Month: October 2019

Today is the last day of our vacation, we are both sad to see it end but also ready to come home. We decided to have a lazy day in Athens. Woke up at a scandalous 9:30 and wandered over to the Agora. The Agora was the central market and meeting place for the city of Athens, the hub of life. There was one intact temple as well as lots of ruins everywhere. There was also a small museum on site showing items from everyday life in ancient Athens. We then wandered the city for awhile, taking in the atmosphere. It is such a strange city, it feels like the most and least European city I’ve ever been to. Towards the most, it is full of ancient sites scattered throughout the city, we stumbled upon them all over the place. Towards the least, the level of poverty was astounding, not at all like other European countries with their strong safety nets. The lost decade of economic collapse was evident everywhere. After grabbing a couple beers and some souvenir shopping, we went to the Acropolis museum. A really interesting museum hovering over an excavation site of 4th century BC homes. That museum was full of statuary and relics found on the Acropolis site. At the top of the museum they recreated the dimensions of the Parthenon and laid out all the marble statues where they would be on the actual building. It was very cool! Then we went for ice cream, yum! And a nice dinner of gyros and kebab, super super tasty. After that, a nice relax at our hotel’s rooftop bar overlooking the Acropolis. Goodbye Athens, it was lovely!

Today has been a long day/two days. It started yesterday at 6 with our talking showers. That’s when you have a dude outside your tent pouring hot water for you while you shower. It was odd. Then a drive to the Lake Manyara airport, stopping once at a tourist shop where the sales man attempted to truly spectacularly rip me off. It happened at all the shops in Tanzania, I guess they get more susceptible tourusts than usual. After a two hour wait there we flew to Mt. Kilanmajaro airport and a 5 hour wait. Mt Kilanmajaro was smaller than I expected, also for some reason I had imagined a more volcano shape but it was rather wide. Then to Addis Ababa, 2 hour wait. Weird weird airport, and then to Cairo which was surprisingly nice. We were there five years ago and were clearly in a different terminal. This one was modern and nice, the last one didn’t even have seats for people so everyone sat on ground lining the hallways. Finally a flight to Athens, a long taxi ride, and our hotel. Horrifyingly, they could not check us in (at 7 AM), we had been awake for about 26 hours at this point. So we stowed our luggage and booked a tour of the Acropolis. We did a walking tour starting with the Pnyx, the birthplace of democracy. In that field the citizens of Athens in 600-400bc gave speeches and voted on policy. Then we saw what was once thought to be the jail of Athens, it was in fact just a house. Then the walk up to the Acropolis. Amazing buildings, the Parthenon, the main building in the Acropolis, was huge and imposing. They’ve been restoring it for 200 years and well, they still got some work to do. The Parthenon is a temple to Athena and was built in just under 9 years. It was the first time cranes were invented and used for construction as well as several architectural tricks to make it look larger. The other buildings are also temples to Athena, one the wingless Nike, the other I honestly don’t remember. It was late/early/I was lucky I could walk I was so tired. We then went back to the hotel, still couldn’t check in, read for a couple hours, then finally, FINALLY, got checked in and a bed. 1pm, 31 hours since we last got up. Ouch. Slept for 6 hours, went out and grabbed dinner, an amazing skewer of meat and pita. Finally drinks at our hotel rooftop bar, watching the Acropolis lit up in the night.

https://zarrf.smugmug.com/Travel/Tanzania/i-wt2NCF4/A

Video of a lion

Today we visited the Ngorongoro Crater, a giant volcano’s caldera that over the millennia turned into the savannah in the middle of a rainforest. Because of its’ steep sides animals get trapped inside creating a very densely populated area. We started off the morning with two Serval cats, one being chased by 20 or so guinea fowl. It was quite funny! Then our Ranger took us along the crater’s edge and we came across a lone female lion. She walked right under me (I may have been hanging out the window) and was so close I could have touched her! So so amazing! After that we continued the game drive for many hours seeing all the usual suspects: warthogs, wildebeest, zebra, cape Buffalo, ostrich, hyenas. We also saw an incredible amount of Golden Jackals (now after further research renamed the African Golden Wolf), cute fox sized canines that love to trot around. Surprisingly we saw a fox which I hadn’t even know were in Africa. For the life of me I could not tell the two apart. At one point we came across a lion kill, one female still eating, one male watching, and another male and female passed out about a quarter of a mile away. At one point the vultures were getting too pushy for the lioness and she grabbed one out of the air and slammed it to the ground! She had no interest in eating or even killing it, she just wanted the vultures to back off. After watching her and the male for 20 minutes we suddenly noticed another giant male, just 20 feet from the vehicle! He had been obstructed from view by another vehicle. He was a big big boy! He then walked by our vehicle and stopped at the next one and proceeded to claim that one as his own. The face of the tourists in that vehicle were priceless! Total lion sightings for the day were 10 but the rest were, I know you can guess, napping. At the end of the day we saw a giant bull elephant and finally a rhino from a great distance. This is our last night in Tanzania, last night in Africa, and tomorrow we fly to Athens. It was amazing. We shall sorely miss it.

Well talk about a crazy morning, so many cats! But to start with last night was special, in a very Serengeti kind of way. At about midnight the Cape Buffalo visited our “tent”(it’s hard to call something that glorious and luxurious a tent) and were mooing, alarming, and rubbing along our tent. It was loud!!!! Then the predator must have moved off until about two when the Buffalo lost their minds again. Very in the bush. After checking out in the morning we got a short game drive to the airport and wow was it incredible! We started out with 3 female lions relaxing in the shade right off the bat, and a cute little Rock Hyrax hanging out on a giant boulder. Then we drive a little way and our Ranger spotted some cheetahs. As we got close we saw what an amazing find it was, five cheetah, one mom and four almost full grown cubs. They were all hanging out in the shade, the mom scanning the savannah for predators and prey. After that, a short drive later we saw a leopard lounging in a tree. It was such a large cat, gorgeous coat, happily waiting for some prey. Again, a short ride later, a true rarity, we saw a Serval cat. It looked like a cross between a cheetah and a bobcat, weighing maybe 20lbs. Normally they only hunt at night and wouldn’t be seen on Safari. I forgot to mention in earlier posts that in the Serengeti they only do game drives in the day where as in our lodge in South Africa they only do them at dawn and dusk. It had to do with the regulations in the different parks and public versus private land. Finally on our airport drop off/ game drive we saw a giant pack of mongoose, acting like mere cats and being truly adorable! Our estimated animal totals for the Serengeti:

24 lions

2 leopards

7 cheetah

100 Elephants and giraffe

0 Rhino 😥

200 hippos

2000 zebra

3-4000 wildebeest

And many many more!

Today we went to see the great migration. The migration is herds of wildebeest and zebra following the rains across the plains. In total it’s about 1.2 million wildebeest and 800,000 zebra. We went to see the leading edge on the western side of the Serengeti, clear across the very large park from our lodge. At the start of this trek we saw a family of 9 lions napping, surprise surprise, in the shade of a tree. Then the drive to the migration. Ever wonder what a paint can feels like? I’m sure you all secretly do, and guess what, it sucks! Mind you totally worth it but the rattle/shaking for hours made me appreciate the durability of Safari vehicles and the human body! After our thorough mixing, we started to see the herds. They were spread out across the plains, zebra and wildebeest mixed together like a separated vinagrette. As far as your eye could see were herds out to the horizon. It was incredible, awesome, stupendous, etc. The sheer quantity of large animals boggled the mind and we were only seeing one small part of it. We probably saw 3 to 5 thousand wildebeest and at least 2 thousand zebra. We also saw a small solitary herd of Eland, the largest antelope in the world. After spending quite awhile admiring the herds, we stopped for lunch at a hippo watering hole. There must of been a hundred hippo jammed together in there waiting out the sun. After another paint mix we made it back to normal roads and saw a cheetah waking the savannah, a pair of female lions muzzles red from a kill, a goodnight herd of elephants, and assorted giraffe, warthogs, and birds. It was a good but long Safari day! For dinner though our lodge surprised us with a private romantic dinner lit by lanterns. It was very sweet and yummy food!