Lake Nakuru

We left Maasai Mara to go to Lake Nakuru. Very different landscape with hills, cliffs, large source of water, lots of trees and green. Here there were many more water buffalo. It is known for pink flamingos, but it was a bit flooded so the normal feeding grounds for flamingos was disturbed. We saw a few but most had relocated to another lake while this one was flooded. 

Also because of the flooding, we were not able to camp and got rooms at a lodge. Nothing special but good enough. Actually the Czechs found either a really big spider or lots of little ones under the mattress of one of their beds. They came to dinner all excited and going on about "spider-man" (with an accent sounding like speeder-man). They asked if mine was okay. I hate spiders and was nervous to even check. I did though and didn't see anything. I slept in my sleeping bag though and enjoyed any ignorance I might have had regarding the spider population :). 

We did a drive the afternoon we arrived and rhinos were the new item we saw. The next morning was the best (animals seem to move the most in the morning). On the drive down from our lodge there were four lion cubs and two lioness. Pops came along later but the cubs were the highlight to watch play around. Like you're in your own national geographic show :). 

We got some close giraffe shots and more rhinos. We went up to a cliff for breakfast and could look out over the whole lake. It was pretty cool and we pretty much had it to ourselves. Not too many other safari vans around. 

Some picture highlights:

The cubs

Pops

Some rhinos who almost got into a tiff with a water buffalo, but the buffalo backed down

Giraffe (in case you were wondering)

My bed, hopefully free of spider-men

Funny water buffalo who just stood in that position as we drove by

Good morning from Lake Nakuru

Maasai village

No Internet on the boat in Turkey, so no recent posts. 

We visited a Maasai village to see how the local locals live. It is certainly different. Our guide, Norman, is in blue below. The people we met all had Christian names to help us out :). The kid is the Czech kid in our group and he's wearing a lion head thingy. They kill lions when they attack the village / animals but you never eat wild animals. They only eat the meat they raise, beef, lamb and goat. 

They performed a local dance for us. Basically they sang/chanted and individually jumped high, repeatedly. That's Norman jumping. He is a teacher in the tribe. He left to go to school and college in Nairobi but then moved back. The school has over 100 kids and he pointed to a small building in the distance. I'm not sure how they fit so many or if there are even separate classes. 

And they wanted to get us to join in. 

Each village is made up of essentially one family, so you marry from another tribe. There were 8-10 huts made from sticks and mud and cow dung. There is one chief. He can have multiple wives. For each wife though, he must pay the parents 10 cows. The chief of this village had six wives....60+ cows! He's rich. The village will live here ten years. Then they burn it and move to another site. 

A two-day old lamb

This is inside the chief's hut and is where they cook. There was a room to sleep but also separate rooms for the lambs and cows to come in at night. The cows then get milked on the way out in the morning. There was no electricity and not much natural light came in. 

A house in progress...

The cow dung, wet and ready. 

There are almost 200 villages in the Maasai area. Each has a chief, midwife and a medicine man. Villagers only leave to sometimes attend school. But they always come back. It's not like leaving the Amish and being shunned. The Maasai just come back. They even had a government representative from the Maasai who on his government breaks went back to live in the village. 

In addition to meat, they eat milk and blood, some fruits, not many veggies. They said the grass is for the goats, not people :). The blood they drink/eat is from the cattle. They pierce it and take like a liter or more (maybe 3? I can't remember). In the mornings they will boil/bake it down so it's cake-like and eat it up. I did not try this :). 

One other interesting topic was circumcision. I asked Norman how he got rows of burns/scars on his arms/chest. He said it was from "practice". Circumcision is done during a 6am ceremony in front of all the men from your and surrounding villages. The boy is between 11 and 15 years old. There is no anesthesia or anything and these boys have to be cut without flinching. If you flinch, you are not considered a man and can never marry anyone. So to practice not flinching, they take a burning/smoldering stick to the boys' skin and get use to coping with the pain. Very interesting but I cannot imagine. 

Maasai Mara

Let me first just say that I'm blogging on the bus in Turkey from Pamukkale to Marmaris. It has wifi, tv on the back of your seat and a steward to provide a free beverage (glass of Pepsi) and free snack (bag of pretzels). It is pretty impressive and a nice way to travel. 

Last week in Kenya I started with a visit to the Maasai Mara reserve in southern Kenya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maasai_Mara). It's almost 600 square miles and while not fenced in, the animals are protected from poachers in this area. However if they leave and attack people, the people can strike back. Thus, the main predator of the lions and cheetahs are us, humans. 

We did two drives here, the first in the late afternoon until sundown on the day we arrived and the second was a full day drive the next day. We includes me and three Czechs, a mom, her middle school age son and an older lady that was with them who I assumed to be grandma but she was not. The older lady did not speak or understand any English. The boy understood some (he's had it in school for like 3-4 years now). The mom understood most and spoke just a little. So, I did a lot of reading while they chatted :). 

The drive there was long and quite a bit of it was on gravel/dirt roads that were slow going. We camped in some tents that are permanently set up at the site and haven twin beds. They had showers and toilets on site but no electricity. We had a tour guide/driver and a cook who came along. There was a Maasai warrior who kept watch over us at night. 

The Maasai are the local tribe/ethnic group who still live quite a bit like how I imagine they lived a hundred years ago. We visited a village and got some background info. I may do a separate post on that because it was pretty interesting. 

We saw some good animals including three male lions on the first evening just as we were leaving (although they were a bit covered by the bushes).  There were elephants, zebras, water buffalo, a few wildebeest and more. Apparently I was a month too early and missed the wildebeest migration. The guide said it would have been a sea of black instead of a sea of grass.  It was hot in the sun, but a cool breeze made it not bad and it cooled down quite a bit in the evening. 

Here are some pics:

Young elephant 

My humble abode :) for two nights

Warthogs (aka Pumbas) 

One of four male lions we saw lazy-ing around on day 2

Our ceiling popped up so we could see better, nice breeze and no pictures through dirty windows

The animals got pretty close to the vehicles sometimes

Two of six lioness that our guide was first to spot off in the distance before we caught up

Getting some dirt to cool off

Lunch time!

A lonely lioness that I spotted! I was very excited :)

One of the giraffes, which seemed to move very gracefully

The zebras resting heads on each other's backs to keep an eye out for trouble

Biking tour of the wineries

We planned to do a leisurely bike ride through some wineries on Sunday. The weather was wet, about 60 degrees, so not the most ideal conditions. The rain was off and on though and I had my rain pants and jacket. I however did not need these long :). We got set up, put on our slow moving vehicle signs and did a little practice with the gears. Much nicer bikes than my last bike ride. Didn't help me much though ;). 

We started. I was behind from the get go. My seat slipped and my knees were practically knocking my elbows. The guide fixed it and we were off. We had a good downhill start that I really enjoyed but then we got to a slight incline and the end was in sight. My thighs quickly started to burn, very tired from yesterday's climb. I had to walk the bike the last bit to where the group had stopped and that was the end of my bike riding :). A pitiful showing I know. The van picked me up and I skipped ahead to the next winery. 

The wineries were great. They specialize in Sauvignon blanc and had some really nice whites. One has the best wine in South Africa but was sold out so we couldn't taste. These were smaller farms and much of the process is still done by hand. We definitely enjoyed the wine, had a nice, late lunch and took the scenic drive along the coast back to the hotel. We even passed a beach with a guy whose job is to sight sharks. Crazy! 

It was a great day despite the weather and we called it an early night as we had morning flights. 

Exploring the area where the wine is made. 

The VIP tasting room. Not where we did our tasting :)

Cheers!

Stephanie and Mary riding. Me in the van :)

Cape Town

Friday morning we flew into Cape Town. My flight wasn't too bad. I got a seat up front in the bulkhead row. I slept during the full hour delay on the runway and most of the flight. Then my bag was one of the first off. Too bad the others traveling with me were in the back sitting next to smelly people and the bathroom, they did not sleep during the delay and their bags came a lot later than mine. But, we checked in to the Westin in Cape Town (very nice hotel!) and it was a beautiful sunny afternoon. Turns out the Rand (local currency) has a pretty good exchange rate. We found a place for a late lunch on the waterfront and went shopping at a hiking store. There is a ferris wheel at the waterfront that offered great views of the city. At $8 for 12 minutes, we thought that was pretty good and enjoyed the ride. We grabbed some drinks at a nearby brewery restaurant and played gin for a bit. Tomorrow we start early to climb Table Mountain, so we called it an early night. 

At the waterfront

Having some late lunch. 

The mountain for tomorrow :) we will walk to the top and across to go down the other side via cable car. 

On the Ferris wheel. 

Playing cards. 

Day safari at Pilanesberg

At 6:15am (no worries, jet lag had me up at 2:30 :) ), we were picked up by a local Zulu man (one of the larger ethnic groups in South Africa) and headed 2.5 hours outside of Johannesburg to Pilanesberg national game reserve (http://www.pilanesberg-game-reserve.co.za/). The drive provided for some time to catch up on sleep thankfully. We got to the park around 9am and our guide drove us through. He gave us some historical information of SA and helped spot animals for us. Basically it was a park with roads all through it. It was 55,000 hectares (roughly 136,000 acres) and had animals from all over Africa. 

We saw lots of impala and springbok (small deer/antelope looking things) and some larger ones, water buck and kudu. There were lots of zebras and one family that walked across the road around our car. We stopped to see a "Pumbaa" (aka warthog) alongside the road, which apparently makes for pretty tasty bacon, and next thing we knew a mom and her baby rhino crossed right in front of us. We saw like four rhino sightings which I thought was quite spectacular. 

We saw some crocodiles basking in the sun along with some hippos, though they were pretty far away. We saw one lion sleeping in the sun under a tree too, but she/he was so far away all you really saw was a light colored mark in the grass. Lots of elephant poop, but no elephants for some reason. I have been promised to see lots in Kenya tough. What else....giraffes, ostriches, wildebeest, turtles and I think that covers the big stuff. 

Here are some pics of the day:

We were told the zebras aren't pregnant, they have gas. Apparently really bad gas to set off predators. I'm a bit gullible on tours, so not sure about the truth meter on this one :). They do kick really hard, which is consistent with what I've been told before (I think on the Disney safari ride). 

I think this baby rhino sighting was my favorite :). 

The croc at the edge of the water. 

A lone giraffe. They make no sound but have a very long tongue. 

Hippos soaking up the rays on the other side of the water. 

P.S. Thanks to my Aunt Mary I found an SD card attachment for my iPad so I can share these pics real time. Great investment for anyone with an iPad!