To be honest, I never thought I'd ever visit Africa. I'm a solo, independent traveler, and while I have friends who've toured Africa on their own, renting a Mercedes Sprinter van and, judging from their photos, had a marvellous time, I just don't have that much experience touring outside of the US to do it on my own. In fact, I've only been to Trinidad. So the only conceivable way for me to go would be with a tour group, but I would be hesitant to even do that on my own. So when I friends here in Portal suggested that the three of us go on an African safari, I said yes before I could come up with excuses and say no. Besides, the more people you get to go on the tour, the cheaper it will be. (But to this day I still don't know how how much I spent on the tour and plane fare, and I don't want to; it's a done deal anyway.) It took a year of back-and-forth faxes with the tour group people (Rockjumper Tours along with the American Birding Association), processing of visas for Tanzania and Kenya, and up-to-date vaccinations and malarial tablets, and the next thing I knew it was March 26 and we were on a KLM flight out of Los Angeles International Airport heading to Amsterdam and then Nairobi. We arrived in Nairobi late at night, tired and jet-lagged, checked into a top-notch hotel -- all of our Africa accommodations would first-class -- and the next morning were on our way to Amboseli National Park, our first destination and an extension of the main tour that we paid extra for. It was quite the culture shock driving out of Nairobi -- people going to work driving auto rickshaws called tuk-tuks or walking. buildings that looked like they were just thrown together or little more than shacks, then a familiar sign like KFC would give everything a surreal look. The urban sprawl gradually thinned out and we approached Amboseli we finally caught glimpses of the Africa we're all familiar with. I guess my first realization that we were actually there was when I saw this giraffe among zebras --
This was our first look at a Kori Bustard, Africa's heaviest flying bird. We would see many types of Bustards during our stay, most being smaller bustards. Koris are more ground-based than the smaller bustards. Except for a few birds like Cattle Egret, every bird I saw was a lifer for me.
We finally arrived at our first lodge where we'd be staying during our 4 days in Amboseli -- Ol Tukai. To get an idea of what our accommodations in Africa looked like, click on this to go to the lodge's website . It's quite an eye-opener, and took this independent traveller awhile to get used to. If ever. My room is on the left.
Inside my room at Ol Tukai. I had a roommate on the main tour, but had the place to myself on the Amboseli extension. I have to admit that I would've gladly paid the extra $500 or so for a single supplement on the main safari tour. The mosquito netting was lowered by the housekeepers every evening, but we never had a problem with mosquitos either indoors or outdoors during the entire tour of 15 days. I did discover a small bat, though, on the first evening; it was on the inside of a lamp shade. I coaxed it back outside with surprisingly little difficulty.
Monkeys roamed freely on the grounds of the lodges; this one is a Vervet. We were warned not to leave the room unlocked when you're not inside, as the monkeys are adept at opening the door and getting into things. There were lodge staff armed with slingshots whose sole duty was to keep the monkeys away during outdoor meals.
Here's the view just a few steps from my room. The partially cloud-covered mountain is Kilimanjaro, Africa's tallest. At 19,341 feet it dominates Amboseli.
After unpacking our things and having lunch -- all of our meals were buffet-style, so I got used to "queuing", i.e. standing in line -- we went out on our first safari adventure in the afternoon. Glen Valentine, our guide who would be with us for the entire extension tour, said he had never seen so much water at Amboseli. This is usually the time just before the rains, but heavy rains just 2 weeks before had washed out roads and turned much of Amboseli into a shallow lake. Here's looking back from our safari vehicle to cloud-shrouded Kilimanjaro and the area of Ol Tukai Lodge, in the distant trees on the left.
The entire safari was put on by Rockjumper Worldwide Birding Adventures and the American Birding Assocation, so though it was also billed as a "Big Game Safari" the main focus was on birds. One that I was especially looking forward to seeing was the Secretary Bird, endemic to Africa and adapted to spending most of its time on the ground. Its main prey are snakes, which are stamped to death. One of the first birds we saw on our safari outing was this Secretary Bird, walking through the grass looking for a snake to stomp on.
Here's a Little Bee-eater. Like Rollers, Bee-eaters are fairly common yet are always fun to find and watch.
When we in the States hear the word "Starling" we think of the species that was introduced here, the European, but there are dozens of Starlings in Africa, with most of them being quite spectacularly colorful. This is one of the "drabber" ones, Fischer's Starling.
We had close-up looks at Hippopotamuses -- or, if you prefer, Hippopotami -- at Amboseli due to the abundance of water, which at times went right up to and over the road beds. I just found out that "hippopotamus" means "river horse". Interesting facts about them are whales and dolphins are their closest relatives, they can easily outrun a human, and because they can be aggressive are considered to be one of the most dangerous animals in Africa. So forget your Disney characterizations; this can be one mean dude.
Here's another dangerous animal -- the African buffalo. It's one of the "Big Five" African game and is known as "The Black Death" or "widow maker". On average, it gores and kills over 200 people every year. Though perhaps it loses some of its reputation as a killer when it's covered in dried mud.
Everyone ooh-ed and aah-ed when we first saw the Grey Crowned Crane, Uganda's national bird.
The Pygmy falcon is Africa's smallest raptor and the smallest falcon in the world (our American Kestrel is the second smallest).
Sunset during our first day at Amboseli. You wouldn't know it, but there's a road in the foreground that's completely flooded. We were not only in Amboseli National Park, one of the world's great wildlife sanctuaries, but during a rare time when much of it was under water. And we still had 3 days of exploration before heading to Tanzania and the main safari tour...
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