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about an amazing safari experience. The Tanzanian National parks more
than lived up to their reputation as being among the greatest wildlife
parks in the world. We did an eight day camping safari that took us through
Tarangire, Serengeti, Ngorongoro, and Lake Manyara National Parks. We
followed this with a five day visit to the island of Zanzibar.
We've posted just a small sample of the pictures we took in Tanzania. Perhaps once we get home some of these will go up on the walls. It was great travelling in Tanzania and Zanzibar with Anne and Dave; perhaps this will be the first of many trips we do together! Thanks also to Dave for all the photography tips and advice, hopefully you'll see improvement in the photos throughout the year!
Seeing Tanzania was almost exclusively about seeing wildlife; there wasn't much interaction with locals or opportunity to learn about Tanzanian culture, other than the glimpses of life along the side of the road as we drove by.
Of course, Zanzibar is part of Tanzania, but it was a whole different experience in itself, so has its own page here.
 Riticulated giraffe at Tarangire |
Dave in action behind the lens |
 One of many baby elephants at Tarangire |
 Thompson's gazelles streaking by lazy lions in the Serengeti |
Anne and Jen share a laugh at the campsite, probably at Dave's expense |
Masai giraffe: baby and mom, just before they reacted to seeing the serval |
The elusive Serval. We even saw two! This one was gracious enough to pose beside our safari van |
A cheetah pauses during her hunt. We saw a failed hunt by a cheetah the day before; they apparently only have a 40% success rate |
Caught in mid-flight |
Another caught-in-the-air shot |
"I'm soooo full..." Lioness after gorging. Her two cubs were nearby as well |
The King of Beasts. This was one of a pair that we followed for a while |
The $1 million picture opportunity: four lion cubs, posing out in the open while mom hunted |
Gotta include another shot; they look like plush toys |
Mother scouting for food. We watched her for a while, but she didn't actually make a move, the grass was too short |
The Tommy's know something is out there, but they don't know where...; this hunt eventually ended in failure as well |
The grey heron and the African Spoonbill. The heron actually took offence to the spoonbill being in its territory |
Sunrise over the Serengeti. One of many spectacular sunrise and susets in East Africa |
Wildebeast in the Ngorongoro Crater. LOTS of them. |
Crowned Crane, beautiful birds. They're quite skittish though, and we couldn't get too close to them. |
A Kite flies overhead, looking to pick off someone's lunch |
Jen at the Ngorongoro Crater lunch spot |
The remains of a water buffalo |
Jen and Winston in the Crater |
Male and Female ostriches doing some odd mating dance |
Sunrise in the Ngorongoro Crater |
Baby hyenas, about two weeks old. They were quite shy, we only saw them for a few seconds |
Not the prettiest animals in the park: hyena baring its teeth |
Pretty in pink: twin flamingos. There's one, Ann! |
Don't mess with me: the water buffalo |
One of my favourite pics: the Pygmy Kingfisher. It apparently beats its prey to death before eating it |
Spooky landscape at Lake Manyara National Park; they dead trees were caused by flooding in 1997's El Nino |
The Augur Buzzard hanging out on a rock |
"Excuse me, I'm looking for the men's room." We were visited by elephants, pigs, lions, and hyenas at night |
A Maribu Stork watching over our tent. |
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I was going to go back to sleep, but Jen had to use the facilities, so I threw on the Tevas and stepped outside for some escort duty. It was then I saw our guidebook and Jen's purse sitting on the grass outside the tent. From there, I followed a trail of items that were formerly in Jen's daypack all the way to a group of what turned out to be three wild pigs, huddled around Jen's opened and by then, ravaged daypack. It turns out that the wild pigs smelled a small bag of nuts that were left in the pack, actually ripped a hole in the tent (which is what woke us up), extracted Jen's pack, OPENED the zippers (damaging just one), and chewed through everything else to get to the nuts. In the process, they left bite marks in our guidebook, notepad, Companion Flag cards, mints, and other assorted items. They even thought to sample a bottle of suntan lotion. Needless to say, I didn't get a whole lot of sleep after that, spending most of the time from 3am to dawn staring at the massive hole in the tent fabric, waiting for the wild pigs to come back. Talk about unwanted advances, from pigs, no less! |
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Hippo Versus Lion What happens when you mix one hippopotamus and three lions? Check out the Storyboard to find out.
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Flamingo and Pelican Formations Talk about precision flying: these guys give the Blue Angels and the Snowbirds a run for their money. See more here.
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