The skies were overcast as we left Kobu Kobu lodge for our day long drive. We have become quite blasé about seeing herds of wildebeests, hartebeests, impalas and antelope. But, seeing a Cheetah family of 4 up close was exciting. We ooohed and aaawed and felt content with the experience. We then drove for a bit and came upon 3 male lions snoozing under a tree. We were probably 30 feet from them (in the Jeep, of course). They were spectacular.

The guides know the Serengeti very well. It is fairly flat with occasional outcrops of rock and widely spaced trees. When a unique or valued species is spotted, they tell each other on the radio and they all converge at the site. Sometimes there are 15 different vehicle around the animal. The animals don’t seem to care.

We stopped for lunch at the tourism centre in the heart of the Serengeti. The hotel gave us boxed lunches (literally, lunch in cardboard boxes). We had to shoo the cutest hyrax off the table before we sat down. We then took in a guided orientation to the Serengeti with a student doing a practicum for her tourism course.

We continued our drive and saw lots of birds and beasts of varying sizes and shapes. Then word came over the radio saying that a cheetah had been seen. And we were off. The momma cheetah obliged us by running parallel to the road so we could get a good long look. We were then in the vicinity of the leopard we saw yesterday. He was still in the same spot.

Tomorrow we head north. Wakara, our guide, told us to be ready at 8 am. He figured that he would know where our camp would be by then. The camp moves with the migration.

We left at the crack of dawn today after surviving a cool African evening. We had to break out the jackets as we braved the breezy Ngorongoro Crater. The acrobats performing before dinner last night warmed us up but we had to pay extra for our wine (and our water – making Denise a little bitter) so it was an early night.

Our first stop today was the Olduvai Gorge. We almost missed it when our guide didn’t have it on his sheet for a stop. We happened to see the signpost at the side of the road as we drove by the turnoff and happened to query – aren’t we stopping? Our guide called it in and figured out how to get a last-minute permit and we had our stop at the Leakey station. The Tanzanian government had established a museum there. We were greeted by an Anthropology/tourism graduate student who gave us a fabulous explanation of all the excavations that have happened in the Gorge. He was great and set us up for the tour of the museum. The displays were fabulous and very informative. I took pictures of every exhibit – a total geek out! Everyone enjoyed the museum.

We then took off for the Serengeti. We experienced more African massage as we raced for the park border.  What we had not understood was the fact that the park permits we needed to be in the Crater had fairly rigid expiry times. We made it to the park border 10 minutes into the “compassion phase” and just missed the fine that could have happened because of our agenda rejig. Once we were back into “safari drive” mode, our guide slowed down and we started to see amazing sights.

The first part of incredible happened when we spotted a cheetah! Look closely to see this amazing creature.

We continued on our way and saw an amazing assortment of animals as we drove through the endless plains. The word came through on the radio that a leopard had been spotted. Our guide led us to the last of the “big five” animals we were looking for. 

The “big five” designation is a goal for many – they include lion. leopard, rhinos, elephants and Cape buffalo. These are the big five because this is what hunters were looking for and were hard to find/kill. We just took cameras and had a great bit of luck to see all five in 24 hours. We are also happy to announce we have also seen the “Ugly five” too: the spotted hyena, the marabou stork, the white-bearded wildebeest, vultures and warthogs.

After arriving at our next lodge we set off for an afternoon game drive and saw more new species, including a tortoise, bat-eared fox and a Topi family. Then we also saw a hippo watering hole that kept our attention for a long while. 

We came back for a relaxing meal in our comfortable “tent”. OK, it has an en-suite bathroom, a fan and a king sized bed. We are being treated well so far. As a north american traveler, I have many biases. One of them is bathrooms. I prefer a commode to a squat toilet. I prefer modern hygiene. Tanzania delivers!

Tomorrow we continue our exploration of the Serengeti! I will hopefully have more time to upload pictures.

The first stop on today’s adventure was a Maasai village. They welcomed us with song and dance

After ensuring we were properly dressed. They demonstrated their way to make fire and took us on a house tour.

The huts are made of wattle and daub. They are waterproofed with dry cow dung. They move every six months according to the grazing needs of their cows and either build new or repair previous huts. The stop allowed a great opportunity to speak with people living traditionally while adapting to modern life. Our guide was also a vet, while another had a degree in anthropology and tourism.

We then got a wonderful “African massage” on our way to the crater. Our guide used the term to describe the drive on the washboard-like red clay road up the mountainside to the crater. The road was so bumpy that my Fitbit counted 4000 steps on the journey.

We checked into our next hotel, had lunch and got back into the Jeep for our afternoon safari. The view on the drive down to the crater floor was amazing. We saw an amazing variety of birds and animals including: ibis, spoonbills, Egyptian geese, crowned crane, herons, storks and Kori bustards, hyenas, Thompson gazelles, golden and black back jackals, a hippo, lions AND… TWO BLACK RHINOCEROS!

First the lion story. We weren’t sure what we would see because it seemed the grass in the crater was shorter than what we had seen in other places. We realized it was tall enough to hide lions. We initially noticed two male lions sunning themselves out in plain view. After moving on we saw what looked like a female lion in the grass. It turned out to be seven lions!

As we continued through the crater, the radio started to pick up. A black rhino had been spotted. Despite being up to 2.5 tones of moving muscle, they are notoriously hard to see. They hide in herds of wildebeests and are otherwise sneaky enough to avoid detection. Our guide couldn’t tell us how many rhinos there are in the crater because the conservationists don’t say as part of preventing poaching. The drive to the sighting spot was madcap. You could see the dust trails of every Jeep in the crater converging on the same spot. Wakara drove at breakneck speed dodging wildebeests and gazelles who decided now was a good time to cross the road.

We got close enough to see the rhinos as dots on the horizon and then we noticed they were moving towards us. We got a great view of a mother and her calf. We took a few million photos. The animals move gracefully and fast. We wanted to stay on their good sides.

We had an amazing adventure today. We left the Maramboi Tented Camp after a delicious breakfast on the deck and drove to the Tarangire National Park. The bucket list started to overflow. First of all, I got to see Baobabs trees in real life. I first learned about Baobab trees when I read The Little Prince in school and have wanted to see one in real life ever since. They are an endangered species now due to climate change and other factors. We experienced these trees throughout the national park, often in conjunction with the myriad of animals we encountered. Our list of animal sightings for today included: the omnipresent Wildebeest and Zebras (we saw hundreds of each), giraffes, and elephants by the dozens. We saw several lions in a variety of activities. Our first encounter was with a female lion who hunted and killed a warthog, then a male lion hanging out, and finally a trio of lions, two of whom moved into the grass and one climbed a tree and had a bit of a snooze. We also saw ringed and dwarf mongoose, Eland, Dik diks, Gazelles, Jackels, Waterbucks, Hydrax, and Impalas.

Did you know that Zebras are from the same family as horses, but you can’t ride them because they have soft spines? Another Zebra fact is that they have great memories and highly honed senses of smell. They can smell rain. We learned that warthogs go into dens at night, but chose to go in backwards because it is easier to escape if you have to run away in the night.

We saw many birds of all kinds today (i.e., lilac-breasted Weaver, long-crested eagle, Fisher’s love birds, yellow-necked desparto, tawny eagle, Roper’s griffin vultures, whiteback vulture, sparling, Egyptian goose, steppe eagle, ostrich, red & yellow crested barbet, and most amazing of all, a Secretary bid). My friend Eric has encouraged me to look at birds as the amazing creatures they are. We relied heavily upon our guide, Wakara, to notice and name these birds for us.

We experienced the circle of life a couple of ways today. The first was watching vultures consume the left over parts of a lion-killed zebra. The zebra probably died within twelve hours at the most of us encountering the vultures feeding frenzy. The birds need to wait until the lion abandons the kill, then they and a couple dozen of their friends’ clean things up, to the bone. Our second reality check came when a lion we spotted a warthog and went into hunting for food mode. She stalked, chased and ate the warthog while we watched. The third encounter occurred while we watched a herd of elephants at a water hole. They group were drinking and licking salt when two juvenile elephants started to push and entangle each other with their trunks. An older elephant intervened and pushed the malcontent elephants apart.

We got back to our resort at 5 pm and had a bit of time to clean up and get organized for happy hour and supper. We have had excellent food for every meal including our box lunch on the safari trail. We stopped at a rest area to picnic and found ourselves defending our rations from baboons and little grey monkey out from under our neighbours’ lunch boxes. People keep feeding these wild animals and so they interact with people who see nothing wrong with zoos.

We are off to the Ngorongoro Crater next!

We booked our layover in Amsterdam to ensure that we had time to recover from jet lag before heading to Tanzania. It worked. We are feeling much more like ourselves and ready for the continental shift! However, it was important to get as much out of our last day as possible.

We started with figuring out the Amsterdam tram system and made our way to the starting point of our walking tour at the Old Church in the heart of the Red Light District. We met up with Sergio, the owner of the tour company and he took us on a 3.5 hour walk around town. Sergio showed us more of Amsterdam than you would normally see walking around on your own. He gave us some insight into the way both the rich and middle class people made Amsterdam the city it is today. For example, we learned that the people pay taxes on the width of the houses but not the square footage. Therefore many homes in Amsterdam are narrow and tall.

We enjoyed the walk and made it to the Palace square only to re-engage the transit system to get to our museum tours. Anne, Dale and I went to the Rijkes Museum for a guided tour. Ken, Denise and Jane headed over to the Van Gogh Museum. Hugo, our guide, took us through the highlights of the museum and gave a really great introduction to the politics of art. It was interesting to learn about how Rembrandt came to be so beloved. He was popular at the same time as Peter Paul Rubens. However, Rubens was from Antwerp and Rembrandt was from Amsterdam. When Belgium separated from the Netherlands, Rubens went with them. The Dutch chose to elevate Rembrandt and market him deliberately as their best. He was worth it. This painting – the night watch – is considered to be his best work and they built a room in the museum to house this huge painting and give it the best spot.

We didn’t have time (or strength of leg) to see both museums. We only saw the one wall of Van Gogh paintings – including this self-portrait. 

We returned to our Air b&b feeling exhausted but satisfied with our travels. We made ourselves a wonderful home cooked meal and spent a relaxed evening re-packing and getting ready for the next phase of our adventure.

We left Europe and had a great flight to Arusha. Wakara, our guide for the next week, met us at the airport  We are all excited to get started.

Our taxi van picked us up predawn to take us to the train station for our expedition to Bruges. This side trip started with Anne’s dream of visiting Bruges after seeing the movie In Bruges. We found our way to our correct platform after appreciating our English-Speaker privilege. I need to confirm that I am getting on the right vehicle in order to have no anxiety. We had no trouble finding people who would affirm for us that we were in the right place. We repeated the same process in Antwerp and boarded the train for Bruges.

We have decided that coffee here is delicious. However the default portion size can be destressingly small. Denise did a little dance of joy when she found a large coffee as we boarded the train in Antwerp.

We arrived in Bruges and found a picturesque medieval city known for chocolate, waffles and lace. But the first thing we had to do was climb the belfry. We waited for an hour for the privilege of climbing 366 very steep, very twisty step for an incredible view.

We all made it to the top and were well rewarded.

We then tried to find an affordable lunch in a totally touristic site, and when we failed we ate like kings- Flemish stew, mussels in wine sauce and frites. Life is good. We took a canal tour to get the best view of town before taking the train back to Amsterdam.

Our final stop before getting chocolate and a waffle was to see a rare statue, a Madonna and child statue by Michael Angelo. There are few outside Italy.

We are still jet lagged but having too much fun to complain.

We arrived in Amsterdam after our 8 hour flight. We dropped off our luggage at 11 am but could only drop off our luggage before checking in at 3 pm. We spent the time wandering Vondelpark where we encountered a Picasso sculpture, our first beer on a patio and a tour around the museum square. We scoped out the area while we waited for our AirB&B to be ready.

Our “home” for the next few days is comfy and at the top of the stairs. Our kitchen/living space opened up after a steep slightly curly climb. Our bedrooms are one more floor up and the roof top patio crowns our place.

The big trip for this year is one from the bucket list. We are two weeks away from this year’s big get away. Our adventure will start with a few days in Amsterdam including a quick side trip to Bruges. I highly recommend the movie In Bruges to give you some idea of what we can expect. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780536/

Our second stop is a safari in Tanzania. We will be exploring Tarangire National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, and the Serengeti. We have the potential to see the great Wildebeest and Zebra migrations and hopefully some hippos, elephants, lions, leopards, jackals, giraffes and other wild animals. I am not sure how much internet access we will have while we are on the trip but I hope to post as if I were updating daily.

Our final stop will be in Cape Town for a few days before the long flight home! We will tour the city, the Cape Peninsula (including penguins),   Robben Island where Mandela was held in prison, and perhaps we will end up at a vineyard or two.

Stay with me for photos and tales from the journey.

Our German adventures started from Frankfurt. We arrived without incident at 5:30 am German time, waited three hours for Andrea and Lionel to arrive, rented our car and intrepidly ventured out. Our first destination was Bacharach, an old town in the Rhine Valley. We got out of Frankfurt fairly easily and only got misdirected once due to construction in Mainz. Thank goodness for GPS that speaks English. We arrived in Bacharach shortly after noon and turned off the highway, drove through the 11^th century opening in the old city wall, and immediately found our hotel one cobblestoned street in. We parked and learned that we would not be moving the car again until Monday. Our plan was to spend Saturday walking through the town and recovering from our jet lag. Our plan for Sunday was to take a Rhine River cruise and explore castles. It was just as well because on Sunday the highway into and out of the Rhine Valley on both sides of the river were closed to anything other than bicycles.

The town gate ahead and our hotel on the right.

We had lunch at an outside café and planned our exploration of the town. Bacharach is a small community that exists for wine and tourism. It is in a strategic part of the Rhine and appears to have seen its fair share of trouble. The city walls are still evident high on the steep river banks. Stone towers built almost one thousand years ago comingle with “new” half-timbered buildings with dates from 1592 and 1379. There were also modern buildings, like our hotel, that date to 1887.

There are three church structures in the town. One catholic, one protestant and one chapel ruin. The ruin has a horrible history that resonates with modern tensions. The chapel was built over a 140 year period beginning in 1294. A young boy had been sexually abused and killed in Bacharach. The Jews were accused of the crime and it was alleged that they used the boy’s blood in their ceremonies. The boy became known as a saint and his chapel attracted a large number of pilgrims. The story has since been disproved. A lot can be said for marketing and the strategic use of “creating other” on purpose.

In St. Peter’s Church’s shadow.

The vineyard that supplied our wine

We became particularly aware of the Church of St. Peter, built between 1100 and 1400 AD, as we sat in its shadow for dinner. We arranged to meet at the restaurant in Marktstrasse recommended by our host (his restaurant was closed for two days for some reason). His cousin ran the restaurant he referred us to. The set menu looked good and affordable so we made reservations for 6 pm. We now know that we will likely find a place after 7 pm tomorrow. The bell ringing began at 6 pm. It was delightful and somehow fit with the old world nuance of the town. At 6:10 we felt that the bells were quaint and it was interesting that the bell ringing went on for so long. We delayed any thought of conversation until the bells finished. They were too loud  to talk over. We drank wine from the vintner whose vineyards flourished on the south side of the town walls and absorbed the ambiance. At 6:30 the bells seemed to slow down and giving us hope that we could actually finish our meal in peace. When the bells finally ended at 6:55, just in time to give a bit of separation so that when the clock tower chimed seven times to signal 7 pm, you would know the time.

After supper we again wandered the town for an hour before calling it a day at nine pm. Jet lag was setting in and sleep was calling. Getting to sleep was easy. Staying asleep was more difficult. We had to make a choice. Either sleep in a quiet, overly warm, non-air conditioned room or sleep with the windows open and accept the sound of the trains going by. Little did we know that the trains actually increased their frequency at night. |t one point I started to think of the whooshing sounds that the train made as it roared through, just outside the wall, parallel to our 3^rd floor room, was akin to waves breaking on a sea shore. My jet lagged brain bought the reframe and let me sleep again until 5:30 am. Then, wide awake, it seemed a good time to start this first edition of my blog from Germany.