Warning! This post is really really long. I didn't collage the photos because I wanted to leave them big so I could see the pictures better. My photo journal is something I do for myself, so I decided to post all the photos I loved the most. So just be warned this is really long.
Catching up with our trip to Africa
We had scheduled our trip for September, but decided with the Covid Delta variant that we should postpone it. We were not so much worried about getting it, but were afraid that we might get locked down there. So once we felt things were doing better and we had our booster shot, we rebooked the trip for January.
Finally we were on our way after covid test #1. Masks were required on the airports and on the planes.
It was a 20 hour flight with a stopover in Amsterdam before landing in Johannesburg for a few hours sleep before our flight to
Victoria Falls.
John does not sleep well on airplanes. His doctor gave him some sleeping pills to help him sleep. Before going, he tested them out and didn't think they were strong enough. Well...when we arrived into Amsterdam and found our gate, he decided it was time to take his pill. Unknown to me...he took TWO! I suddenly noticed he was sitting in the seat in the waiting area and his eyelids were fluttering. I asked him what was going on, he mumbled something to me about being sleepy. He held up his hands and he was shaking and he was pulling at his fingertips. Then his eyes went shut and he would not wake up. I got him awake enough to get him to answer that he had taken two pills instead of one. I really panicked, wondering if he was having a stroke or something. I didn't know what to do, should I call emergency and miss our flight, should I just let him sleep. I finally explained things to the agent and asked if she would get assistance helping board him when it came time. She said that if he could not walk on, he would not be permitted to board. I agreed with that, I had to know he could wake up and that it was not something serious. By then everyone around us was noticing. I forced him to wake up and told him if he could not walk, he could not go. A man next to us helped me pull him to his feet. He could barely move, it was as if he had weights in his shoes. It took three agents to hold him up and direct him to the plane. They verified with me over and over that it was not alcohol or other drug related. They had dogs sniff us before we could board. They got him to his seat and he conked back out for the flight. We spent a few hours in a hotel in Johannesburg and the next morning, he had no memory of any of that!! He says he will not be taking those pills again!
Finally, after covid test #2, we were at Victoria Falls! It was pretty amazing to see the spray from the falls from the airplane!
A driver picked us up and took us to a boat ramp where our safari guide met us. We had to go by boat to our lodge. As soon as I was on the boat, I joked with our guide "I don't see any elephants..." He replied that he had seen some on his way to pick us up. I was sure he hadn't really. But we had barely gone any distance and there in front of us, beside the river was a real live elephant herd! What a way to start the trip!
We were given the best room on the island, right at the point, and had an amazing view of sunrise and elephants on the shore.
We had a butler, Mathias who made sure everything was perfect. Obey was the manager. They greeted us every time we returned by boat.
Our room was so perfect! Way more than I expected. There was even our own soaking pool on the deck.
First thing, we saw a hippo on the shore and more in the water. They were everywhere.
We took a boat safari, either in the morning or evening each day there.
The shoreline was full of so many animals, mostly birds. I was so excited to see so many kinds of birds without it being an actual birding safari.
white faced whistling ducks
one of the birds I most wanted to see!
open billed stork
bee-eaters!!!
black ibis
spotted thick-knee
trumpeter hornbill
white-crowned lapwing
double rainbow
weaver nests
Breakfast always started with a plate of fresh fruit, a basket of warm rolls, fresh made juice and latte. And then we were expected to order a meal to go with it! Always seated outside by the river with monkeys in the trees.
Here are the elephants we watched from our deck.
Impalas (with an ox-pecker on his back)
Blessed called them McDonalds. I thought it was because there were so many of them like fast-food. But turns out it is because they have a black mark on their rump like the McDonalds golden arch.
Zebras It was awesome to see so many in the wild.
Pied Kingfisher
Baobab Tree
and elephants...so many and so close! unreal to see them like that
lilac breasted roller
Red-billed hornbill
African Gray Hornbill
hippo tracks
THE FALLS!!!
Flame Lily
My caddie John.
One of the largest and oldest Baobab trees.
So much spray!
Boat ride back from safari
Boat ride back from safari
Chuck the baby crocodile. John spotted him on the bank by our lodge. He stayed there for a couple of days. It just cracked the staff up that he named him.
When we arrived, there was a welcome note from the staff and a certificate for massages. We saved them for our last day. Pretty nice, in a little hut right on the Zambezi river.
Room service lattes on our deck the last morning.
Mathias and Chef Leo
Covid test #3 passed and ready for Tanzania.
Getting to Tanzania was not a simple process. Just like we had to go through Johannesburg for a night before getting to Victoria Falls, we first we had to fly to Johannesburg, then we took a flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia before our final destination of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. Because of covid, airlines had cancelled the amount of flights and it was really hard and super expensive to find a simple one. We ended up on the fastest, but it required a red-eye flight and a layover in Addis. But we finally made it!
Our first two nights was in Arusha at the Siringit Villas. It was such a fancy place, right on a golf course.
The first night there were 4 men from Holland that were there to play golf. One of them was the original owner of the lodge. He is an architect and it was built for his family. The next morning they were gone and we had the place to ourselves, just like we had in Victoria Falls.
First thing, John decided to get a shower. He grabbed his bag and suddenly realized it was NOT his bag! Even though we had handled that bag so many times for inspection and into our jeep we had not noticed it. Upon arrival to our lodge, it had been taken to our room for us. It took us 1/2 hour to drive back to the airport, turn the wrong bag in and retrieve his bag, then 1/2 hour back for John to get his shower.
We spent a day and a half just relaxing by the pool, walking the golf course, taking bird photos and eating. They set us up in the garden for lunch, by the pool for dinner and wherever we wanted for breakfast.
Dickson, Chef Ombeni, Joshua
It was surprising that there were impala and dik-dik roaming on the golf course. Dik-dik are tiny, less than knee high deer-like animals with the hugest eyes.
mongoose
So many birds! and incredible weaver nests!
Our driver, Joseph, took us through Tarangire National Park. What a great day! We saw so many animals. Even though we had seen them in Zimbabwe, it was new all over again. I think Tarangire National Park is my favorite. Such an amazing amount of animals there!
waterbuck...they call it a toilet seat mark on his rump.
Secretary bird
Our tented room was raised up on stilts into the treetops.
The main lodge is built around a baobab tree. The trunk is right behind the registration desk. Bats live in the trunk and fly out at night. It was an amazing sight to watch as hundreds of them took flight right through the lodge!
A few 'hung out' in the lodge for the day.
The watering hole was lit up at night so we could watch the animals come for a drink.
John picked up a stomach bug the second night in Arusha, so by our first night in Tarangire, he was doing pretty bad. I got him some meds, but they didn't help. I ended up having my meals by myself and went on a full day game drive while he tried to recuperate.
It was a full day with lunch out there too.
The Maasai are always herding their cattle. This guy stopped us and asked for water.
White-bellied Bustard
Magpie
the babies were having a good time dropping from the branches
Termite mounds are HUGE! and everywhere!
When I returned, John was not feeling any better, so I went to have dinner on my own again. Instead of seating me at the table by the pool like the night before, the put me at a table in the Boma. I was glad that another couple had just arrived, so I was not sitting out there alone. A special Maasai barbeque had been prepared along with a traditional performance. When they started shouting, John could hear it all the way back at out tent and was so sad that he was not up to seeing whatever was going on. He sat and listened while he sipped his clear broth soup alone in our tent.
All this food just for me...and dessert too!
The next morning, we loaded up for our next adventure. Everyone was there to send us off.
John still wasn't feeling good, even after the lodge had given us some strong medicine, so our first stop was a pharmacy. It was the craziest pharmacy we have ever seen! We drove up, immediately our jeep was surrounded by women wanting us to buy their jewelry. A woman came out of the building and our driver told her what we wanted. I showed him on my phone what Jessi had told us to ask for and she left. A few minutes she came back out with it. It was only $5!!! for a week supply! When I asked our driver if that was the right price, he asked "Is that too much?!" We laughed so hard and told him it would not have surprised us if it was $50. The photo below is the pharmacy.
The drive to Lake Manyara was full of sights.
One picture that stands out in my mind is a picture I didn't get to take. As we drove out to the main hwy, we traveled on a dirt road for about 1/2 an hour. We went through Maasai property past their huts and herds. We came upon a huge mud puddle. There beside it was a woman doing dishes in the muddy water, her child beside her was only about 6 and had a baby strapped to her back. It really stuck with me as we drove past. I sometimes think those are the 'photos' that are the most important that stay in our minds.
Lake Manyara
It was a mess. It is a salt lake and had flooded, killing all the vegetation which caused the wildlife to go elsewhere. Joseph did his best searching for something for us to see, but it was a lost cause. We were his first clients since the beginning of the pandemic and he had no idea it was in this condition.
There were plenty of baboons to occupy me for a while.
We stopped for lunch overlooking the lake, you can see where the die-off is.
While we had dinner, they put warm water bottles in our bed, started a fire, put chocolates on the nightstand and pulled down the mosquito netting.
From the pile of jeeps waiting to get in and the long line of us bumper to bumper getting around vehicles that were stuck in the mud, I was expecting that it was going to be really crowded in the crater. Once we all arrived to the bottom, everyone just drifted in different directions and it was really nice.
The first thing we saw was black rhinos!!! I was so surprised that they just grazed right alongside of ostrich, gazelles, wildebeest and African buffalo!
It started out damp, but it didn't keep us from seeing all the animals we were there to see.
We spotted a hyena finishing off a carcass.
Marabou stork
Gazelle
We arrived at Neptune Ngorongoro Lodge. John recorded it, but I can't get the video to upload here. The guy in orange started chanting and jumping in the traditional Maasai way as we unloaded.
Every lodge we went to, the staff greeted us with warm cloths to wash up.
We had a two room suite! with a full deck
It poured rain the first night. When we arrived at the Ngorongoro Crater, the gates were closed because a bus had slid off the road and was blocking the way. By the time we entered, 2 hours later, the safari jeeps were packed waiting to get in.
Golden Jackal above and Black-backed Jackal below
This mama did not like this jackal by her young.
Eland
He didn't tell what we were headed to see, but Joseph got word on the radio, in Swahili, and off we raced across the crater. What a great surprise it was to find a mama lion with cubs!
Joseph told us that lions take turns caring for each other's cubs. The others were resting that day. hahaha!
She finally stood up and paraded the cubs in front of our jeep and into the brush.
John had pre-arranged for us to have a catered lunch in the crater, complete with our very own toilet.
Of course, we were greeted with warm wash towels. 
All day long I kept reminding Joseph that I really really wanted to see the flamingos. "Yep", he would say and that was it.
To top it off...SPOONBILLS!!!
We were there for the birthing season of the wildebeest.
Hartebeest
I was happy that even though we were stopped to eat, the animals came to us. There were so many babies in this family of monkeys.
These are helmeted Guinea fowl.
From lunch, we headed out to the Hippo pool.
Masses of hippos there and really close too.
Not sure what the reason was, but there was a loud scuffle on one side of the pond. I love the look on the baby's face.
Finally, we got to the flamingos.
We didn't just see flamingos, we saw Greater and Lesser Flamingos.
Greater are lighter in color and bigger. The Lesser are more vivid.
I hadn't even thought about them being there.
and a pelican.
Then back to our lodge and another warm handwashing.
This is where we abruptly ended our trip to rush home to be with family after the horrible life changing news about Cyndi and Dan's plane crash. (see previous post about that) Time was so blurred right there at first, but little by little I have been able to escape the thoughts of it all and find some time out as I review our pictures in order to post it.
