On The Way To The Pygmies

Didn't sleep well because of sore legs and knee. I was tired and considered staying at the lodge instead of climbing today, but know it's likely I won't be back here again.  So I went off on my hike redux.

We did go slower, but just standing, especially on inclines, was sore. I got a porter again and he was a big help (the are some female porters too, I just didn't have one). I knew we were going back to where we saw the pygmy yesterday, then veering off on another path. For some reason, it hadn't seemed so far up yesterday. When we got to the where the path splits off, the lady from yesterday was there with 2 more people about her age (whatever that is - even they don't know) and younger ones (I think one was in her teens and the other 20s). 

We walked with them as they told us about their life and culture through our guide/interpreter (they did not speak English). At one point the guide was showing us something and they disappeared. We started after them and met the old man. I sat down, and the next thing I know, the young girl and one of the old ladies popped out of the brush beside me. They had built a home that was completely hidden so they could hunt for animals. 

The old man was hilarious - quite the actor. He started by showing us how they found bees nests and got the honey out. He claimed that bees poop and they follow it. He started a fire with just two sticks  and smoked the [fake] bees out. He pretended to eat some of the honey and got "stung" a few times as he filled his bag with "honey". 

Their clothes were made from tree pulp by removing the bark, stripping off just what was needed (by rolling thin strips off) and leaving it to renew its bark and live.  

They showed us what types of houses they used to have. There were several ones made out of sticks that were for everyday use, then one in a tree for when worried about wild animals. One of our guys climbed to the "tree house", and out popped 5 pygmy's. Yet he was so tall his whole body couldn't fit in.  

Everybody joined in to give us an example of traditional songs and dances. We were invited to join in if we wanted, but no one did.  

They shared with us various herbs and there uses. Our guide confirmed that a few worked, but there was one that was hilarious: If you do something that you shouldn't have (like hit a person over the head and kill them), and you have eye witness testimony, you rub the plant all over your body and everyone will be convinced you are innocent and the judge will dismiss the case. (yeah, riiiiight)

Man of nine thousand deaths

They showed different kinds of snares the pygmy's used. Each was focused on different types of animals. One was for small animals, and when they engage the trigger, a rope would strangle the animal and it died.  A second snare, for slightly larger animals, captured an animal by its foot (they admitted this one the animal could chew off their foot and get away, but would eventually die). The 3rd one, we were told, would kill all animals, every time. When triggered, a rock would smash the animals head. All of the snares were made out of wood, vines, rocks, and other items in nature, yet were quite sophisticated. And each time, the old man would use a stick to show the animal approaching the snare. Then when it died, he would take on the role of the animal and act it out with great drama. We nicknamed him the "man of nine thousand deaths" because of the number of times he "died" throughout the day.  

Bringing the deer & bow/arrows out

Last we got to shoot three arrows using a bow. I hit a "deer's" leg twice.  The guide informed us that was a maim, but no kill, therefore no dinner for me. A couple of other people hit the fake deer (one on the belly), but no one was able to puncture the skin of the "deer". Then the guide showed us how it is done, and we were able to eat lunch.  

What's amazing,is that the pygmies were living this way up until 1991, when the government took over their land to make a national forest. Some groups purchased neighboring lands, and they have been handed back to the pygmies. They stand on the fence between educating their kids in the schools, yet also teaching them their traditions and culture, so it is not lost. (Their original language is already lost.)

The way down the mountain was once again scary, but the porter made a point of showing me where to put my feet, as well as holding my hands most of the time to help me not slip and fall.  

When we got back, I had a beer, iced my leg, and rested before dinner. After dinner, I took a pill to help with leg pain and sleeping.  Glad to have a break for my knees, since I'm not sure I could do another day of walking.

Heading home tomorrow.  

On The Way To The Gorillas

So today we went to see the Gorillas at Bwindu National Park. There were three types of hikes. Easy, medium, and hard. I selected medium, but said I'd be willing to go to the easy if they want to me to. With the knee issues I've been having since Amsterdam, I started to say easy.  However, I bought some fantastic pill  in the Nairobi Airport that had largely resolved my knee issues. (Approved by my new nurse friend with Ann Biery's personality.)

They ended up needing 3 people to move from the medium to the hard hike. Since the 2 other singles were already in the hard group, and I didn't want to split any couples up, I agreed to switch. 

Oh my, it was hard and long. They started out rather fast. I probably should have slowed them down some from the beginning, but didn't want to hold everybody up. Beforelong, I got out of breathe and was very uncomfortable walking on the trail. The trail ran right against the side of the mountain (which would have hurt if I had fallen), and had sharp inclines followed by step climbs at the long awaiting razorback - what they didn't tell you is the razorback isn't much less steep than the original path.

Pretty soon they put me in the front is the line to set the pace, which meant everytime I stopped, so did everyone else. Which they did when I was at the tail is the line, but somehow the pressure was greater. Several times I wondered if I would have to turn around, but 1) it was my only chance to see the gorilla in their natural habitat, and 2) is unsafe for anyone to walk alone, which meant if I went down, everyone else would have to as well.

I had a porter to carry my backpack and help me over the difficult parts (alll but a couple of people hired them). We also had a guide and a trainee guide. When I was struggling on one is the hills, I felt my porter put his hands on my butt and push me up the hill. When it got harder, I had him behind me and the trainee guide in front is me pulling me up. They're the only reason I made it.

At one rest about 2/3 up, a couple of other hikers thanked me for setting a slower pace that they were able to follow. So I guess I took one for the team.

Eventually we made it close to the gorillas. A couple of trackers had been following them and told us where they were as we got near the top. At that point we had to leave porters (to keep the number is people down)and bags (to limit risk to the gorillas) and climb with just our cameras.

"Dad", a big silverback gorilla, came right by us and sat down to eat. Unfortunately, he was behind foilage, so it was hard to get our cameras to focus on him and not the leaves. Also because we are in the forest (the Impenetrable Forest!), it is a little dark and there is no flash allowed (it would scare the gorillas).

A couple of 'kids" followed, then a "mom", although she largely stayed in another spot that was even harder to photograph. Then a mom with a baby on her back walked by (she didn't stay long).

 As they were eating they kept moving down the mountain. Finally they had eaten so much they decided to take naps. By now another mother and her 3 month baby had joined the group. And while adults slept, the tiny baby kept watching us (he seemed fascinated, while the others ignored us). In all, we saw the whole family of 12 at some point.

Once we got to the gorillas, we only had one hour to watch - and that went fast. Because of the difficult environment and me only having my backup camera, most of my shots were blurry or too far away for my 3x camera. I did get a few decent pictures, as you can see below.

Our guide said we ended up about 10 feet from rhe top of the mountain. We hiked down the hill (which wasn't as taxing, but was really scary), and along the way, i wrenched my bad knee (not terribly bad, but it ached the rest is the night). We ran into a pygmy who was in her 70s or 80s (she doesn't know). She played and sang a song for us.  We returned to the lodge to find everyone else had had a much easier time getting to their gorillas, had come back hours ago and most had gone exploring in town or hiking to a waterfall.

Before dinner, we got a briefing for the next day. I had pre-registered to visit a pygmy village. Guess whet the village was? Up near the top of the mountain I had just climbed.  My only option was to hike it again or stay home all day. I decided to try walking it again tomorrow. Supposedly, the pace will be slower.  We'll see how I do.

legend of the wildebeest

At the beginning of time God creating the planet. He added oceans and land, rivers and mountains. He had created a wonderful world but someshing was missing.

So He created animals.  First the zebra to bring beauty. Then the lion with its great speed and prowess. And the Buffalo with its great strength. God continued to create more animals, each with its unique benefit.

When all this creating was done God realized there were parts left over.

Not wanting to waste the parts he decided he would use the left overs to create one last animal – the wildebeest.

So from the Horse he took the mane
     from the Lion he took the tail
     from the Cow he took the body
     from the Buffalo he took the horns
     from the Hyena he took the rear legs
     from the Zebra he took the stripes
     from the Goat he took the beard
     from the Mule he took the face

That is why the wildebeest is called the "leftover" animal.

On The Way To Uganda

The Serengeti ended up being a short trip because of needing to get to drive across the country to catch our flight to Uganda tomorrow. I would have liked more time at this place, but there's more to see and do elsewhere.

I was ready early today and just decided to bring my luggage to breakfast so I don't have to walk back before we leave.  Every time we come or go from a lodge, a plethora (love that word) of baggage guys come running to help. (Honestly sometimes this gets annoying, as they won't let you do it yourself.) Anyway, a porter takes my luggage and sets it near the entrance with other bags, just like normal. I decided to put my backpack there as well, which I almost never do. In this case, I'm glad I did. 

While I was at breakfast, they loaded the suitcases into the trucks. I'm used to my suitcase ending up in another truck and have stopped paying attention. However, I wanted my backpack in my truck.  So I went looking truck to truck (we have 4).for my bag. You can guess where this is going. My luggage was put into another company's safari truck which had already left for their next town.

One of the ladies was standing by the head guide, and according to her, he blanched when I looked in the last truck and didn't find it. Luckily there had only been one outfit who left before us. So they called them and confirmed that they did indeed have my luggage. They turned around and we met them part way. This could have been a real problem, since my passport, phone, and everything I brought was in those two bags. Two things I had in my favor, although I didn't have to use either: 1) I put a gps tracker in both of my bags (The Tile), which I highly recommend it for finding keys and muted phone, and in this case, luggage); 2) I keep a copy of my passport in my cloud. In either case, I'm glad I didn't have to test either backup plan. 

So of we set off for the next lodge several hours away.  

It sounds boring, but every drive turns into an opportunity to see animals. Yes, there can be moments where the is nothing for miles, but on the other hand you can run into leopards in trees (same one as yesterday - the kill from tragedy was still in the tree although the leopard had been snacking on it overnight) , lions under trees (they must have used all their energy hunting), crocodiles stunning themselves next to a pool of hippos, monkeys in a tree (I thought the one sitting on the top of a tree was the cutest), more elephants and warthogs  (can you ever really have enough of either? ), giraffes calmly munching leaves in a tree, or wildebeest fighting with their horns (I'm never sure if playful or not), baboons hanging on the side of the road in the small town of Manyara - all of which we saw. The hard part is to stay alert in the boring parts, so you don't miss the gems. 

  

As we were driving, I pointed out the horizon to the lady next to me in the safari truck. It looked like a lake, but I wondered if it was a mirage. She thought it was to big to be a mirage, but after 30 minutes and no lake, we realized it definitely was. I had seen a mirage in Kenya and took a picture of it, which is what made me suspicious. 

Tomorrow is a travel day. We will spend the whole day getting to the airport, flying, or waiting [looking forward to that, NOT).

So tomorrow I will tell you the legend of the wildebeest. . 

On The Road To Sarengeti National Park

We saw the younger lions stalking off toward a herd of wildebeest, and drove to follow. We got to watch a game of chicken. The lion would prowl closer, the wildebeest would step back. Then  or two wildebeest would prance forward, and jump back when the lion moved forward. This went on for quite a while. I guess the lions weren't hungary, just busy playing like a kitten with a ball of yarn. 

We came across several spotted  hyenas, including a pack at a watering hole. We also saw a cheetah - it's funny how with the first spotting of s cheetah we all went crazy even. though he just sat there. Now we've seen so many, the sight of a cheetah just sitting is "so passe". Many in our truck didn't even stand up or get out their camera. 

We stopped for lunch and to get permission to enter the Serengeti National Park. We climbed a hill overlooking where we came from and the park. The was a caribou pelican posing for pictures and trying to scavenge from the trash. His beak was black, and Alfredo told me is because he's a carnivore (ie. it was blood). That's also why the flies are all over his beak.

As we start through the Serengeti, the land is out very flat, with small and medium hills. The hills are termite nest. Thinking about the number of termites in a hill of that size, grosses me out. 

We came upon three cheetahs munching down on a gazelle. Up popped a head. The mother was hiding in a ditch but making sure her kids were safe. When a vulture circled closer by, the mom came out of hiding and stood watch. 

As we were making out way toward the lodge, we saw a leopard  (that finishes the big 5).  He was lying in a tree limb with his kill on a "v" in a branch nearby. (I found it interesting that leopards take their prey up a tree so other animals don't take it.) Then we got a surprise - a baby cub.

Saw giraffes and elephants, including a baby trying to nurse from a sister (no food there). There was a huge pack of impalas that crossed the road in conn of us (they get the right of way). Our guide told us that it was one male with his wives and kids.  We backtracked a little to see a servil cat. It looks like a kitty cat, with shops like aa cheetah on his body and stripes on his neck.  

Ntudu In A Day (Really day and a half)

We left at 7 am for an early morning safari ride. It started out bad for me - the dust had been so bad yesterday, that my camera's lens cover won't shut, so my camera won't work. I have a back up, but it doesn't have much of a zoom and no back up battery. 

 




























On the plus side, we got to see the kill everyone was wanting. But not until after seeing for younger lions drinking in a pond and a momma cheetah with her baby.

We were watching a momma and 2 younger cheetahs stalk some "food" (zebra, wildebeest, and gazelles - they tend to move together), when suddenly they all went off.  The whole herd went running. I was focusing on the momma, who did not get her kill.

The mom tried to take down a large animal (or distract the animals so the kids could get the kill, we aren't really sure).  The kids successfully took down a baby wildebeest. They weren't so successful at killing it. Because they are still learning to hunt, even working together they couldn't kill it. Meanwhile, the wildebeest's mother came close trying to figure out what it could do. After a few minutes, she gave up and left. 

Finally the cheetah mother stepped in and killed the baby wildebeest. Then they all proceeded to chomp away at it for a while. Safari trucks from far and wide came running, lining up to watch. In the distance, jackals and vultures were waiting for the cheetahs to finish so they could scavenge.  

It was cool to watch, but not for the faint of heart. Especially because the younger cheetahs couldn't kill the wildebeest.  So the mother had to step in eventually. 

After we left, I almost felt like we should go back to the lodge - what more could we see...

They is always more to see. We also saw giraffes, lion cubs (though they were hiding in the bush), Stan buck (had never heard of them; similar to a dik-dik).

After lunch and feed time, we went for our late afternoon ride. We stayed with a list of things we wants to see, some, I honestly thought most were a long shot. Instead we keep meeting our goal and adding to the list.

Our late afternoon safari, we went down to the lake with the flamingos. I was disappointed we couldn't get very close. After we left, we came across three lions. They were across the path from quite a few wildebeest. We had hoped to see lion's kill, but after a few false starts, they left them alone. 

As we left we saw a Giraffe drinking in a pool of water. Unfortunately he was behind trees, so we couldn't take a picture.but it was funny to see him stretch his legs apart and do his head all the way to the water. 

We kept going and found a lion family with two baby cubs. They went down to the water to get a drink, all the while playing and acting cute. As more vehicles showed up to watch, the one baby got nervous.  The first went right past a vehicle to get back to his dad. The other would start, and then get scared, then start again. Eventually he got brave and ran very fast past the vehicle. Then the two proceeded to play as they went back toward their dad. 

All In all, another great day. 

On the Road To Ndutu

We set off for the Museum of man. It is at the digging of a site that is million is years old and has 3 or 4 types of humanoids at different layers odd earth. Based in the diet in the layer, they are able to determine all kinds of information.

 On the way to our Lodge for the night, we saw  giraffes. It was the first we had seen, which made us so excited, even though we know we will see plenty more before the trip is over. A first sitting is still always fun.

We also saw eland and grant's gazelles. We saw lots of Maasai cattle herds  (meaning sheep, goats, and sometimes cows). They were being watched by young boys, I would guess 8-12 years old. Everytime they saw us, they ran towards us hoping we would stop.

We ran into the great migration. There were thousands of wildebeest as far as the eyes could see.  Some zebras and Thompson's gazelle too. They were far away, and seemed to go to the horizon. As we drove we went and went over the previous horizon, there would be still more.

We are seeing lots of really young babies -more and younger than I remember seeing in July, the year was here. The driver said that is because they had just dropped them in the last 1-3 days.  The nurse on board said she saw umbilical cords still on several. Near the end of the migration group, we saw more ostriches.

This wasn't even our safari ride. This was just the 2 hour drive to our new lodge.

An odd thing we saw along the way we're lots of trees knocked over. We found our why that was when an elephant just knocked a tree over 3 feet or so above the ground. This was after they spent several minutes trying to scratch an itch on several large trees.

We arrived at our new lodge. It is really cool, with animal right in our backyard. There are signs telling us to not go past a certain point, but the animals don't know how to read. We had some dik-diks by a bush just past the signs,  and some zebra's on our side of the signs when we returned from late afternoon safari.

The afternoon safari started out boring; I didn't have high expectations. I should know better.  Just like the crater was beyond expectations (and our leader, Alfredo, says better than last time), tonight ended well too. We saw a cheetah. He would lay down, get tired of us and leave. We'd follow and she'd lay down again, and the cycle would repeat. After a while,  she walked on a knocked over tree, stretched a little for us, then ran off.

As we were leaving, we ran into a lion pair. They were just laying on the ground. They just ignored us. After a while, the male got up, had 30 second sex with the lioness, and then laid back down. Honestly, most of us were in shock. This gave a great end to the second day.

Ngorongoro In A Day

Sunset

So today we woke up to our first safari. Little sidenote, "safari" is a swahili word that means,  'journey to the wild animals".

So there is one way into the crater, and another way out. They are at separate ends of the park. This means a whole day safari with box lunches (which we have been warned to eat in the car, or else the birds will snatch any foods out of your hands - and this did happen to one is the teens that came).

At the preserve entrance, we saw some zebra and birds.  The zebra's were far away and everyone in my truck was really excited and wanted to take pictures. I knew better than to say anything, but I thought,  "just wait, this is only the beginning". After a while, we headed down the road to the bottom. 

Almost immediately we came upon a large pride of lions with the two males eating a wildebeest. It seems the women and children lions eat after the men are done. There were jackals waiting nearby for their turn to eat the leftovers. I have a feeling they'll be waiting a long time, given how long it took for just the 2 male why eat. Zebra, wildebeest, and gazelles stayed observant, but didn't go far since the Lions already had l-nch. Jackals waited patiently for the Lions to finish so they could scavenge. They would have a long wait as the Lions will eat until they can't eat anymore


Over the course of the day, in addition to what I mentioned above, we saw buffalo, elephants, hyenas, black rhinos, hippos, baboons, monkeys, ostriches, and a plethora of birds.

At one point, or jeep for surrounds by a herd of elephants. At one point, the elephants came right to our vehicle and the guide had to start the car and move away from them twice. It was really cool, but the best part was the tiny baby. Probably just 2 years old. I found out that the reason we are seeing so many babies is because the animals have food, which makes them more likely to get pregnant.



Overall, it was a great day, with more animal sightings, and close interactions with them. I had been told the flat floor of the crater made finding animals, but this was beyond what we could have expected.

Here are some other pictures from the day: