We went on a wonderful eight-day long safari in Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. Plus we stopped over in Dubai for a few days and visited some other places. All together we were traveling for 15 days and went halfway around the world. It was the trip of a lifetime. We took thousands of photos and hours of video during the trip. On this page I am going to try to present some of the highlights culled from that massive amount of media. This page will be a work in progress for a while. I'll continue adding more material as time permits. Check back in the future to see what's been added lately.

This page will start with the animals, people and places we saw in Africa. Click here to skip to the section on Dubai.

Here is a photo of a male lion resting in the shade. He's all tired out. He just stampeded away a heard of several thousand wildebeest just by walking out into the open. After they all vanished over the horizon there was nothing left for him to do but go back to resting and waiting. We got within about 20 feet of him and he paid us no notice at all. The lions totally ignored us for the most part. They knew we were no threat to them, and they couldn't get at us in the safari truck. So we were essentially beneath their notice. It's good to be the king.

Africa

Big Animals

Cape Buffalo

Cape buffalo are one of the so-called big five iconic African animals. They are huge animals, easily weighing more than a ton with huge horns. They are also among the most dangerous animals in Africa. They may look kind of like cows, but there is nothing domestic about them. Here a mother cape buffalo is standing between us and her calf and eyeing us suspiciously.

A magnificent old bull cape buffalo in the tall grass, with an ox pecker bird on its back. It's just a huge animal, and those horns are immense.

Here is a video of a large herd of cape buffalo slowly wondering by us. There are some nursing babies in the group. The video also shows off long views of this very lovely area of the Serengeti.

Elephant

African elephants. Is there a more iconic animal? One of the big five. The animals everyone loves and really wants to see. We saw lots of elephants. I was frankly amazed at how many elephants were wondering around the Serengeti. I had the impression they were going to be rare and hard to find before going there. Not so. The elephant population, at least in the areas we traveled through, seems to be quite large. We saw lots of babies and juvenile elephants too. So they seem to be reproducing at a good rate. That's really great. They are amazing animals. We spent a lot of time watching them as they went about their business.

This female elephant is missing a tusk. Our guide suspected she likely broke it off while using it for digging. He said it could possibly grow back as long as the root wasn't damaged.

I lost count of how many large herds of elephants we saw. The herds usually consist of adult females and juveniles of both sexes. The herds are led by a big old matriarch female. They run off the males when they get to 12 or 13 years old because they start getting too aggressive and are a danger to the babies in the herd. The males congregate in bachelor herds or roam solitary. We saw a few solitary big old bull male elephants, but they were always too far away to get good photos. We also saw one group of young adult males. We saw a lot of elephants.

Here is a video of a large group of elephants coming down to the Mara river for a morning drink, and then deciding to cross the river. We first spotted the elephants far away on the far side of the river, coming out of the trees. They slowly meandered their way down to the river, eating as they went. Then we got lucky enough to see them cross. This video is about nine minutes long, but it is several short segments edited together taken as we watched the elephants slowly make their way down to, and across the river. We watched them for a long time. They were amazing to watch as they did their thing, totally free and wild. So much more interesting than animals in zoos. Even our guide who has been doing this for 15 years was quite excited to see such a large group of elephants cross the river.

Giraffe

Giraffes are another of the iconic animals of Africa. Boy did we see a lot of giraffes. Unlike most of the animals on this page, we saw giraffes even well outside of the wildlife parks. Just about anywhere there were acacia trees and it's not too urban, there were giraffes. We started seeing them our first day in the bush while we were visiting archaeological sites and Maasai villages, long before even getting to the Serengeti proper. We saw giraffes from the little bush planes we took hopping from airstrip to airstrip. We saw them beside the airstrips while taking off and landing, and we saw them from the air while flying over the bush. Giraffes are just about everywhere, but they don't congregate in large numbers like a lot of other animals. you'll see them in ones and twos. I think five in the same general area was about the biggest group of giraffes we ever saw. However, they were so common that you might see some in the backgrounds of some of the other photos in this page if you look closely.

Hippo

Here is a video of a group of hippos tustling and fighting in a tributary of the Mara River. We watched them for a long time as they continually pushed and shoved each other and jockeyed for position. I guess it was probably all about dominance and who is the boss and establishing the pecking order.

Hippos are really smelly animals. You can usually smell them long before you see them. Slow moving streams with lots of hippos in them get clogged with lots of hippo dung. What a smelly mess.

Here we saw a group of hippos out of the water at midday. That is sort of unusual. The hippos usually stay in the water during the heat of the day and come out at night to feed on grass. It was nice to be able to get a look at them out of the water.

Here is a photo of a scarred up old hippo out of the water. It was early morning and not all the hippos had returned to the water yet after feeding on grass all night. This old fellow is just covered with scars on his flanks. After seeing how the hippos constantly seem to tustle and fight in the water, I know how he got all those scars.

Predators

Cheetah

Here is a cheetah sitting on top of a termite mound and surveying the plains for something to hunt. Our first day in Serengeti National Park was very productive. We were barely through the entrance gate and we saw our first lions, a spotted hyena, an eagle, and then a little further down the road, this cheetah. And all that was in like the first hour in the park. We were actually quite lucky to see this cheetah. They are among the rarest of the the big cats. It was just sitting there, surveying the horizon for something to catch for lunch. It was totally unconcerned about us and happily posed for lots of photos.

Crocodile

Ok, I know there is a separate reptiles section on this page. However, I am putting the Nile Crocodiles here in the predators section after seeing a monster croc take down a nearly full grown wildebeest like it was nothing. The wildebeest was nearly the size of a cow and the croc opened it's jaws as wide as a barn door and took it down in a heartbeat. That crock must be 4-5 meters long. It was an absolute monster.

Here is a photo of four huge Nile Crocodiles basking on the shore of the Mara River in Tanzania. Trust me on this. You really, really don't want to go swimming in the Mara River.

Fox

Here is a bat-eared fox. Unfortunately we only saw one of these cute little foxes, and this is the best photo we got of it.

Hyena

A spotted hyena hiding in the shade under a bush. We were barely through the gate of Serengeti national Park and had stopped to get a photo of an eagle in a tree when our guide spotted the hyena in its hiding place.

Here is a nice close-up of a spotted hyena. We heard hyenas all night every night while in our tents. We only rarely saw them during the day.

One morning our guide suggested we get an early start and get out in the bush before dawn. He said we'd see things we don't ordinarily see during the heat of the day. We could also enjoy seeing sunrise on the Serengeti and have a picnic breakfast in the bush. It was an irresistible offer. So we got up before dawn and hurriedly got ready to go. We bundled into his safari truck and hit the Serengeti before dawn. Sunrise was magnificent.

We were looking for a good picnic spot for breakfast when a spotted hyena came running across our path in a really big hurry to get somewhere. We could also hear some kind of commotion off in the far distance in the bush. Our guide said we should follow the hyena and it would likely lead us to something interesting. So we turned off the road and went crashing through the bush, following the hyena and trying to keep it in sight. We had to stop and look and listen a couple of times as we lost sight of him in the bush. Eventually it led us to a bunch of other hyenas feeding at a wildebeest kill. There were also black-backed jackals and lots of vultures at the kill. We watched the animals thoroughly dismember the wildebeest for quite a while.

There were a lot of other hyenas about that don't show up in the video. They were circling around at a goodly distance forming a perimeter around the kill. They had likely already eaten their fill and we were seeing the late arrivals eating the leftovers. The hyenas have incredibly powerful jaws. We could hear them cracking open the bones to get at the marrow. Jackals would dart in and snatch a piece here and there. Our guide suspected that lions had originally killed the wildebeest and the hyenas and jackals came across the remains after the lions left. They kept looking around as if afraid the lions would come back. A couple of times they got spooked and ran off for a few minutes before returning. While they were gone the vultures would take the opportunity to pounce on the carcass.

Jackal

Here is a black-backed jackal. They are about the size of a fox or small dog. They are some of the handsomest animals we saw. We only rarely saw them though.

Here is a photo of a couple more black-backed jackals. I think they were some of the cutest animals we saw in Africa.

Leopard

Our guide knew the leopard was hiding somewhere in an area of large rocks and boulders called a kopje. We drove around looking for him for an hour before finally spotting him. He was well hidden, on top of a rock and in the dark shade of a sausage tree. He was only visible from one place through a gap in the surrounding rocks, and really only noticeable when he moved. This was our initial view of him when our guide first spotted him. Then we pulled out the telephoto lenses.

Here's a really great photo of the leopard my fiancee took. It was just sitting there in the shade, without a care in the world. We took lots of photos. Leopards are elusive. We didn't know if we'd see any more.

We were driving down a road in Serengeti National Park and saw some other safari trucks stopped and people were looking up in a sausage tree. We stopped too and looked and saw what they were looking at. It was a leopard sleeping up in the tree. It was barely visible. We could just see some of it's spots through the leaves and flowers.

After we got a few photos of the above leopard in the tree, we took off down the road again. After a short distance our guide hit the brakes and put the truck in reverse. "I think I saw something red up in that tree," he said. He pulled out his binoculars, looked, and then backed the truck up further so we could see. About three trees away from the sleeping leopard we found his larder. He had dragged a dead Thompson's gazelle up into the tree and had been feeding on the carcass.

Lion

Here is a brief video of a male lion. We only saw two male lions on the whole eight day safari, and this is the only one we got a close look at and decent pictures of. We had been waiting for hours for a huge herd of thousands of wildebeest to start crossing the river. More and more were pouring into a small area on the river bank and the pressure of their sheer numbers would have eventually pushed them to start crossing. Then this old boy broke cover and trotted out into the open. Thousands of wildebeest turned tail and ran for the horizon in a huge stampede. Leaving behind an empty plain and a big dust cloud. With nothing left for him to hunt, he laid down in the shade and let us tourists get within 20 feet of him to get some closeup photos.

This video was shot very close to the Kogatende Airstrip. That explains the loud aircraft noise in the background and the presence of other vehicles. Kogatende Airstrip is a dirt airstrip deep in the bush. It's the airstrip we flew out of the next day after this video was shot. There were several hops from airstrip to airstrip in tiny, rugged bush planes on this trip.

Here's a sweet photo of a group of three lionesses and a kitten. I have video of this family group too. See below.

Here's a video of the above three lionesses and a kitten. A really cute family group. Later one of the lionesses got up and walked a short distance away and laid down in the tall grass becoming completely invisible. This was a pattern we saw several times among groups of lions. Several would be lazing away in the open, seemingly without a care, but there would be one well hidden, awake and alert nearby, watching.

Here is a photo of a lioness who walked over to our safari truck and allowed us to get some really good photos of her. I don't think she was actually interested in us. She appeared to want to see what was going on out of view behind our truck. After scanning the savanna behind us, she walked back to where she was and laid down.

Our guide described it as "a pile of lions" sleeping the day away in the shade. This photo shows three lions sleeping out in the open. Nearby there were too more, and a little further away another three, and those are just the ones we saw. No doubt there were more. It was quite a large pride.

My fiancee got a really great close-up shot of one of the sleeping lions. I really like this picture.

As we saw other times with lions, while most would be sleeping out in the open, seemingly without a care, there would be one hidden somewhere, awake and alert, and watching. As we moved the safari truck away from the above sleeping "pile of lions," we spotted the guard lion hiding nearby, down in the creek. She was invisible to us until we moved.

One question I get a lot from people is, "How close did you get to the lions?" This photo should help answer that question. Mary took this photo of me taking a photo of a lion out the safari truck window. Note that I am using my phone to take the picture, not my Nikon camera with the big, long telephoto lens. Don't get me wrong, the telephoto lens got used a lot, but often we were very close to the animals, and not just the lions. Most of the animals completely ignored our presence. Elephants, zebras, wildebeest, many kinds of antelope and lions often walked right past our safari truck so close we could (almost) reach out and touch them. If we stayed parked in one place for a while, and stayed quiet and still, the animals would go about their business around us as if we weren't even there.

Of all the animals, I think only the lions were ever so slightly annoyed by our presence, and then only because our safari truck blocked their view. They'd occasionally have to get up and walk around us to have a good look around the savanna behind our truck. The lions may seem lazy, but they liked to be aware of their surroundings, especially if there were kittens in the pride.

Mongoose

We saw mongoose on several occasions. Unfortunately they were always far away and running away from us. So we never got any good photos of them, or even really figured out which species of the four or five found in Africa that they were.

Grazers

Dik-dik

A pair of dik-diks hiding in the shade of a bush. Dik-diks are tiny little antelope, about the size of small dogs. They are almost always seen in mated male/female pairs. They were quite shy and usually ran off into the bush before we could get good photos of them.

Here is a close-up of a dik-dik. We saw a lot of dik-diks, but never in large groups. I think the largest group of dik-diks we saw was only three.

Eland

Here is a photo of a group of Common Eland. Eland's are very large antelope. From a distance they greatly resemble cattle, but are true antelope.

Here is a photo of an Eland that shows the vertical stripes on its flanks and spiral horns. It also has a bunch of ox pecker birds riding on its back.

Grant's Gazelle

The Grant's gazelle is a medium size antelope. They are fairly common, but not as common as the smaller Thompson's gazelle. The Grant's were almost always mixed in with the more numerous Thompson's. I think every photo we have of Grant's gazelles has a Thompson's or two in it.

Here is a photo of two male Grant's gazelles on the right with a female Thopmson's on the left.

Here is a photo of a mixed herd of Grant's and Thompson's gazelles. The Grant's are in the foreground. The main difference between the two species aside from the Grant's being larger, is that they also lack the prominent black stripe that the Thompson's have on their sides.

Both species prefer the open, short grass areas of the Serengeti. They follow behind the herds of larger migrating animals as they crop the long grass short.

Hartebeest

Here is a pair of Hartebeest, another large species of antelope. From a distance their ears look like a second set of horns. We didn't get very many close-up photos of Hartebeest, even though we saw a lot of them. They were always just a little too far away to get good pictures. Fortunately Mary saw an opportunity and snapped this great close-up photo of a pair of them.

Impala

Impalas are medium-size antelope. They live in groups of either one dominant mail and a large harem of females, or groups of bachelor males with no harem. We saw both kinds of groups. Here is a magnificent male impala. Below is a photo of his harem of females. The impalas tended to be rather shy and and to keep their distance from us. We were lucky to get so close to this fellow to get such a good photo.

Here is a harem of female impalas belonging to the above male. The females we saw usually wouldn't get too close to us and usually didn't stray too far from cover.

Klipspringer

Klipspringers are small antelope, about the size of Dik-diks or small dogs. They have hooves specialized for climbing on rocks. Klipspringers are almost always seen standing on rocks. We didn't see many klipspringers since they are mostly nocturnal animals.

Here is a close-up of a klipspringer standing on a rock. I don't think we ever saw one that wasn't standing on a rock. They must come down to graze sometime.

Steenbok

Steenboks are another species of small antelope, about the size of a Dik-dik or a small dog. We saw a few of these very cute antelope, usually laying in the grass and pretty much ignoring us.

Thomson's gazelle

Thompson's gazelles are small antelope, a little larger than Dik-diks, with longer legs. Thompson's are among the most numerous of all the antelope. We saw them in huge herds, as well as just small groups of only a few animals. They prefer the open, short, dry grass areas of the Serengeti, likely so they can more easily see any predators creeping up on them. They follow behind other larger migrating animals who crop the grass short for them. They are the last migrating animals to arrive an an area, and the last to leave.

Here is a photo of a large herd of Thompson's gazelles, with a few Grants gazelles mixed in, as usual. The herd was immense, stretching from horizon to horizon right to left. The photo only shows a small part of the whole herd. That was a problem with trying to photograph some of the large herds of animals we saw, especially Thompson's and wildebeest. The herds were so immense that there was no way to adequately document the size with our cameras. We just tried to take it all in with our eyes.

Topi

Here is a photo of a mother topi with a baby. Topis are large antelope. They were fairly common most places we went, but did not congregate in large herds.

Here is a herd of topis drinking at a river with a baboon walking through the background. This is about the largest group of topis we saw.

Warthog

We saw quite a few warthogs. They were usually in small groups of two to three. They get their names from large, wart-like protrusions below their eyes and on their snouts. Our guide thought they were among the ugliest animals in Africa. I personally think they are kind of cute.

Here is probably our best close-up photo of a warthog. It is a big male with impressive tusks for fending off predators. You can see the wart-like protrusions below their eyes and on their snouts that give them their name.

Kneeling while grazing is a trait of warthogs. Our guide called it the Bishop Position. Warthogs have another interesting trait. When they run they hold their long skinny tails perfectly erect like radio antennas. We tried and tried to get good shots of that, but none of us succeeded.

Here is a photo of a mama warthog and two little babies.

Waterbuck

I think we all agreed that the waterbucks were the handsomest of all the antelope. They have really pretty coats and coloration, and the most perfect lyre-shaped horns.

Wildebeest

If the waterbuck is the handsomest antelope, the wildebeest has to be the homeliest. What they lack in beauty they more than make up for in sheer numbers. There are an estimated three million of them wondering around the Serengeti. Their herds stretch from horizon to horizon.

Here is a close-up view of a wildebeest. They have long white beards below their necks, and long black manes on top of their necks. There is not much difference between males and females. The wildebeest pretty much all looked alike.

Wildebeest congregate together in huge herds. This photo shows just a few animals of a herd that stretches to the horizon. We sat in one place and watched the this one herd walk by for maybe an hour, and there was no sign of an end to it.

During the hottest part of the day the wildebeest will congregate together under trees and in whatever shade they can find. Every tree will have a bunch of wildebeest under it.

As the wildebeest migrate across the Serengeti in search of fresh grass, they come to obstacles like the Mara River. The wildebeest will pile up on the edge of the river until the sheer pressure of their numbers pushes them to start crossing. Sometimes they cross a few at a time. sometimes they cross hundreds or thousands at a time in a huge stampede.

The reason for our stay at Mara River and the timing our our visit was specifically to try to see the wildebeest crossing. We got lucky. Our timing was perfect. We caught several large crossings.

This photo gives you some small idea of the sheer numbers of wildebeest that were crossing the river. They crossed at multiple points. Sometimes in small groups, sometimes in thousands. Sometimes they walked or swam across calmly. Sometimes they crossed in a massive, frenzied stampede that raised huge clouds of dust and sent water spraying off in all directions.

Here is a video of a group of Wildebeest crossing the Mara River in Tanzania. Watch to the end for a big surprise. Hint: not all the wildebeest make it safely to the other side.

Click on this photo to see a full-screen version of it. All those little dots are wildebeest. There are thousands of them in this one photo, and this photo only shows a small part of the immense herd that was forming up on the other side of the river. It literally stretched from horizon to horizon to the left and right of where this photo is centered.

Zebra

Here is a photo of a lone zebra. We saw thousands of zebras, singularly, in small groups and in huge herds. Something about this photo of a lone zebra in front of a lone acacia tree just grabs me. I really like it.

Here is a photo of a female zebra and a couple of colts. Notice that the young zebras have brown stripes. They don't darken to black until they mature.

This photo shows a mixed herd of zebras and wildebeest. Zebras and wildebeest intermingle frequently. There are usually a whole lot more wildebeest though.

Here is a video of a herd of zebras and wildebeest drinking at the edge of the Mara River in Tanzania. Our guide explained that the zebras and wildebeest have a symbiotic relationship, and are often found in mixed herds. The zebras like to eat tall grass. The wildebeest like to eat shorter grass so they follow behind as the zebras crop the grass shorter. Also the wildebeest have better hearing than the zebras, but the zebras have better eyesight than the wildebeest. So they complement each other when watching and listening for danger. Our guide also said that Zebras are better at finding water. So the wildebeest follow them to the water sources. We almost always saw zebras and wildebeest together or at least in close proximity.

Monkey

Vervet Monkey

We started seeing vervet monkeys our first day in Africa. They were all over at the Rivertrees resort where we spent our first night. Once we left civilization and went into the Serengeti, they were there too. We pretty much saw them everywhere in Tanzania except in the middle of towns and cities.

Here is one of the many vervet monkeys we saw out on the Serengeti.

A vervet monkey jumping between branches.

A group of four vervet monkeys grooming each other up in a tree.

Olive Baboon

We started seeing baboons as soon as we left the Arusha area and started getting into the wild. We saw lots of baboons. Never large groups, but a lot of small groups of baboons all over the rural areas of Tanzania. They weren't just in the wildlife parks.

Here is a photo of a mother baboon with a baby riding on her back in what is known as the jockey position.

Another photo of a mother baboon with a baby.

Birds

Grey-backed Fiscal

My Fiancee is a real bird nut. So bird spotting and watching was always going to be a big part of this trip. I said several times that this trip seemed more like a birding safari with a few other animals thrown in. I actually enjoyed seeing all the different birds of the Serengeti too.

One day when we stopped in the shade of an acacia tree and had a box lunch, this fellow sat on a branch above us for the longest time. We got to get lots of nice photos of him.

African Fish Eagle

Here is a shot of an African Fish Eagle sitting on a thorny acacia tree with an antelope in the background. This shot is a pretty extreme zoom, since the eagle was far away. So it isn't as clear as I'd like. We saw a couple of these magnificent eagles. We all remarked on how similar they seemed in coloration to American Bald Eagles.

Flamingos

We saw this flock of pink flamingos on one of the alkali lakes of the Rift Valley.

Guinea Fowl

We saw a lot of these helmeted Guinea fowl all over Tanzania. There were groups of them almost everywhere we went.

Kori bustard

Kori Bustards are the largest flying bird in Africa. We started seeing them as soon as we got away from the towns and out into rural areas.

Lilac-breasted Roller

A very pretty and colorful little bird.

Marabou Stork

We saw quite a few Marabou Storks. Turns out they are carrion eaters. They flocked to the Mara River for the same reason we did, for the wildebeest migration. They will eat well on the carcasses of dead wildebeest. Wherever there were vultures eating something dead, there were usually some Marabou Storks there too trying to get a piece of the action.

Ostrich

Here is a photo of a female ostrich. Ostriches were surprisingly (to me) common on the Serengeti. I wasn't expecting to see so many of them. We started seeing them our first day on the Serengeti, and saw a lot of them. They were usually in groups of two at the most. Sometimes we only saw individuals, but there were usually some ostriches around whenever we were out on the open plains.

Here is a photo of a pair of female ostriches who walked by our safari truck.

Here is a photo of a male ostrich putting on its mating display.

Owl

Here is a photo of a group of three sleeping owls we saw in a tree as we were getting ready to leave Rivertrees Resort. One of the porters carrying luggage pointed them out to us.

Oxpecker

Here is a photo of a group of yellow-billed oxpeckers riding on the back of an eland. We saw a lot of oxpeckers, but unfortunately didn't get any good close-up photos of any. They were present wherever there were big animals. They clean ticks and other parasites from the animals.

Red-Cheeked Cordon Blue

Here is a photo of a red-cheeked cordon bleu. This cute little bird flitted around in a bush beside our tent at Mara River. Leslie and Mary were desperate to try to get a decent photo of it. They tried and tried, but it was too fast and was always on the wrong side of the bush. It was kind of comical to watch. This is the best photo they got of it.

Red-Necked Spur Fowl

Here is a photo of a red-necked spurfowl. Unfortunately it is facing away from us and the photo doesn't show its bright red neck, but we do get to see its red legs, beak and area around the eyes.

Secretary Bird

We saw a couple of secretary birds while we were in Tanzania. This is my best photo of one. Wish I could have gotten some better photos.

Superb Starling

Superb starlings are very colorful and common birds. We saw lots of them all over the place. They are very pretty birds we never got tired of seeing.

Tawny Eagle

One of the first animals we saw after entering Serengeti National Park was this tawny eagle on top of a tree full of old weaver nests.

Vulture

A lappet-faced African vulture picking over an old carcass.

A feeding frenzy of vultures attacking a wildebeest carcass after the hyenas who had been feeding on it left.

Weavers

We saw a lot of weaver nests in trees. Different species make different shaped nests. These particular nests were made by Baglafecht weavers. Unfortunately we did not see any weavers of that particular species. It was not nesting season for the weavers. Most of the nests we saw were old and falling apart. A few were still in good condition.

White-headed Buffalo Weaver

Here is a photo of a weaver bird we did see. This is a white-headed buffalo weaver. A very pretty little bird. There were quite a lot of them at one place where we stopped to have a picnic lunch on our way to Ronjo Camp.

Reptiles

Leopard Tortoise

A large and colorful leopard tortoise all tucked up inside its shell. This one was about the size of a soccer ball.

Agama agama

We saw a lot of these pretty red and blue Agama agama lizards. They are also known as Spiderman lizards. There is nothing in the photo to give it scale, but these are quite large lizards. We saw several at least a foot long.

Insects

Army Ants

We came across this line of army ants crossing a gravel road in Rivertrees. It was like a living river of ants that flowed across the road, carving it's own mini canyon through the gravel. The number of ants was amazing. The line went for as far as we could see through the undergrowth on each side of the road. Bits and pieces of dismembered insects and small animals flowed along the stream, carried by the ants. It was an impressive, and a little bit scary sight. We couldn't help but wonder what would happen if army ants got into our bungalow.

You can see in this photo how the stream of ants has meandered back and forth across the road, just like a river meanders across its flood plain. There are even cutoff oxbow arcs, just like with a meandering river. The same fundamental patterns found in nature repeat in different ways and at different scales.

Here is a close-up of the stream of army ants crossing the road. There were huge soldier ants guarding the edges of the stream, and uncountable numbers of small worker ants flowing along the stream. The bits of gravel (boulder sized to the ants) were pushed aside to make a clear path. Watching them was a mesmerizing sight.

Termites

This is a photo of a termite mound at Ronjo Camp. There were thousands of termite mounds all across the Serengeti. This is a small one we got a good look at inside one of the camps we stayed in. By mass alone, termites probably out-weigh all the large animals roaming the Serengeti, even though individually they are tiny, there are millions living in each large mound.

Out on the flat areas of the Serengeti termite mounds can be the highest point for miles around. We often saw animals standing on them to get a better view. Here a cheetah is using one to survey the landscape for something to hunt. We also saw grazers standing on them watching for predators trying to sneak up on them in the tall grass.

Tsetse fly

Fortunately we did not see any tsetse flies. They are very dangerous and can carry African Sleeping Sickness. We were warned to wear long sleeves and long pants and wear insect repellent with DEET to prevent getting bitten by them, as well as to keep malaria carrying mosquitoes away from us. This photo shows a tsetse fly trap hung on a tree near a populated area. Tsetse flies are attracted to the black and blue fabric, which has been treated with an insecticide. We were also warned not to wear dark colored clothing, especially not black or dark blue.

Acacia Trees

This is a photo of an umbrella acacia tree, the iconic tree of the Serengeti. We saw them by the millions. They provide food, shelter and shade for many of the animals of the Serengeti. This particular acacia tree is also providing honey. The Maasai people make beehives out of hollow logs and hang them in the acacia trees. The trees are absolutely covered in little yellow flowers at certain times of the year. Acacia trees near populated areas will often have one or several of these simple beehives hung under them. I got a taste of the fresh acacia honey. It is a very clear and light pale yellow, almost colorless honey. It was absolutely delicious. I bought some acacia honey after I got home. I like to put it in my morning tea as a little taste reminder of my time in Africa.

As well as the common umbrella acacias, we also saw a lot of whistling acacias. The whistling acacias are interesting in that they have hollow galls at the base of their thorns and a symbiotic species of biting ants that lives in the galls. Between the thorns and the biting ants, the whistling acacia is well protected from grazers. They get their name from a whistling sound that can sometimes be heard as the wind blows across the openings in their hollow galls, just like blowing across the top of a bottle can make a whistling sound. This time of year the whistling acacias had dropped their leaves and were all barren.

As well as umbrella and whistling acacias, we also saw lots of yellow fever acacias, and Madagascar acacias. The acacias are the most common trees of the Serengeti and surrounding lands.

Sausage Tree

Sausage trees got their name from the long fruits hanging from them that look for all the world like sausages hanging in a butcher's window. Sausage trees are favorites for leopards to hide in because of their thick and sturdy branches and dense foliage. We always looked closely at any sausage trees we passed for leopards or their kills which they drag up into trees.

Candelabra Tree

Candelabra trees are a very unique looking trees. We saw quite a few of them in Tanzania.

Boabab Tree

Boabab trees are very funny looking trees. A lot of people think they look like they are upside-down, with their roots in the air. This time of year there were no leaves on the tree. Here Leslie and I are standing in front of one we passed on the way to Ngorongoro.

Oldupai

Olduvai Gorge get's it's name from a misunderstanding and mispronunciation of the name of this plant. A western naturalist traveling through the area asked the local Maasai what the name of the gorge was. They thought he was asking the name of the plant. He mispronounced the name anyway, and the rest is history. Oldupai is a tough, fibrous, succulent plant that retains water and is chewed by some animals during dry spells for the moisture. It also has some medicinal properties, and is used for both cordage and for making bandages by the local people. It grows in very dense thickets in places. The Maasai often use the center of dense and nearly impenetrable thickets of oldupai as natural corals for their livestock to protect them from predators.

Our Guide Gilly

Maasai

Here is a photo of Mary and Leslie with a couple of our Maasai security guards. Each of the safari camps we stayed at hired Maasai warriors to act as security. The camps were out in the middle of the Serengeti and surrounded by wild animals, with no fences. It's a prefect recipe for for getting dumb tourists like us eaten by various predators. So the Massai warriors act as security. They patrol the perimeter of the camps at night and run off any animals creeping into camp. There are whistles in each tent we could blow in an emergency and the Maasai would come running to help. If we had to leave our tents for any reason after dark, they would escort us wherever we needed to go. It gave us peace of mind and allowed us to sleep soundly with only a sheet of canvass between us and lions roaring and hyenas laughing out in the bush all night long.

These Maasai walked 30 km from their village to work security at our camp. They had to sleep rough out on the Serengeti on the way. Armed with only their clubs and a short sword, they can survive indefinitely in the bush and take on just about any animal threat. They are utterly fearless and absolute masters of the bush.

The Maasai wear very colorful clothing. Some people might think it's all just to impress the tourists. But then you are a hundred miles from anywhere out in the bush in a safari truck and come across a group of Maasai herding their donkeys or cattle or goats, and just going about their normal lives, and they are dressed the same way. It's not just for the tourists. The clothing they wear is amazingly comfortable and practical. It protects them from the sun and the wind. The bright colors make them visible from far away out on the Serengeti (Serengeti is a Maasai word for endless plains). We were surprised to learn there are approximately 45,000 Maasai living in the Serengeti area. No matter how far out into the back of beyond we got, we kept seeing Maasai.

We'd be miles from anywhere out in the most rugged bush, thinking we are the only people around, and a couple of Maasai boys would appear out of nowhere wanting to talk to us, or a Maasai man would drive a herd of cattle past us. It happened again and again. The only place they aren't allowed to live is in some of the wildlife parks. They are totally fearless and intimately familiar with the landscape and animals. They may carry a spear or a club with them and they all have these little short swords with them, plus the clothes on their backs. And with those alone they can live indefinitely in the bush and handle anything they might meet up with.

We visited a Maasai village and almost everyone in the village turned out to sing us a welcome song. Note the giraffes walking through the trees in the background as they are singing. Sorry about all the wind noise on the video. It was a windy morning.

A Maasai firemaking demonstration. The Maasai wanted to show us how they make fire in the bush using only a couple of sticks and some dried donkey dung. It is an impressive demonstration of bushcraft. Note that one of the Maasai men is wearing a wristwatch. Some of them also carry cell phones. We had to check our phones. Surprisingly we had a signal in this area. They still live in wattle and daub huts in the middle of nowhere, and have to walk everywhere they go in sandals made from old tires, and carry drinking water from huge distances, but they do have a few modern conveniences.

Rivertrees Resort

Our first night in Africa was spent at the Rivertrees resort, just outside Arusha, Tanzania. Rivertrees was just a beautiful place. It is a former coffee plantation. Coffee plants require shade, hence all the large trees. The guest bungalows were very nice and comfortable, and the food was fantastic. It was our last taste of civilization for a week. The next morning we met up with our guide and headed out into the bush.

Driving through Arusha Tanzania

I shot this video as we drove through the chaotic traffic of downtown Arusha Tanzania. You may think the traffic is bad and the drivers are crazy where you live, but I can almost guarantee Africa is worse. The traffic in Dar es Salaam was amazingly chaotic too. I'm very glad we had local drivers on this trip. Driving on the left side of the road would be confusing enough without having to deal with the utter chaos and lawlessness on the roads.

Shanga

One place we all wanted to see was Shanga. Shanga is a workshop that teaches disabled people valuable skills so they can support themselves. The workshop sells the various crafts the staff makes to fund the operation. It's a neat place. They do weaving, glass blowing, bead making, clothing tailoring, papercrafts and jewelry making, among other things, mostly from recycled materials. We spent a very interesting and educational couple of hours there.

Here is a brief video of some of the weaving that goes on at Shanga using the manual looms. You have to be able to keep different rhythms with your hands and feet to run one of these looms. These operators would probably make good rock drummers.

Here one of the Shanga Staff explains the loom bobbin winding operation to my fiancee. They had two people furiously winding bobbins just as fast as they could, but they couldn't keep up with the three looms that were running. The looms would use up an entire bobbin of thread on their shuttles in less than a minute of operation. The loom operators had to keep stopping and waiting for bobbins to be wound. The winders were home-made from bicycle parts, and worked very well and quickly. They could have just used more of them.

As a glass worker myself, I particularly wanted to see Shanga because of the glass working they do there. They do glassblowing and glass beadmaking using recycled glass, and even recycled cooking oil to power their furnaces. Here is a short video of bead making. I watched this fellow for the longest time as he made beads of all shapes and sizes using very simple tools. I may just have to build myself a bead furnace and try this out for myself.

One thing that really interested me was the glass blowing at Shanga. I've been to a fair number of glass studios over the years. What always amazes me about the process is how low-tech it is. So it's no surprise they can do it in Africa with very basic equipment. They turn out a lot of really lovely glassware here using the most simple and basic equipment, from recycled bottle glass. It was fascinating to watch, and they even let me try my hand at it. It was very educational and tons of fun. I bought a few pieces of Shanga glassware, and somehow managed to get them home intact after lugging them all over Africa and on half a dozen plane flights.

As I said above, I got to try my hand at glass blowing too, something few studios in the west would ever do for liability reasons. It was great fun, even though I didn't make anything useful. I learned something, and the glass will be remelted and reused. Shanga is a really amazing place.

A Box Lunch

After leaving Rivertrees and visiting Shanga, we headed out of town and into the bush. Our guide Gilly had picked up box lunches for all of us at a restaurant in Arusha. We stopped at a lovely park just outside of town and had lunch before dropping totally out of civilization.

Entering the Ngorongoro Conservation Area

Here we are at the entry gate into the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Much of the land area of Tanzania is set aside as either national parks or conservation areas. Civilization as we have known it ends at this gate. Things get primitive and wild on the other side.

The Ngorongoro Crater

Here is a photo taken standing on the rim of The Ngorongoro Crater. It is a huge volcanic caldera. We passed the crater on the way to our first safari camp. The floor of the crater is an amazing ecosystem. Unfortunately we didn't have time to go down into the crater. Maybe next time. The view from the rim was just awesome. This was where we spotted the only rhinoceros we saw on this trip. We saw him through binoculars way down on the crater floor. Unfortunately he was much too far away to get any usable photos.

Here is a photo showing some of the crater rim and which gives a good idea just how wide and deep the crater is. You can see the rim of the crater on the right side of the photo, go off into the far distance and curve around to the left, forming a big bowl of mountains that cradles the flat plain on the floor of the crater. The crater is about 20 km across and 600 meters deep. It is a huge volcanic caldera. One of several along the African Rift Valley. The Ngorongoro Crater is the largest, most easily accessible and best known of the calderas.

Olduvai Camp

The first safari camp we stayed in was Olduvai Camp. It is built around a big rock outcropping or kopje. The tents had thatched roofs over them to protect them from the weather. It gave the camp sort of a Polynesian look to it. It wouldn't be hard to imagine it as a Polynesian island in a sea of grass.

While we stayed here we visited the Olduvai Gorge and Laetoli archaeological sites, and visited a Maasai village. We also started getting our first looks at some of the African animals even though we weren't yet on the Serengeti proper or in a wildlife park.

This was our tent at Olduvai Camp. Mary is sitting on the front porch writing in her travel diary, recording and making notes on everything we saw that day.

Laetoli and Olduvai sites

Paleontology is a passion for both myself and my fiancee. So while we were in this area of Africa we had to see the sites of Laetoli and Olduvai. This photo shows a casting of the famous 3.7 million year old Laetoli footprints. Three hominids, two adults and a child, walked through wet volcanic ash 3.7 million years ago. The ash hardened and was buried under other sediments over time. Eventually erosion uncovered the trackway and it was discovered by Mary Leakey in 1976.

The actual trackway has been covered with soil and boulders to protect it from further erosion. There is a small museum on the site with this casting on display. The plan in the near future is to build another museum building over the trackway and uncover it for display.

So here we are, standing next to the actual trackway. Not much to see. It's covered with a thick layer of soil and large boulders to protect it. A series of drainage ditches keep rain runoff from flowing across the site and eroding it. It'll be great when they build the museum building over the site and uncover the trackway.

Not far from the hominid trackway at Laetoli is an animal trackway of the same age, which was left exposed. We hiked over to it for a look. This photo shows some of the 3.7 million year old animal tracks. Easily identifiable are prints from guinea fowl, Dik-diks and buffalo.

Laetoli is out there, well off the beaten path. Our guide Gilly actually got lost trying to get us there, since it had been some years since he was there last. He stopped several times and asked the local Maasai for directions, but it seemed like he was getting conflicting answers. As a result we took a rather round-about route to the place through bush and down cattle trails. That's ok though, because we got to see a lot of Maasai villages and get good looks at their everyday way of life away from the influence of tourists.

There was no question. We had to visit Olduvai Gorge. What can I say about Olduvai Gorge? I could create a whole web site about it alone. For anyone visiting this page who doesn't know the significance of this site, please visit its Wikipedia page for a basic primer. We spent a long time in the large museum on the site and took tons of photos of the displays of bones, tools and reconstructed skulls and skeletons found at the site. We also got a nice presentation from from the staff of the site. Surprisingly, I think we were the only tourists visiting at the time. That's a real shame. It should have been at the top of the list of things to see for everyone else visiting this part of Africa too.

This photo shows part of the gorge where all the great finds were made, as seen from the vantage point of an amphitheater on the site.

Here Leslie is taking a photo of one of the many displays in the amazing museum at Olduvai Gorge.

This is a photo of just one of the many, many displays in the on-site museum. It is a 1.8 million year old Homo Habilis skull found in the gorge.

Here is a photo of some of the glass display cases full of stone and bone tools found in the gorge. It was amazing standing where my distant to the Nth power ancestors took their first steps down the road to becoming humans.

Entering Serengeti National Park

After a couple days at Olduvai Camp, we left and headed into the Serengeti proper. Here we are passing through the gate into Serengeti National Park. Things had been interesting up til now. From here on out it got amazing. We were hardly through that gate before we started seeing incredible sights.

Leslie was very happy to finally be in the Serengeti. After a year of planning and days of travel, finally she was where she had dreamed of being. I'd never seen her so happy and excited. She was like a little kid on Christmas morning. She just kept repeating, "I can't believe we're really here!"

At one point we left the park to go into a small town for some supplies and to get a minor problem with the truck fixed. We re-entered through another entrance. This big display of bones was arranged outside the entrance. There are a couple of elephant skulls, jaws and leg bones, a hippo skull, several cape buffalo skulls, assorted antelope skulls, and two giraffe skulls. It was a fascinating display. The elephant skulls in particular were very interesting. They are massive things, but have a honeycomb internal structure to make them lighter but still strong. I'd seen the honeycomb structure before in woolly mammoth skulls during my paleontology exploits, but had never seen a modern elephant skull.

At the gate where we re-entered the park there was a really great map of the park and surrounding area. Here our guide Gilly is showing Leslie where we are, where we had already been and where we were going. It was nice to see a map of our travels because we really had no idea where we were most of the time. We just let Gilly do the driving. It was such a nice map I decided to buy some for us. None were available for sale in the park. I found some on Amazon and ordered them. They were waiting for us when we got home. We had hours of fun, reliving the trip by pouring over the map and matching up the things we saw with the places where we saw them.

Ronjo Camp

The next safari camp we stayed at was Ronjo Camp. this was the most primitive of the camps we stayed at. It is out in the serious bush with lots of wild animals just outside camp and no fence. We heard lions roaring, hyenas laughing and zebras whinnying all night, sometimes very close. The Massai warrior security guards patrolling the camp all night gave us peace of mind.

There was no running water at Ronjo Camp. To take a shower one of the camp staff would have to fill the water bucket on the back of our tent with warm water. If you ran out of water during your shower you had to yell "MORE SHOWER!" as loud as you could and someone would come running with another bucket of warm water. On the flip side of that, the dining was excellent. Everyone staying at the camp would gather in the dining tent at dinner time and they would serve us a gourmet five-course meal. We never figured out how they managed to cook all that great food out in the bush. In fact all of the camps we stayed at had exceptionally good food and service.

Mara River Post Camp

The last safari camp we stayed at was Mara River Post Camp. Once again the tents were covered by thatched roofs and the whole place had a Polynesian feel to it. This was the poshest camp we stayed at. Yes, we were still in tents, but they were very, very nice tents. The dining hall and bar were very upscale. In spite of being so posh, it was also the camp where we felt closest to the animals. It was right on the Mara River and millions of migrating animals were converging on it. There was fresh elephant poop outside our tent one day when we came back from safari. A bellowing elephant just outside our tent woke us up at 3 am one morning, and was still nearby at first light. We could watch herds of thousands of wildebeest from the front porch of the tent. Hyenas could be heard all night every night. We saw a large pride of lions not far from the camp. There were armed security guards and park rangers with AK-47s patrolling around the area and escorting us everywhere if we had to leave our tents after dark.

Here is a view looking down on our thatch covered tent at Mara River Post Camp. You can see just how close to the river we were. From the porch on the other side of the tent we had an amazing view of all the animals, especially wildebeest, zebra, and elephants, converging on the river at the time we were there. There were times the area across the river was covered with thousands of wildebeest. We had front row seats for massive stampedes as animals ran away from the controlled burn below.

Here Leslie and I are viewing a huge herd of wildebeest from the front porch of our tent at Mara River Post Camp. The entire hillside across the river is covered with thousands of wildebeest.

Fire

Our last night at Mara River the park rangers started a controlled burn nearby on the Serengeti. It was impressive and a little scary to watch since it was so close to the camp, especially after dark. Some of the guests at the camp were very worried. The authorities had the fire totally under control though. It never got too close. We didn't get too much smoke from it, and it was totally out by morning. In the dark, from the vantage point of the front porch of our tent, we could see vehicles silhouetted against the flames as park rangers cruised along the fire line setting back fires. Everywhere the vehicles passed, the fire would flare up brighter than ever, then die out a short time later. By morning it was completely out. The controlled burns are common practice on the Serengeti to stimulate the growth of fresh grass.

Flying over the Serengeti in the little Cessnas we could see that the whole of the Serengeti is a patchwork of burned and unburned areas from all the controlled burns. Amazingly the animals seemed to flock to the burned areas, and fresh green shoots of grass started coming up seemingly within hours of the fire passing by. We had some of our best animal viewing in recently burned areas.

One side effect of the fire was several spectacular stampedes of thousands of wildebeest and zebras, visible from our front porch, as they ran away from the fire. A group of elephants also walked away from the fire and into our camp, waking us up at 3 am with their bellowing. One was still standing near our tent at dawn.

Sunrise on the Serengeti

One morning our guide Gilly suggested we get an early start and get out in the bush before dawn. He said we'd see things we don't ordinarily see during the heat of the day. We could also enjoy seeing sunrise on the Serengeti and have a picnic breakfast in the bush. It was an irresistible offer. So we got up before dawn and hurriedly got ready to go. We bundled into his safari truck and hit the Serengeti before dawn. Sunrise was magnificent. My photos don't do it justice.

Breakfast on the Serengeti

After watching the sunrise, cruising around and seeing some animals, then watching hyenas tear apart a wildebeest carcass, we found a nice spot for our picnic breakfast on the Serengeti. We parked in the shade of an acacia tree near a huge herd of wildebeest. Gilly set up a table and chairs and provided hot coffee and tea and really great picnic breakfasts packed for us by the Mara River Camp kitchen staff. As we ate we watched the herd of wildebeest, that stretched to the horizon. slowly wonder past us, honking and hooting as they went. It was perhaps the most amazing breakfast of my life.

Standing on the shore of the Indian Ocean

Our last day in Africa was spent in Dar es Salaam. We had some time to kill before our flight back to Dubai. So we first explored the botanical gardens near our hotel. Then later we decided we wanted to see the shore of the Indian Ocean. So we walked down to the shore and got some photos. So not only did we get to visit two different continents on this trip, we also stood on the shore of a new ocean and a beach on the Persian Gulf. We saw a lot on this trip.

Big Planes

This is the Emirates Airlines 777-300 that took us from Orlando to Dubai. A 15 hr flight! This is the biggest plane I have ever ridden on. It seems like Emirates uses only 777 planes, because we rode on four of them in our various flights in and out of Africa. The plane is just immense. A flight attendant told us it seated 364 people. Considering the huge amount of space given over to business and first class passengers, a lot more people are probably crammed in on other airlines that don't treat their customers like royalty.

We were soooooo lucky. We got a free upgrade to business class for the flight from Orlando to Dubai. It totally spoiled us. The seats are roomy, very comfortable, and just crammed with all kinds of gizmos and luxuries. Plus they can fold completely flat and make a bed. The flight attendants will put a mattress on it and give you a blanket and a pillow and you can comfortably sleep away much of the 15 hr flight. Food is gourmet quality. They put a clean white tablecloth down on your tray table before serving you. Attendants pass through the cabin every few hours with hot towels and asked if we needed anything. They gave us little sachet cases full of toiletries. The in-flight entertainment system is amazing. I fly all the time and I'd never seen anything like this level of pampering. That's nothing compared to the first class section. I got a little peek in there. Each passenger has their own private cubical with a big screen TV, a mirror, something that looked like a chest of drawers, a seat/recliner/bed even better than the one in business class, and attendants always standing by to help with any request.

We got totally spoiled by our upgrade to business class. We were hoping to get it again on the long flight back to the US. No such luck. The plane was only half full, so they weren't upgrading anyone. We asked how much it would cost to buy the upgrade. The answer was $4000 each. We decided to stick it out in Economy on the way home. Even economy class on an Emirates 777 is pretty nice, especially if the plane is half empty and you can spread out a little.

Here is my Emirates business class breakfast. Pretty nice. Note the white tablecloth on the tray table.

Flying over Iran at 32,000 feet. I never thought I would ever be traveling to this part of the world. Interesting looking terrain down there. Maybe if they ever get a more reasonable government there, it would be interesting to visit.

Nairobi Kenya Airport

Here we are sitting on the floor at the Nairobi airport. It's not that there weren't chairs. It was terribly hot in the waiting area. Our connecting flight to Tanzania was late, and the sun was beating in on all the vacant seats from floor to ceiling windows in the terminal. The air conditioning didn't seem to be working. So we found a shady spot and sat on the cool tile floor to wait for our flight.

Small Plane

Here we are changing planes in Nairobi Kenya. No more big jumbo jets. From here on out it would be smaller planes. Some of them very small. This is a Precision Air ATR 72 twin engine turboprop. It felt quite tiny compared to the 777s we had been flying in, but much smaller planes were yet to come. In flight refreshment service on these smaller plane flights consisted of us grabbing a bottle of water from a cooler before boarding the plane. But don't drink too much of it because there are no bathrooms on board.

We were limited to 33 pounds of luggage for this trip. As we started getting onto the smaller planes the reason for the limitation became apparent. There was limited space and weight capacity for luggage. Plus we were our own luggage porters most of the time, so keeping the weight down was nice as we lugged our bags through country after country and endless airport concourses. Traveling to the other side of the word for two weeks with only 33 pounds of luggage was not easy. You really learn what is essential and what isn't. We found that a lot of stuff we brought was just dead weight we lugged around that never got used, and some important things were forgotten. Laundry opportunities were limited. There was a lot of hand washing clothes in the sink at night so they could be reworn. I'll never over-pack for a short trip again, and if (when) we go back to Africa, or some other remote part of the world, I'll know better what to pack and what to leave behind.

We saw Mount Kilimanjaro poking above the clouds as we flew into Tanzania. It served as a marker that we were about to cross the equator and pass into the southern hemisphere.

Tiny Planes

This is one of the Cessna 208Bs that we flew on as we left the Serengeti. We flew out of Kogatende Airstrip near the Mara River. We stopped at a series of other dirt airstrips, changed planes and ultimately wound up in Dar es Salaam where we had a day's layover before catching a flight back to Dubai.

All together we took 9 different flights on this trip. Poor Mary had to fly 11 times since she flew from Ohio to meet up with us, then had to fly back to Ohio after we got back to the US. My passport really got a workout. It is full of entry and exit stamps from all the countries we passed through.

The views flying low over the Serengeti in the little Cessnas were amazing. We often saw animals like elephants and giraffes, but were too slow with the cameras to get photos. Once we saw a bunch of safari trucks gathered looking at a pride of lions. We even saw an alkali lake full of pink flamingos. It all just went by too quickly to get any good photos. Here is a photo of flying over rock outcroppings or kopjes on the Serengeti. Kopjes are favorite places for lions and leopards to hang out.

Safari Truck

Here is a photo of the Toyota Land Cruiser Safari truck that we spent eight days in. It took us all over Tanzania, on and off road, in town and in the bush. It is a remarkably capable vehicle. It can seat seven passengers. It has a built-in refrigerator. The floor comes out and becomes a table for picnics in the bush. It can handle deep mud and deep water, and incredible inclines. There are cubbies behind each seat for cameras and binoculars. The roof pops up to provide 360 degree unobstructed views. There are sand bags for steadying our cameras on the roof. It has dual fuel tanks. Fully filled up at the beginning of the eight day trip, we barely burned through half the fuel by the time we left. Leslie wants one of these in the worst way.

Falconry

My fiance is a crazy bird lady (she's the first to admit it). Falconry was planned into this vacation from the very beginning, almost a year before we got on the first plane. We planned an almost day-long falconry class. This was going to be Leslie's day.

We got a small taste of falconry the evening before the class on our desert safari. See below for more information on the Desert safari. There was a brief, tourist-oriented falconry session, and the opportunity to get to handle a falcon. In this photo I have a falcon on my shoulder. They are incredibly beautiful birds. We both enjoyed this small taste of falconry, but there was much better to come the next morning.

We met up with Brian, a professional falconer, before dawn the next morning. He drove us out into the desert where we got to watch the sunrise and then he spent much of the day teaching us all about falconry. We learned about the history of it, how the birds are trained, how to use them to hunt, and just so much more. We learned a lot about Arab culture too from Brian and his assistant Rahim. It felt like an accelerated class on Arab history and customs, and desert wildlife, as well as falconry.

After our morning in the desert with the birds, Brian continued the crash course in falconry by taking us to the Falcon Heritage and Sports Centre back in Dubai. Not only is it a museum telling the history of falconry, but it is a falconry supermarket. You can walk in with nothing (except a big pile of cash) and walk out with a falcon or two and everything you need to keep and train it. Falconry is a big pastime with the Arabs. It's the kind of hobby you can spend mega-bucks on, if you have it. A lot of people in Dubai have it.

Here is Brian's assistant Rahim holding a falcon. Rahim showed us some of the traditional methods for training and hunting with Falcons. Then he and Brian showed us some of the more modern methods used, including towing the lure behind a drone and making the falcon chase it.

I really like this photo of Rahim and the falcon, with the seemingly infinite expanse of the Arabian Desert behind them. They both look so intense and ready for action. No doubt rabbits were running scared for miles around.

Brian brought six different birds that morning. Here is a photo of two hooded falcons sitting on Arab style block perches. Along with these two peregrine falcons, he also brought a greater spotted eagle, a Harris hawk, a common kestrel, and a desert eagle owl.

This was truly Leslie's day. She was in heaven being around and learning about these magnificent birds. Being able to handle them and even fly them was just awesome. I could tell Leslie was really enjoying herself. Mary and I got into the action too. We all got to handle and fly the birds. It was a lot of fun.

Here is a photo of Leslie holding a desert eagle owl. It's just a beautiful big bird. We not only got to hold the birds, but we got to fly them too. We all got to fly this particular owl back and forth between a perch and the gauntlet several times.

Here is a photo of me holding a desert eagle owl. It was a lot of fun flying the birds. I got to fly this one quite a few times. I got quite adept at commanding it to fly to its perch and then calling it back to the gauntlet. I felt like I developed a rapport with this particular bird.

Mary got her turn with the owl too.

Here is a photo of Leslie holding a greater spotted eagle.

Here is a photo of me holding a greater spotted eagle. This eagle is just a huge bird. This photo shows just how big that eagle is. It is surprisingly light for its size. We all got to fly it back and forth between a perch several hundred yards away and our hands. Seeing that big eagle coming straight at you is pretty amazing. It's the last sight a lot of desert wildlife sees.

Here is a photo of Mary holding the greater spotted eagle. We had to wear the gauntlet to handle the eagle and other birds because they could easily sink their talons into our hands, without even meaning to hurt us. Their feet are designed for instinctively sinking those razor sharp talons into prey animals with a death grip, or holding on tight to a perch. Human hands would get shredded without protection.

Our day of falconry was just amazing.

Dune Bashing

We went dune bashing in the Arabian Desert outside Dubai as part of a desert safari. It was an amazing thrill ride. Dune bashing is joyriding through the dunes at insane speeds in Modified land cruisers. Tons of fun, and a little bit scary. It's a real rush.

Here I am desperately trying to hold the camera still and get some video as our driver tears across the desert and up and down dunes. The video doesn't really show just how much of an insane roller-coaster ride this was, but listen to the comments from the ladies. It was intense.

Camel Riding

The desert safari took us out into an area of the desert where there were a lot of camel farms. The Arabs raise the camels for racing. The Arabs love their camel racing. It is a big business out there. The racetracks are immense. Horses are sprinters, but camels are long-distance runners. So the camel racing tracks are very long. We got to see a lot of camels, and ride on some too.

Interesting fact about camel racing. They no longer use jockeys. They have these little robots that sit on the back of the camels that steer and whip them by remote control. The robots are kind of even shaped and dressed like jockeys so as to not freak out the camels. I'm sure this innovation put a lot of jockeys out of business. On the other hand, all the robots are uniform size and weight. There is no more desperately trying to make weight for the poor jockeys, and nobody gets hurt if a camel takes a spill.

Here is a photo of Leslie and I riding on a camel. It's kind of a cheesy, touristy thing to do, but you gotta do it at least once. It was fun.

Here is a photo of Mary riding off into the desert sunset on her camel.

Sights / Experiences / Impressions

Dubai is a different world. We got an introduction to that as soon as we arrived at the first hotel we stayed at. Opulent doesn't even begin to describe the place. This is a view of the lobby from the 4th floor where our room was. There is a grand piano under that dome-like structure below. The restaurant was amazing. Everything is gold-plated, even the bathroom fixtures, and this wasn't even a particularly expensive hotel.

Dubai is also different in how we were treated. I was traveling with two women, but they may as well have been invisible. Everyone we met only talked to me. When we got to this hotel and the bellhop came running over to take my bag and hold the door open for me, but left the women to fend for themselves. He ushered me to a nice seat at the desk. The manager asked if I would like water or tea. They were all hovering around me and catering to me while the ladies were trying to lug in their own bags. It was very strange (and a little funny) to our western sensibilities. Everyone deferred to me and asked me all the questions about our schedule and itinerary and if I needed anything, even though Leslie had pretty much planned this whole trip and knew the itinerary. This happened on numerous occasions while we were in Dubai. I resorted to treating Leslie like my secretary on several occasions, and asking her to provide the information people would only ask me for. That seemed to make the people around us more comfortable. She told me several times not to get too used to this kind of treatment.

Apparently there are both customs and laws about how men and women can interact in the UAE, and other predominantly Muslim countries. Men simply do not talk to or interact with women they don't know, particularly women traveling with another man. There are separate cars on the Metro for women only (if they wish to use them). There are pink roof taxis for women only. Men and women aren't supposed to have any sort of public displays of affection. We were warned that even holding hands could get us arrested. Even my traveling with two women not related to me raised a few eyebrows at times. My fiancee complained bitterly on several occasions about how we couldn't kiss or hug or even hold hands anywhere outside our hotel room. It's certainly a different world over there, and The UAE is one of the more liberal countries of the Middle East.

It's a different world too in that it is on the other side of the world. We were all horribly jet-lagged our first few days after arriving. Our biorhythms were all out of whack. The first night there we were all wide awake and loopy. We tried everything to get to sleep, but hardly slept at all. It reminded me of that movie Lost in Translation where Bill Murray travels to Japan and is so jet-lagged he can't sleep at night and starts wondering around aimlessly all night. It took a few days for us to adjust to the local time and sleep through the night. some of us adjusted quicker than others. I think Mary may have had the roughest time with it.

Traffic, Traffic, Traffic! Dubai traffic is terrible. Not in the African sense of terrible (see above my description of traffic in Arusha and Dar es Salaam). Most everyone obeyed the laws and drove sensibly in Dubai (speed cameras everywhere). The problem was just that there was too much traffic. The roads always seemed clogged and gridlocked. Rush hour is a nightmare in Dubai if you have to drive through it. The only times the roads were clear were in the early mornings before dawn, late evenings, the middle of the day and Fridays. We rode the Metro and walked most of the time while in Dubai. The times we had to ride by car for the falconry and the desert safari outings we got caught up in the terrible traffic and the trips took forever even though we didn't go that far.

The Burj Khalifa

We did some fun touristy stuff while in Dubai. We just had to go see the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa. After of course spending a few hours shopping in the largest mall in the world, which is right next door to it.

Naturally the tallest building in the world has to have some of the fastest elevators in the world. I don't know what kind of sorcery they use to run those elevators, but they are wicked fast, while being very smooth. We felt almost no acceleration either going up or down. Yet the floor number on the display was ticking over at incredible speed. I was starting to wonder if the thing was broken and the display was going nutty because it really didn't feel like we were moving much. If not for my ears popping from the air pressure change, it would be hard to believe we were going anywhere. But then the doors opened and we were almost a half mile in the sky.

We bought the tickets to go to the top of the Burj Khalifa at sunset. We were hoping to see a beautiful sunset from way up there. Unfortunately the air was very dusty. The sun disappeared into the dust before it got to the horizon. The view looking down on the rest of the huge skyscrapers of Dubai was still amazing. Especially once the lights of the city started coming on as it got dark.

As I said above, it was very dusty in Dubai. I started sneezing as soon as our plane entered Dubai airspace and we began getting some of the local air in the cabin. I never sneezed so much in my life as during our time in Dubai, especially the first day. I assumed all the dust was due to a recent dust storm or something. One of the locals set me straight on that. The dust was normal for this time of year, but much worse than usual due to the insane amount of construction going on in Dubai. Dubai goes through economic boom and bust cycles. Right now it is booming and there is more construction going on than you can imagine. New buildings are being built at an unimaginable rate (and some of the construction looked rather shoddy to my eye). There must be a thousand tower cranes dotting the skyline of Dubai. Streets are torn up to do utility work. Saws were cutting brick and concrete making big plumes of dust. There are big piles of dry, loose soil and dusty construction debris all around the construction areas. The wind blows dust out of of all those construction areas to mix with the general haze and create the thick overcast that blanketed Dubai the whole time we were there. Parked cars that hadn't moved in a while all had a thick layer of dust on them.

The Dubai Fountain

Here is a photo of the famous Dubai Fountain as seen from atop the Burj Khalifa. We got to see the fountain in action later that evening.

Here is a video of the Dubai Fountain Show. The Dubai Fountain is the world's largest choreographed fountain system. It sits at the base of the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, and right next to the Dubai Mall, the world's largest mall. That's how they are in Dubai. Everything has to be the world's biggest, world's tallest, world's most spectacular, whatever it is. Second best isn't good enough for them over there. The show was certainly impressive.

A Dubai Supermarket

While we were in the Dubai Mall we went into a supermarket they had there just to see what a supermarket in Dubai was like. It was actually not all that different from one in the West. A lot of the brands were different, but just about anything you might want was there, with one notable exception. Pork products were missing. Then we saw this little room tucked way in the back of the supermarket. It was the pork shop, but it had a big sign warning away Muslims. I had to get a photo.

Sunrise on the Arabian Desert

One morning we got an early start and headed out into the desert for a falconry class. We got to see the sunrise in the Arabian Desert. It was just awesome. It was also nice and cool. I think it was the only time we weren't sweating buckets outside during our whole stay in Dubai. That place is hot.

The Metro, The Creek and Souk Shopping

We got quite adept at finding our way around Dubai on the Metro. Man oh man is it crowded at certain times of day though. It's almost as bad as Japanese subways where they need people whose job it is to cram people through the doors so they can close. One day we rode the Metro over to Al Fahadi stop and walked from there to visit the Dubai Museum. Fascinating. We learned a lot about the history of Dubai and the UAE. Then we walked around the area some and found ourselves in the Old Bur Dubai Souk. Souks are capitalism in their most intense form. If you can't handle being mobbed by sellers coming at you from all directions and hitting you with every technique of the hard sell known to man, then stay out. We wondered around in it for a while, marveling at the variety of items for sale at really reasonable prices, but we had no room left in our bags for more souvenirs. So we had to wave away all the really insistent salesmen. We soon became weary of the oppressive atmosphere and started looking for an exit. I saw an opening and began to lead the ladies toward it while fending off sellers.

We broke for daylight out the back of the souk and found ourselves on the bank of the Dubai Creek at sunset. The creek is actually a canal that carries a really impressive amount of boat traffic, as can be seen in this video. Most of the boats are RTA ferry boats. The creek cuts Dubai in half. So lots of people need to cross it. A ferry boat can be a nice alternative to fighting the perpetual traffic gridlock on the streets. So there are lots of ferry boats crossing and going up and down the creek. We walked along the creek for quite a way, just taking in the sights. There were lots of boats of all sorts tied up along the creek. There were lots of RTA ferry boats of course, but there were also lots of working dhows, tourist boats, dinner cruise boats, and some very large and impressive private yachts. It was a nice walk along the busy and interesting waterfront. Then we hiked a few blocks back to the Metro station and went back to our hotel for dinner.

Speaking of the souks,we went to the Naif Souk the next day and had a similar, but even less enjoyable experience. The Naif Souk was highly recommended in some online sites I accessed before we went. What we actually found was three floors of small stalls with lots of sellers all selling essentially the same things, and all very aggressively hawking their wares. The lack of variety was the thing that most struck me about the place. So many of the stalls all seemed to be selling the same things. I guess one could play the sellers off against one and other in an effort to get the best possible deal from whichever seller was the most desperate to make a sale, if we had the time and inclination to do so. We didn't really need anything, and were just seeing the sights and mostly window shopping. We didn't stay long. The only advantage I could see to the Naif Souk was that the whole thing was air-conditioned. I think The Old Bur Dubai Souk (see above) actually had a better selection of goods, and though un air-conditioned, it was at least covered and out of the sun, plus many of the individual shops were air-conditioned.

The Beach and Dubai Taxis

We had to check out the beach while we were in Dubai. Both myself and my Fiancee have a thing about visiting oceans and seas wherever we go. We'd already got some pictures from the shore of the Indian ocean while we were in Africa. Now it was time to visit the shore of the Persian Gulf. Who knew there were such lovely beaches on the shore of a waterway where thousands of oil tankers pass through all the time. I thought it would be industrial and dirty and polluted. Nope, it's beautiful. We forgot for a moment about the prohibition against PDAs. Here we are with our arms around each other. Fortunately nobody reported us to the police.

We wanted to get an early start this day since it was our last day in Dubai. We wanted to see the beach and go to the Gold Souk (see below) and do a few other things. So we trooped down to the Metro station after breakfast only to find it was closed. It was Friday morning, which is more or less equivalent to Sunday morning in Christian countries. Lots of things were still closed, including the metro. We weren't the only non-locals surprised by this. A constant stream of people was heading for the metro station, only to be greeted by barricades and locked doors.

Up til now, we had not tried out the taxi service in Dubai. It was was time. Not far from the Metro station was a line of taxis parked at the curb. We went to the first one and got in. The driver spoke reasonable English. We were able to get through to him where we wanted to go anyway. We were surprised at how inexpensive that first taxi ride was. We got to thinking the taxi seemed not much more expensive and a lot more convenient than the Metro. Plus it was Friday and the usual traffic gridlock had abated. It was actually possible to get around reasonably easily by car. So from then on it was taxis the rest of the time we were in Dubai. The only problem we had with the taxis was the drivers sometimes had trouble making change. We never found an ATM in Dubai that put out cash in smaller denominations than 100 UAE Dirhams (about $27 USD). The taxi rides were so cheap that it was hard for the drivers to break a 100 Dirham bill. Once we had one broken into smaller bills though, we could practically ride the taxis all day on it.

The Gold Souk

Our last night in Dubai my girlfriend turned to me and said we should go ring shopping tomorrow at the Gold Souk (the world famous Dubai gold market). We'd talked about marriage several times before, but she had been reluctant. Somehow I guess how well everything went and how well we got along on this long and grueling trip ground down her resistance to the idea. So it was off to the Gold Souk where we shopped around for a nice ring.

I was prepared for another intense shakedown by sellers like at the other souks we had visited (see above). The Gold Souk was different though. The atmosphere was much more relaxed and less intense. We were actually able to shop around without getting bombarded with the hard sell by everyone we met. Easy-going negotiation and dickering over prices is not only expected, but encouraged, and the sellers didn't act as if we were stealing food from the mouths of their children when we went next door to shop around a little. It was actually a very pleasant shopping experience.

A Very Happy Ending

So last but certainly not least, is a photo of our engagement ring. This was the true highlight of the trip. Everything above was just icing on the cake.

This was truly the trip of a lifetime.