Just Passing through
There was a regular beeping noise at night, which was pretty strange since the generator gets turned off! Patrick informed us at breakfast that this was a type of bat! Eggs and sausages were back for breakfast today, which was great news!
Maribu Stork. Notable for me as they are the last of the “Ugly Five”, comprising Hippo, Hyena, Warthog, Wildebeest, and Maribu Stork
“Mother please nooooooo!”
“Who are these strange hairless monkeys?”
“Don’t bother me, I’m climbing!”
“Can’t even climb this tree? Pathetic”
I probably put too many of this guy in, but he was so handsome!
You shall not pass!
They still have a long way to go
Zebra are the best!
Is he sniffing, or waving?
This is clearly flexing. Stop showing off elephant!
This one was exceedingly close (no zoom on this photo!) you can even see the sleep in it’s eyes
This one is a baby, about 2 and a half. He showed off how good his trunk work is
This one is an even younger baby, either pointing something out, or snorting at us.
An African Cape Buffalo with 3 Red Billed Ox Pecker friends.
“Stay away from those pale things son, they get really touchy feely when they are drunk”
Dark fire shall not avail you, I am the wielder of the flame of Anur etc.
Bye bye Masai Mara!
It was pretty good
I was there too!
Just enough clouds to make things interesting.
There was a boat too
There was a long day’s travel ahead of us, the longest according to Patrick, but luckily we could cut through the Masai Mara and save a bit of time, before crossing into Tanzania, and heading to the shores of Lake Victoria. It wasn’t a proper game drive today; we would only be stopping if there was a great photo opportunity. Luckily, there were a few:
Maribu Stork. Notable for me as they are the last of the “Ugly Five”, comprising Hippo, Hyena, Warthog, Wildebeest, and Maribu Stork
“Mother please nooooooo!”
“Who are these strange hairless monkeys?”
“Don’t bother me, I’m climbing!”
“Can’t even climb this tree? Pathetic”
I probably put too many of this guy in, but he was so handsome!
You shall not pass!
They still have a long way to go
Zebra are the best!
Is he sniffing, or waving?
This is clearly flexing. Stop showing off elephant!
This one was exceedingly close (no zoom on this photo!) you can even see the sleep in it’s eyes
This one is a baby, about 2 and a half. He showed off how good his trunk work is
This one is an even younger baby, either pointing something out, or snorting at us.
An African Cape Buffalo with 3 Red Billed Ox Pecker friends.
“Stay away from those pale things son, they get really touchy feely when they are drunk”
Dark fire shall not avail you, I am the wielder of the flame of Anur etc.
Bye bye Masai Mara!
We drove on fairly uneventfully for a couple of hours after exiting the park, before arriving at the border with Tanzania. We had lunch after technically departing Kenya (getting our passport stamped, we were still on Kenyan land though), before moving across the no mans land to Tanzania and getting our visa on arrival. I expected this to be a moderately long and arduous process, but instead it took about 10 minutes for the whole group. It was pretty much a case of throwing $50 at a man and waiting for your passport to be stamped.
After we made it through, it was only an hour or so’s drive to our camp, though it was pretty late by the time we reached Tanzania even: we arrived into camp about 5:30pm, after setting off at 6:45am! Once we were into Tanzania, Patrick hit us with some interesting facts about the country.
Tanzania is formed from a coalition of two historic nations: Tanganyka, which was the country on the mainland giving the Tan, and Zanzibar, still the name of the island, but of course it is no longer a country on its own (though apparently it wants independence again, despite having a population of 1 million compared to Tanzania’s 55 million) giving the Zan. Finally, they put IA on the end, standing for “Independant Association”. Altogether it forms the name TanZanIA
The official language of the country is Swahili, but the Tanzanian government is keen to change this to English due to them having the richest tourism resources in East Africa: Mt Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti, by far the largest share of Lake Victoria, Ngorongoro Crater, and Zanzibar to name the salient ones. Pretty much all international tourism to the more far flung countries is done in English, and so they need a lot of English speaking people to properly develop the industry, hence the push to change the national language. Also this his created a negative impression of Kenyans for many Tanzanians, as currently many Kenyans have been filling the English speaking roles (Patrick estimates 80% of Kenyans speak at least passable English), and thus the Tanzanians see this as Kenyans steaming their jobs!
Our campsite was at Musoma, literally on the shores of Lake Victoria. We were too late to do the planned optional activity of cycling round the village, but did get to watch the sunset over the lake. Tea was butternut squash soup, followed by sausage curry. Very nice, but we had to eat fast because a thunderstorm was rolling in, with sheet lightning about once every 10 seconds. Probably one of the most spectacular thunderstorms I have seen, though thankfully it didn’t really rain too hard on us.
Our campsite was at Musoma, literally on the shores of Lake Victoria. We were too late to do the planned optional activity of cycling round the village, but did get to watch the sunset over the lake. Tea was butternut squash soup, followed by sausage curry. Very nice, but we had to eat fast because a thunderstorm was rolling in, with sheet lightning about once every 10 seconds. Probably one of the most spectacular thunderstorms I have seen, though thankfully it didn’t really rain too hard on us.
It was pretty good
I was there too!
Just enough clouds to make things interesting.
There was a boat too
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