on there this morning. A way down the road, we came across two female lions lounging around.

You can see how close the vehicle gets to the animals, which are basically ignoring our existence.

They were kind of, sort of watching this giraffe but they weren't interested enough to do much about it.

We were starting to get hungry so Sudi found a quiet place for us to have breakfast. We stopped and the guys got everything set up for us.

Brenda and I explored the hollow tree while they did so.

The rest of the day was spent encountering an assortment of animals.

Impala

Giraffe

Lilac-breasted roller

More giraffe

Male lion hiding in the bushes

Elephant

Male kudu with his female harem

Fish eagle

Owl

Yet another giraffe

Mom and baby

Saddle-billed stork

Male ostrich

More elephant

Kudu and giraffe

Zebra

Even more elephant

Baboon

By the time we arrived back at camp, I was feeling significantly worse. All I wanted to do was rest. They brought me some juice and I was convinced to gargle salt water (which never works). Brenda went on to dinner by herself and I fell asleep very early to the sounds of the lions roaring around the giraffe carcass.

We both slept really well even though we had to get up at 5a. We stored our luggage at the front desk of the hotel to be picked up after safari. The hotel restaurant was open so we had some made-to-order omelets before leaving.

Our driver took us to the airport but dropped us off at the wrong terminal. We had to pay an extra $20 to find someone to take us to domestic flights where our Safari Link charter would depart. We waited for our 10:30a flight in a separate waiting area where we met Charles and Katie from England. They kept us entertained throughout the day. Even though we had a small plane, we had plenty of room to spread out.

Our pilot, Henry.

We stopped off in Zanzibar and picked up another couple.

We also stopped in Selous and Mikumi, where we had a bathroom break with elephants. A little after 1p we landed in Ruaha and were met at the strip by our guide, Jimmy, and driver, Sudi. The guides had brought us lunch so we headed off to a nearby picnic area. On the way, we ran into some elephants.

Some impala.

And a giraffe.

We arrived at the picnic site and while the guides were setting things up, I looked out over what I assume was a dry, river bottom.

There was an assortment of giraffe, elephants, and baboons coming through for a drink.

After a pasta salad lunch (with Coke Zero for Brenda which she was very excited about), we continued our afternoon game drive.

The guides stopped to show us a sausage tree and its poisonous fruit, which generated a few bad jokes and laughs.

Next we came upon a pair of mating lions taking a short break. Both looked pretty young to be becoming parents.

A self-driver pulled up and apparently oblivious to the lions who were just a few yards away, got out of his vehicle for some reason. Jimmy yelled "Simba" to him to warn him of the lions. He got back in pretty fast.

The lions got tired of us watching them, I guess, so they wandered off for more privacy.

After leaving the lions, we found another herd of elephant with babies.

It would be dark soon and we hadn't checked into camp yet so we decided to head that way. That morning, lions killed a giraffe about 100 yards from camp so we drove by the carcass on the way in. A jackal was scouting it.

But he wasn't going to get anything because one of the lions was hiding in the bushes.

The carcass was not far away.

Jimmy, our guide, on the left and Sudi, our driver, on the right.

We made it back to camp just before dark and were shown to our tent.

Brenda immediately began re-arranging.

Just behind the zipped curtain was our bathroom.

Dinner of chicken, curry green beans, purple cabbage, potatoes, and chocolate raisin cake was served at 8p. We dined outside, by candlelight, at a long table. We could hear the lions roaring and the impala snorting around the giraffe carcass not far away. After dinner, we took our showers and went to bed with hot water bottles at our feet to keep us warm.

Shortly after take off from Doha, we were served a brunch of scrambled eggs, sausage, and potato. I was sitting next to a woman reading the Bible and there was a kid in front of us who screamed for hours. I was able to get a couple of hours of sleep somehow. We had to make a pit stop in Arusha and we were able to get a glimpse of Mt. Kilimanjaro through the clouds. Finally, after about eight hours, we landed in Dar es Salaam.

The airport in Dar had one of the most unorganized Visa processes I've seen. There was no line. They just randomly took your passport and disappeared with it. We both got our passports back with the right Visas so then it was on to currency exchange. Now last time we were in Tanzania, I had a terrible experience where the currency exchange in town stole money from me. So this time, I thought it would be better to do it at the airport. I was wrong. I gave the woman at the counter $1,200 USD. She gave me back Tanzanian money equivalent to $100 USD. What is with people trying to scam me in this country? All three women were behind the counter giggling and laughing. I ended up having to cause a huge scene to get the correct amount of funds.

At least our driver was waiting and he took us to Hotel Slipway down on the waterfront.

We were exhausted and practically falling asleep but we fought the urge to crash.

View from balcony

We walked downstairs to the Waterfront Restaurant for dinner.

It was a relaxing little restaurant with a house band.

They played everything from Kool and the Gang to Kenny Rogers.

We both ordered rum and Cokes. Boy were they stingy on the rum.

For dinner, Brenda had king prawns.

I had grilled octopus.

We hung out for a little bit and watched the locals dance.

Then it was back to the hotel for a re-pack. For safari, we were only allowed 30 lbs of luggage each in soft-sided bags. We brought additional clothes for our time in Dar and Doha so we had to shuffle things around in order to store the extra luggage at the hotel. We finally fell into bed around 11p.

Back to Africa, baby!

As usual, trip planning started a year ago for me and Brenda to return to Africa. Normally, I would choose to visit a different country but Tanzania is so big and there were still some parks I wanted to visit for the first time. The full itinerary:

Thursday, June 13 - Fly to Doha.
Friday, June 14 - Arrive in Doha. Long layover.
Saturday, June 15 - Arrive in Dar and overnight.
Sunday, June 16 - Fly to Ruaha National Park and spend four nights.
Thursday, June 20 - Fly to Katavi National Park and spend four nights.
Monday, June 24 - Fly to Mafia Island and spend five nights.
Saturday, June 29 - Fly back to Dar and overnight.
Sunday, June 30 - Fly back to Doha and spend two nights.
Tuesday, July 2 - Fly home.

A few days before leaving, on Sunday afternoon while I was packing, straight line winds came thru Dallas unexpectedly and knocked out the power. It was a sunny day. There were no storms. It was the weirdest thing. Even more weird was that the power outage and wind damage was city wide. Power at my house did not come back on until Wednesday night. In the meantime, I stayed at my friend Melissa's house so that I could have a/c and light. I was grateful it came back on before leaving so that I didn't have to worry about it.

Because Brenda is sometimes on her own time schedule when it comes to making planes and it was several hundred dollars cheaper per ticket, I decided to drive to Houston so we could fly together. I left about 10a on Thursday morning and met her at our mutual friend's house in Madisonville where she would leave her car. We then made our way to Houston (thru horrendous construction on the highway) and arrived at the airport for our 14 hour flight.

At the Qatar counter checkin, I learned for the first time that our carry-on had a 15lb weight limit. This was a problem since my camera equipment alone was 7lb. So Brenda and I had to do some re-shuffling of things between us but we finally got the problem solved.

We grabbed some dinner at the airport and boarded our flight. Unfortunately, Qatar changed our seat assignments from two aisle seats across from each other to two seats in the middle of a five across. I was not pleased. Luckily, after a dinner of beef peppercorn and potatoes au gratin and two movies, I was still able to get 6-7 hours of sleep.

We arrived in Doha the next day at 5p local time. We breezed thru immigration and currency exchange and our hotel transfer was waiting outside. We stopped in a very busy shopping area at a drug store to get some Flonase for Brenda and arrived at our hotel, the St. Regis, at 730p.

Bathroom entrance

Some very dry snacks waiting in the room for us.

We both needed a shower before dinner but it took the hotel almost 45 minutes to deliver our luggage to the room. We should have done it ourselves. So we had to settle for just changing clothes and sprucing up.

We were in Doha at the hottest time of the year. At 8p, it was still 102 degrees outside.

We had an 830p reservation downstairs at Restaurant Opal, a Gordon Ramsay restaurant and our reason for staying at the St. Regis. It was freezing cold inside the restaurant which was basically empty.

We started with a sushi appetizer which we shared.

Brenda had seared fish.

I had beef wellington, the restaurant's specialty.

The food was ok, not to the caliber I was expecting and service was beyond slow. Or maybe we were just tired and cranky after such a long travel day(s).

After dinner we walked along the pool area and admired the view.

It was around midnight when we fell into bed. We had a 9a flight but a 6a airport pick up. I didn't sleep at all. Our neighbors talked all night long and at 4a, the alarm went off playing Arab music so loud it could have waked the dead. We couldn't figure out how to turn it off so we had to unplug it. I hope it woke up the noisy neighbors.

I got some departing pictures in the daylight just before our driver whisked us away to the airport.

We found an open breakfast place at the airport and Brenda ordered french toast.

I ordered eggs benedict which came with guacamole and asparagus which was...weird...but ok.

We boarded our flight and then it was off to Tanzania!