Farewell to the Serengeti

We stayed at Sayari Mara Camp while in the Northern Serengeti and it was situated in a perfect position among some small kopje outcroppings on top of a ridge with huge views towards the Siria escarpment over the Mara River.  Our hosts were Barbara and Joe, soon to be married and extremely gracious.  They keep this beautiful camp in perfect running order with delicious cuisine and attentive service. Well done guys.

On our last evening we explored some kopjes to the east hoping for a sight of one of the big cats up on the rocks.  Sadly no cats but we did take the opportunity for a group photo with Fazo our Tanzanian driver, Fraida, Bob and myself. 

On the way back we spotted this outcropping which looks like a Henry Moore sculpture of a figure sitting back and hugging their knees.

The next morning after farewells we embarked on our safari to Kenya on our charter flights.  Our first flight took us over the active volcano, Ol Donyo Lengai which means ‘Mountain of God’ in the Masai language and which erupted several times between September 2007 and April 2008, covering the country in a mantle of grey ash and white lava. The volcano is unique in the world as the only one currently active which produces the low temperature natrocarbonatite lava. We circled the mountain a couple of times and had clear views into the crater.  You can clearly see the grey ash which has covered the surrounding country with the green grass from the recent rains on the unaffected areas.

The Northern Serengeti, the only visitors in an area of three hundred square miles!

The Northern Serengeti lies just across the border from the Masai Mara in Kenya and I think this region is among the most beautiful in the whole ecosystem.  The Mara river with its crocs and hippos runs through here and the combination of grassy plains, kopje studded hillsides, riverside woodland and the ever present Siria escarpment to the west make for wonderful variety and beautiful scenery on our game drives. What also added to the magic was the fact that we were the only visitors in an area of three hundred square miles!  Most of the other visitors to the Serengeti were left behind at Ndutu and Seronera with the migration herds.  

There is often a build up of cumulus nimbus clouds in the late afternoons and these create some spectacular backdrops for our photos. The Cape buffalo and these waterbuck benefited from this backdrop and made the pictures much more interesting.

Although we had left the migration 250 km to the South we were not hard pressed to find good wildlife.  Every night we were serenaded by lions calling out their territorial roars and every day we were presented with an abundance of animals.  

One little animal I really like is the Klipspringer who lives up on rocky hillsides with his family.  The abundance of kopjes in the area meant that we saw these little antelope several times.


We spent over an hour with a large herd of elephant and their calves just watching them feeding, interacting and mud bathing. At one point they all stopped their activities and stood quietly listening to something beyond our hearing.  After a few minutes half the herd took off back the way they had come and over the hill came a teenage bull looking scared and panicky. I looked at where the wind was coming from and realised that this young fellow had probably stayed behind at some tasty tree or bush and we had arrived to watch the rest of the herd in the meantime.  He had probably then noticed that he was all alone and at the same time got our scent.  All of a sudden his teenage bravado and independence had deserted him and he began to call out in fear for his mother! Elephants have sub sonic vocalisations which we do not hear so we had missed all this until the herd had stopped to listen.  Anyway, alls well that ends well and we watched a reunion of trumpeting and excitement as he rejoined his family. 

On one game drive we startled this family of zebra who galloped off from the car.

Drive through the Serengeti

The next section of our safari was an all day drive through the Serengeti to Sayari camp near the border with Kenya. I love this drive since the country changes as we travel and we get a really good idea about how large and varied an ecosystem the Serengeti is. 

Starting on the short grass plains with distant views of the Ngorongoro Highlands and the ancient Gol mountains and the endless flat plains broken only by the odd archipelago of kopjes poking up through the grass. 

Through the central areas around Seronera with the long grass plains gradually making way to open woodland and riverine forest along the drainage lines.  

Past the larger kopjes at Mbuzi Mawe (Rock goats) named for the Klipspringer antelope who live on these monoliths and Lobo with the rolling hills and valleys. 

And finally to the Northern Serengeti where the border with Kenya divides the ecosystem in a purely arbitrary political line from the Masai Mara. 

Here the whole of the Serengeti seems to have contributed to the area with open plains on long, rolling hills and outcroppings of kopjes, the Mara river with her crocs and Hippos and the Siria escarpment lifting above it all to the west. 

It was a long day but Fraida, Bob, myself and our driver Fazo had some breathtaking scenery and lots of game to keep us enthralled so the time went by all too quickly.  

Last days on the short grass plains of the Serengeti

On our last afternoon at Ndutu there was a large storm with lots of lightning and heavy rain, but as is usual with these storms once it had passed the weather cleared and we decided to go out on the evening drive. Just around the corner from our camp we came across a lioness with two cubs sitting licking themselves dry.  As we watched them and took photos a large herd of wildebeest came out of the woodland and cantered across the open drainage making for the opposite side.  The lioness immediately turned and started to stalk closer while her cubs took off for some nearby bushes. Sadly for the lioness there was not enough cover to get close enough to make a charge so she lay low in the grass watching her dinner thunder by, perhaps hoping to see an injured animal among the ranks. 

We have been lucky this safari because the migration has been concentrated in our area of the short grass plains and we have had some great viewing.  When people come on safari the prime objective is to see the big game unless of course you are an ardent birdwatcher. Many of the birds here in East Africa are stunningly beautiful and they provide the ‘gravy’ on top of the game to complete a rounded game drive. Often around camp these birds become quite tame and I caught this superb starling trying to steal some breakfast.  

One morning it had become quite hot and we saw this lioness high up an accacia tree at Seronera, for all intents and purposes like some overgrown leopard without her spots!

Ndutu - short grass plains of the Serengeti

The short grass plains of the Serengeti around Lake Ndutu is a dry and barren place for most of the year but from January to April they are a verdant green from the rains and this attracts in the migration to feast on the nutrient rich grasses.  Our three days here were filled with good game, beautiful scenery and a wonderfully comfortable camp.  

Some of the highlights were three cheetah brothers, a lovely trio of bull elephant out on the open plains, the obligatory lion and lots of busy dung beetles!  

One impressive and moving sight was on nearby Lake Masik where a herd of wildebeest had effectively committed mass suicide by attempting to cross the lake and getting bogged down in the deep, sticky mud.  Exhausted, many of them did not make it across and the corpses of the dead were being feasted on by hordes of vultures and marabou storks.

 

The Serengeti, time stood still

Another day dawned blue and bright and we drove through the crater on our way to lake Ndutu on the short grass plains of the Serengeti. One of the great photographic aspects of the crater is the wall which always provides such a dramatic backdrop to pictures.  The different colours and textures and light provide an interest and beauty to enhance any animal.  

Look at the shapes and form of the hills behind the wildebeest and then also behind the elephant.  

After our visit to the museum at Oldovai I decided to take a short detour to visit the shifting sands, a unique, if not bizarre geological formation on the short grass plains towards the Gol mountains.  A Barchan sand dune made up of black sand slowly making its way across the plains pushed by the easterly prevailing wind. This dune has a speed of 15 meters a year and just heads steadily west towards the horizon. 

 

Ngorongoro Crater, one of the seven Natural Wonders of the World!

I have been to the Ngorongoro Crater many times over the last fifteen years and sometimes it can be stunning.  More often it can be dry, dusty and filled with other tour vehicles so that one gets the feeling of being in a particularly uncomfortable traffic jam.  Well this time the crater was fantastic!  

Just after arriving at the crater rim we found three lioness at the side of the road, a great welcome to Fraida and Bob on their first safari. 

Early the next morning we were the first car to descend into the crater; the light was clear and the recent rains have coloured the grasses and shrubs a brilliant green. 

There were very few other cars to share the wildlife with which is quite unprecedented.  We found fourteen different rhino, around thirty beautiful bull elephants and a pride of lion warming their coats in the early morning sun. A wonderful start to our safari.

 

Adventure to the Serengeti

Our guests arrived last night and came through to the arrivals hall with no trouble at all.  We drove to Giraffe Manor the home of the endangered Rothschild giraffe.  Having left them to have a late dinner and unwind after their journey, I met them this morning and after feeding the giraffe we left for the airport and our 'safari' to the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania.

Final days on safari with the Woods

We arrived in the Maasai Mara around eleven o’clock after dodging big cumulus nimbus clouds over the Rift Valley.  There are some obvious signs like this of coming rain which the country really needs.  Another indication of approaching rains is heavy humidity and high temperatures both of which were in abundance in the Mara.  However we were greeted by hot sun and the smiling Lorotumo, our Masai guide from Naibor tented camp, our home for the next two days.  We decided to take a short game drive on the way to the camp so that we could arrive early enough to settle in before lunch.  Incredibly, at 11.30 in the morning we found a female leopard feeding on an impala kill up a thick Gardenia bush where she had stashed the meat. 

She was not easily visible but shortly after arriving there she finished her meal and then climbed down the tree to take a drink of water.  After a drink and a look around she sauntered off towards thicker cover and deeper shade from the heat of the midday sun.  This was an auspicious start to our stay in the Mara and sure enough, the wildlife was amazing. The following morning we spent nearly an hour with a large family of elephant which had three small babies.  Two of them were romping around the legs and bodies of their larger relatives who were placidly feeding.  As we watched an old bull elephant came to visit and his arrival caused quite a stir among the females who each came to greet him with a soft touch of the trunk to his mouth, a form of respect amongst elephants.  We had a good time exploring the area and each day the clouds built up threatening heavy rain.  This gave us some dramatic skies which is always picturesque to frame an animal against, be it an impala or a giraffe!  Although it was threatening every day, the rain never quite got to us while we were in the Mara. It turned out, that it had been raining heavily in the Rift Valley and then it came down in buckets the day after we left the Mara.

I had been promising that Shompole would be hot and dry with dust and desiccated bushes to meet us so it was amusing to arrive there in a rainstorm and the airplane coming down onto a muddy field.  Since my last visit in early December, the rains had arrived with a vengeance, turning the khaki bushes green and causing a burst of flowers to bloom.  Lake Natron had been dried up at the Kenyan end and dust devils wandered across the dusty lake bed and now we could see the lake water reflecting the sky again with the volcano Ol Donyo Lengai looming beyond in the distance. Despite the rain it was still pretty hot at Shompole and we celebrated our Christmas dinner with a light feast followed by an ice cream Christmas pudding, delicious!

We had seen lions in the Mara but the pride at Shompole were much more lively and had boisterous cubs.  On Christmas morning we watched them moving into cover, the cubs following their mothers and one black-maned lion and playing as they walked along.  Despite the lions we also enjoyed a couple of good walks to help work off the great food we’d been enjoying the last week or so!  

Little Shompole was great and I do love the views from here over the floor of the Great Rift Valley. It does feel wild and lonely and on these clear days during the rainy season the distant volcanoes and mountains along the Rift walls are just so dramatic.

It was a bit sad to wave AC and Matt on their own for the next leg of their honeymoon to Sand Rivers in the Selous, Tanzania and then on to Vamizi Island off Northern Mozambique but it was also such fun to spend time with them for the Kenyan section, I wish them the best in the years ahead and hope to see them soon in the UK.

The Maasai Mara and a farewell to the Bartter Family

The Maasai Mara did not disappoint. It was nothing short of exciting and exhilarating making it beyond doubt the best place in the world for animal viewing. Brit and Marilyn were amazed at how few other vehicles they saw. ‘Andy, this is like having it all to ourselves – our own private Reserve’. And it was, as for 2 days they explored the surrounding area and witnessed some incredible wildlife moments without another person in sight. The cats really came out to play for them; from a pride of 11 lion hunting and taking down a wildebeest to a mother cheetah and cub’s failed attempt on a Thomson gazelle, a leopard struggling to climb down a tree to a serval cat slinking through the grass less than 6 feet from the car. On their last game drive they had lion, leopard and cheetah all within 1 mile of each other. 

The lush grass is a haven for herbivores at the moment and they were literally animals everywhere. The Topi’s were ‘lekking’, as the males stood tall on their termite mounds they herded the females into the breeding arenas. Herds of Thomson’s and Grant’s gazelles wagged their tails communicating with each other in case of a lurking predator. Warthogs and their piglets scurried around with their antenna like tails pointing straight up into the air. Impala, hartebeest, buffalo, zebra and wildebeest all made appearances as well as several herds of mud caked elephants. The sunsets were absolutely unbelievable, each evening Andy and the Bartter family sat with a ‘sundowner’ in hand and watched the sky transform into a variety of beautiful reds, pinks and oranges. The perfect end to the perfect day! 

Back to Nairobi it was for lunch and their private visit to the David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage. The Orphanage is a truly special place, imagine baby elephants bounding towards you and almost crashing into you as their eyes are firmly set on the bottle of milk you are holding! Seeing them play and interact with each other and their keepers is touching, so is the mud they try and smear all over you! The Trust was set up in the late 1970’s and by 2008 it has successfully saved and hand-reared over 82 infant calves, two from the day of birth.. Currently, over 40 of the Trust’s hand-reared elephants are fully established and living free amongst their wild peers in Tsavo National Park, some returning with wild born young to show their human family. The Trust has trained a team of amazing Keepers who replace the orphans’ lost elephant family until such time as the transition to the wild herds has been accomplished, something that can take up to l0 years, since elephant calves duplicate their human counterparts in terms of development through age progression. Those that were orphaned too young to recall their elephant family remain dependent longer, but all the Trust’s orphans eventually take their rightful place amongst their wild counterparts, including those orphaned on the day they were born.

Its a heart moving place and with that we say a sad farewell to the Bartter family but look forward to seeing them again one day in the wilds of the African bush!

The Maasai Mara, quintessential Africa

Andy and the Bartter family finally found the lions on Loisaba after tracking them for over an hour. The pride of 7 was resting in the shade of a croton thicket in the heart of their territory. Licking and grooming each other it was lovely to see the close knit social behaviour of these beautiful felines. As the light began to fade they headed down to Falcon rocks for a sundowner to be met by 10 Samburu warriors who then proceeded to do a dance with the backdrop of Loisaba’s stunning landscape. With a gin and tonic in hand they sat and watched as the warriors, who were dressed in their traditonal costumes and covered in variety of colourful beaded necklaces and flowers, sung and jumped and then vanished into the bush. It was a sad farewell to Loisaba the next morning but with great anticipation they set off for the Maasai Mara in hope of some spectacular wildlife viewing.

The flight to the Mara took them over the Great Rift Valley and the Mau escarpment – Kenya’s largest remaining indigenous forest. They were met by Alex, Andy's spotter, in his trusty landcruiser and drove to Naibor Camp. 4 inches of rain had burst the banks of the Talek River so they had to drive the long way round as the normal crossing points were impassable. The short green pastures of the Mara allowed for easy wildlife viewing – a lioness from 500 yards away browsed the horizon for her next meal while a journey of 15 giraffe ambled across the expansive plains. Dom and Martha settled us into Naibor – their luxury tented camp and home for the next 3 nights.


Situated in a tranquil spot half a mile up from the confluence of the Mara and Talek Rivers, Naibor Camp is in the perfect location in the heart of the Reserve. The camp is a striking combination of contemporary style and comfort with 7 well positioned fully equipped tents from which you can sit and relax whilst watching the resident hippo pod in the river below as well as a variety of other thirsty animals as they come to the waters edge to drink.

After an afternoon siesta they all jumped into the car for a game drive. The beauty of safari is that you never know what you are going to see out there, around every corner there is a surprise. Andy knew the surrounding area is well known for its leopards and as the kings of stealth they are not often seen but they were going to give it a go. Andy drove up onto a raised ridge and scanned the horizon, herds of Topi, gazelle and zebra littered the flower strewn open savannah. It was with a double take that he focused in on a lone tree 200 yards away. All Andy could see was the tail hanging down silhouetted against the skyline. ‘You are not going to believe this’ he whispered ‘ but we’ve got one’. Draped on one of the horizontal branches 30 feet up was his favourite cat. It was Bryndl’s smile that let on how happy she was!  For 2 hours they sat quietly and watched this beautiful leopardess as she groomed herself and occasionally hissed at the superb starlings that fluttered around her. What a start to their time in the Mara, they couldn’t have asked for more. On return to camp and a hot shower they sat around the open fire and swapped stories with the other guests in camp.

Who knows what is in store for tomorrow but we are sure the Mara will produce more amazing wildlife spectacles....

Loisaba Wilderness – a stunning mix of beautiful landscapes, activities, culture and wildlife

With a brief window of sun, Brit and Blake flew in the bi-plane over Lewa Downs. With their wool lined leather jackets, cotton scarves and ‘Biggles’ eye wear they really looked the part. The flight gives an incredible feeling of going back in time as Will steers the plane seemingly effortlessly over the open grasslands and down rocky ravines that litter the fairyland of the Northern Frontier District. With earphones on playing the ‘Out of Africa’ and ‘Last of the Mohicans’ themes you experience the surrounding area from a uniquely different perspective.

It was then off to Loisaba Wilderness, a 20 minute private charter flight away. Climbing up over the Loldaiga Hills and its verdant forest of enormous cedar trees the Laikipia escarpment loomed in the distance. Andy and the Bartter family arrived at Loisaba House, a truly exclusive, self-contained private house built on the edge of a plateau entirely from local stone and thatch. The location and architecture are breathtaking, as are the furnishings, most of which have been designed and made at Loisaba. Having seen the eye-level swimming pool on the lip of the thousand foot drop off at the foot of the garden Brit pulled Andy aside and said ‘this doesn’t suck!’. 

Their afternoon activities included relaxing by the pool for Marilyn, horses for Blake and Bryndl and a helicopter ride for Brit and Andy with Ian Mimano as our pilot. As this was Andy's very first heli flight he didn't know where to even start to describe the experience, there really are no words to describe it!. They saw places Andy didn’t know existed; from unbroken calderas and miniature volcanoes to hidden valleys and winding rivers. They landed on the ‘roof of the world’ and looked out across the untamed wilderness of the Cradle of Mankind (what we all call the Northern Frontier District!). It wasn’t just the landscape though, they saw herds of elephant, buffalo, gazelles and zebra as they floated over the plains. A glass of champagne as a belated birthday celebration for Brit ended the most fantastic of afternoons. As usual Faith prepared a spectacular dinner at the house before we retired for the night.

It wasn’t the huge rain overnight that hindered our chances of an early morning walk but a herd of 100 elephant. They were literally everywhere. We were mesmerised for 1.5 hours as calves played in the mud, young males mock charged and matriarchs stood tall keeping a close on the proceedings ready to put everyone back into line if need be. Andy and the family were finally able to drag themselves away but only because hunger was setting in. Around the corner in a secluded Acacia forest, Lamasi and his fellow Samburu warriors had set up our bush breakfast. Fresh fruit, a selection of cereals and a full fry up was just what they needed. We have always said that eating al fresco makes everything taste so much better.  It was then back to the lodge via herds of Oryx and a sextet of jackal for an afternoon by the pool and a hopeful evening of tracking a pride of lion.