Travel Website Logo
Travel Journal
 
Dan Walker’s Travel Website
Travel Photos

Travel Journal

Live the adventures of Dan Walker's travels through reading his travel journal. The travel journals are listed below in descending order of date. To search the travel journals, use the keyword search at the bottom of the page.

Journal Entry:

Thursday, July 25, 2019 23:59:59

Africa Great Migration, Ireland, England 2019: 6 - Serengeti to Arusha

Thursday, July 18, 2019

Each night the staff build an outdoor fire with camp chairs around it. Last night when the others returned from viewing the Mara River crossings they were really happy. At one crossing they waited three hours seeing nothing, then the excitement as they saw two massed crossings at another point. There were no crocodiles, although in one instance a group of young wildebeest got separated from their mothers, became confused and tried to swim back across the river through the mass of animals going the other way. One drowned in the effort.

Robert had the prices for me to fly back to our final hotel, but they were extremely high. Esteban came up with the idea of removing the back from one of the seats to make leg room, and that worked very well – I could finally sit up straight so think that will serve for the rest of the trip.

Friday, July 19, 2019

This morning we went for my first trip to to the Mara River. The migration crossing points are numbered 1 to 11, and we started at number 4 but there was nothing happening, and number 3 was the same. The fields are full of wildebeest in the thousands, usually in family groupings, but in some areas many families had joined together to ready themselves for the crossing and the animals were so crowded together it was impossible to see ground between them.

We moved to crossing 5 where the animals were already crossing. We spotted a crocodile with a young wildebeest in its mouth, holding it underwater to drown it. A number of animals crossed, but then they stopped, afraid of the crocodile.

Robert felt that the massive herd we spotted near crossing 4 were ready to go, so we returned there and parked near the river bank. He was right, they shortly started to cross in the thousands. At times they would get confused and cross back again, many leaping off an embankment about 20 feet high on the other side. Quite a few would get out of the river, go back to the embankment and jump in again. I got the idea that the water felt so good that they were just playing! By counting the number of successful crossing in 1 minute I figured that in 40 minutes about 7000 crossed with no casualties.

Once they stopped we moved on to crossing 7 and again lucked out. We found a spot with 4 hippopotamus in the water between two sets of rapids. We also spotted a big crocodile before the wildebeest started to cross. The third wildebeest in the group was a mother with a baby, which the crocodile took, biting with the lower jaw under the stomach and the upper jaw on it's back. Shortly after it was pulled underwater to be drown a second crocodile showed up grabbing the baby wildebeest, insisting on sharing the catch. Meantime the rest of the wildebeest kept coming across the river, and the hippopotamus looked on with their eyes just above the water.

We then noticed a giant crocodile working his way up over the rocks through the lower rapids – it was at least 14 feet long, and also had a kill. Gradually the flow of wildebeest stopped as fear of the three crocodiles spread. We sat in our ideal spot to have our box lunch, but there was no more excitement, only the hippos remained in view.

A short while after we left we were able to get very close to a cheetah that was trying to have a nap. It finally gave up and wandered away. The next thing Robert spotted was a wildebeest carcass hanging from a tree, so he knew that it was a leopard kill and that the cat would not be far away. He was right, a short distance away the leopard was sprawled over some branches in a tree, sound asleep. Judging from the stomach he was full and was sleeping off dinner. He completely ignored us.

It truly was quite a day.

Saturday, July 20, 2019

Today we left Mara Under Canvas to drive to Bologanja Under Canvas, about 40 km away. It seemed odd that we moved, as we drove through the same area as we had from the other camp. The deal was the same, food & booze included bucket, showers and helpful, friendly staff. We are getting a bit jaded, as the various deer species, wildebeest and zebras don't even merit slowing down any longer.

We drove to the airport for the third time to use the clean, but not always serviceable, toilets before checking out the river again. We saw no crossings, but after yesterday's mass crossings there were far fewer animals to cross and a lot more on the far side of the river.

We came across a sleepy old lion in the grass near the road, showing us his battle scars from close up. We later came across a herd of 7 elephants with babies, and saw some solitary elephants as well. The box lunch stop was under a shady tree with a beautiful view – we ate in the car.

In the afternoon Robert spotted a leopard kill in a tree, so went after the leopard again. He had a very full stomach, and was sleeping on the thick lower branches of a big tree. After watching him for awhile, Robert drove a short while and found his mate snoozing in another tree.

We arrived at our home for tonight before dark, had a drink each and were taken to our accommodation. Back at camp, after getting some writing done and emails answered, we had a fireside drink and then to bed. Once again, we were all exhausted.

Sunday, July 21, 2019

Breakfast was early today as we have a long drive, so we packed up, loaded the truck and headed out. What a day it turned out to be - we had not driven far before we were surrounded by the largest herds of impala, springbok, and others of the deer family we had seen. Towers of giraffes seemed to be all over the place along with huge herds of zebras. Elephants were also well represented.

A wild dog was running across the savanna putting herds of animals and several ostrich to flight, but he seemed to be on a mission and was not interested in any of the prey. The big cats were also well represented - two female lions posing on the top of a rock were first, then two more very near the road resting in the grass.

A toilet stop was made at the Lobo Airport. Airports in the Serengeti have the best rest rooms. The ones at the gate were pretty bad, and there are very few spots where it is possible to leave the vehicle safely.

Now the cat sightings were coming frequently. A leopard had dragged two gazelle it had killed up into tree, and was standing on a branch feasting on them. Eight lions were sprawled all over each other right by the roadside sleeping - 6 females and two males. Nine elephants walked by a short distance behind them, with the adults keeping a wary eye on the lions as they had two baby elephants with them. We stopped again to photograph 6 female and one male lion sprawled on top of a bare rock.

Nest were two male lions at the base of a tree, one on his back with his legs in the air leaning against the tree trunk sound asleep. Robert spotted a cheetah with a fresh kill in its mouth. Shortly after a female lion with two cubs came walking down the middle of the road, ignoring the half a dozen stopped vehicles with cameras sticking out all over. Robert was certain they were going to attack the cheetah to steal the kill, but after checking it out they just continued between the vehicles coming right beside us to continue down the road. The cheetah had dropped it's prey and was watching the lions very closely, but they weren't interested.

Now we are truly jaded. We passed another group of 6 lions and didn't even stop! After climbing quite high into the mountains we finally got to the Angata Ngorongoro Camp. If you didn't know where this tent camp was it would be tough to find – a tiny nondescript, hand painted sign points to a road with two tire tracks and that leads to the camp. It turned out to be quite well done, with comfortable armchairs in the relaxing lounge area and a well done dining room. The drawbacks were freezing cold weather and they charge for booze.

We were very tired after bumping over hundreds of kilometres of dirt and gravel roads today, but very excited as well. Fortunately this camp provides bush babies, effectively padded hot water bottles, slipped into each bed each night. Layers of cloths with jackets are needed for dinner.

Monday, July 22, 2019

Another early start, this time to climb the rim of the Ngorongoro volcano and descend into the 310 sq. km. Crater – it is 20 km in diameter. We were lucky, as this morning there was very little fog, unlike when we came to the crater's rim at the start of our trip. Once into the crater it was clear, and the sun soon came out.

There were a lot of animals in the crater, including rhinoceros, the only animal on the list Pat had not seen. Robert had assured Pat there were rhinos here – apparently 48 of them, but they are in a protected area where we were not permitted to go, so we never did see one. She was also hoping for close photos of the cape buffalo, no problem as there were many. To add spice to the show two decided to mate near our vehicle.

There were herds of zebra, wildebeest and the various deer species plus a few elephants, often on their own or with one other. We saw a number of jackals and hyenas quite close up. A herd of about a hundred zebra were migrating from one side of the crater to the other.

A caracal cat, sometimes called a Lynx of Persia, came quite close to us. It was the first time any of us had seen one – apparently they live by hunting small species such as mice. There were also a lot of hippopotamus and lions. We had several close encounters with lions with their mates, and in one case a female lion came onto the road where the vehicle of a woman who was there to study lions was parked, and comfortably lay in the shade of her vehicle – apparently the lion knows her. When she drove off the lion moved into the shade of another vehicle much, to the surprise and delight of the people in it.

It was back to the same tent camp tonight. Here I think the program could be improved by having a full service hotel for the last night giving a better opportunity to charge up devices, clean up and repack. The lights in the tent are so dim that seeing anything or reading is not possible – a problem for women putting on makeup. The power does not support hair dryers either, so they were four days without them.

We'd hoped for something special for our going away dinner, but with Robert estimating the temperature at between 2 and 4 degrees Celsius we just ate quickly and went to the warmth of bed A bit of a disappointing ending.

Tomorrow we are off to the airport, where we will separate and fly off in different directions – Esteban to Paris, Patricia to London, Marilynn and I to Frankfurt as part of a gruelling day with 5 connecting flights, hopefully ending in Cornwall, England.

Some suggestions should you be planning a lifetime experience such as this one.

Deal through a well connected travel company, as if something goes wrong outside support may be helpful. My recommendation is Bestway Tours and travel in Vancouver because I have needed help from time to time on the many trips I've booked through them, and they have always been there when needed.

If you do something similar to our itinerary, skip the first hotel. It is close to the airport, so the Predator manager says it is to let people recover from jet lag, but I pointed out that sitting for 6 hours on hard chairs while waiting for others to check out and the rooms to be made up is not exactly helpful. It would have taken only 4 hours to the comfortable Serena hotel at Lake Manyara and make it possible to start the first exciting game drive in the morning.

If you have trouble sitting in an economy class airline seat, have them remove a seat from your safari vehicle, or even the back of one seat as we did in my case, to create a seat with leg room.

Four was a good number for comfort in the vehicle. It seats 7 passengers, but more than 5 would create a very uncomfortable situation, particularly when taking photos in the excitement of seeing animals.

As mentioned, avoid a tent camp for the last night or two, particularity if on the crater rim where it is very cold. There are three hotels located along the rim of the crater including one of the Serena chain. These have a spectacular view of the crater, have good electricity and are heated. It would make a much more pleasant ending to the trip.