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Safari Safi

December 2022 - January 2023
Auf bird-watching-Tour mit Franziska Read more
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  • Safari Safi
    1
    Day 20

    "The preferred option on rainy days"? 🧐

    December 25, 2022 in Tanzania ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    There are two ways out of Malambo. One northwards in direction to Sale where we came from, which is supposed to be an impenetrable hell of mud after more than 60 mm of precipitation per day. The other one southwards in direction to Ngorongoro conservation area which is supposed to be the preferred option on rainy days. It is dry but we do not want to drive back the same road and thus decide to enter Ngorongoro conservation area. There will be no gate from where we come from and therefore we will be entering the conservation area "illegally".

    Just 12 km out of Malabo we stop at Sanjan river with high, fast water. And this is "... the preferred option on rainy days"?? A totally new experience for me as I never drove through such a wide, dirty and fast-flowing river. There are two potential fords but both look difficult on the first glance. We spend over one hour deciding which of both to choose. Thanks to good mobile network connection I contact Dirk and send him a few pictures. He just responds "You can cross the river without any fear, I do it once a week and never had problems.". After getting out of the car and wading through one ford, I confirm the potential crossability and we do as we are told. Crocodiles seem to have siesta. Puh, what an adventure 😅!    Read more

  • Safari Safi
    Day 20

    What a drive!

    December 25, 2022 in Tanzania ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

    What follows is one of my most wonderful and honest real off-road tracks so far! There is no official road. These are just random tracks through steppe and open grassland which you have to find yourself. And if you don't find them, just drive wherever you decide to drive. It's all yours! The whole endless landscape changes many times towards Ngorongoro. In southern Sale plain we get stopped by Olkarien river. This time it is just a dry riverbed but the tracks we were following are ending abruptly at the steep washed-away river edge. No way to drive down into the riverbed as the step is over a metre deep. How did previous cars or supply trucks cross here? Or has there recently been a small flood? Where else might they have crossed this river? No traced to be found. I get out of the car and walk around to assess the situation and the riverbed. Nothing. In order to continue we have to find a suitable ford ourselves! Back in the car we follow our side of the river in direction to where I expect to find lower terrain for flatter access. After a few hundred metres we indeed find a perfect ford for crossing the dry riverbed, yay! And for sure nobody has used it before. There is just not a single trace of other human beings here. Now, again endless grass steppe in front of us, yay!

    While having a tea break on top of my roof rack we observer the first wildebeest and zebras herds in higher numbers migrating down in direction of Lake Natron. Also Secretary Birds and Kori Bustards with their fluffy necks!

    Near Olduvai Gorge we finally turn onto the "main road". The moment when we want to take a picture of giraffes making love, some annoying and begging Maasai children drive us crazy for the first time on the whole trip. Until now most kids have just been curious and hello-saying but these here have adapted well to us Mzungu tourists. What will be the next on the menu for today?    Read more

  • Safari Safi
    Day 20

    On top of the crater rim

    December 25, 2022 in Tanzania ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C

    For a perfect end of the day, at dusk we get stuck in a traffic jam right on top of the crater road. Safari car after safari car with us in the middle. A broken-down bus blocks the road in front of us and a truck got stuck in the mud next to it at the attempt of passing it. While we walk around and talk to the other tourists and their drivers, a huge and heavy yellow road grader is called to rescue but finds himself sliding down the crater slopes on the attempt of driving around both stuck vehicles. No chance for him to get back up on the road on this very evening, haha!

    By 9 p. m. all tourists from the stuck safari cars get evacuated to their camps. Just their drivers are left with us. After cooking on-road pasta we decide to simply sleep in the car between all the other cars and trucks. At 10 p. m. somebody knocks on our window to tell us that we got permission to bypass the traffic jam through the Ngorongoro crater for free! (This alone costs 295 USD and is not allowed in the dark.) But most of the drivers with their safari cars have already left an we would be the only ones driving alone at night through the crater. Uff. We are totally wasted after this full day and fall back into our deep slumber 😴. Better to drive down into the crater in the morning ...

    But what happens at night is truly a wonder. Before the first light dawns, we are woken up by sporadically passing safari cars, coming from the direction of the road block. Some alien force must have pulled away the broken bus in the middle of the night as the stuck truck is gone in the morning! We did not hear nor see anything while we were sleeping. We are surprised to find ourselves in thick morning fog being the last and only remaining car in the middle of the road. And an unblocked road implies that there is no more reason to claim a gratis detour through the crater. Damn! At least the misty clouds dissolve when we arrive at the viewpoint for an extensive breakfast with gorgeous views down into the crater for sunrise. Yeehaaw!    Read more

  • Safari Safi
    1
    Day 21

    Ngorongoro highlands

    December 26, 2022 in Tanzania ⋅ 🌧 17 °C

    So, what's this Ngorongoro about? I always classified it as "one of those touristic things which one might visit but which is not necessary to be visited". Hmm. Failed. Actually, Franziska and I agree that it is indeed a piece of damn wonderful landscape! But, not only the crater itself. It is more the whole crater highland region which fascinates us! After our breakfast, we keep driving on a ridge road with steep slopes to both sides behind dense, moist and juicily dripping ticket. Are there any man-eating animals around? We have to leave the car a few times to assure ourselves 😉.

    The crowded east viewpoint opens a gap for gorgeous views into Ngorongoro crater with the low morning sun. We spend a whole lot of time here, spotting elephants, zebras, buffalo and rhinos far away with our binoculars. Unnoticed, we are being watched by a chameleon from the bush directly in front of us. Many Tanzanians come here with their families. We hand over our binoculars multiple times and enjoy the scenery and the chats.

    The moment we want to continue, a ranger appears and asks for our permit. Remember? We do not have one, haha! Continuing on the ridge to Empakaai crater? Not possible. We are friendlily asked to descend to the gate first. Shit. A bunch of valuable time we loose down there in endless discussions because the Tanzanian Revenue Authority (TRA) latterly decided to charge 150 $ instead of 40 $ per day for my Toyota. The actual cost depends on the tare weight of my car which has never been checked precisely on my other visits to national parks during the previous years. Just until now, where my car suddenly pops up in some kind of national registration database. This is what you call digitalisation. There is no room for discussions. Everybody stays professional and we have to pay. And we have to drop our fire wood from my roof rack as well.

    Holding the day permit in our hands, we continue up again and want to head in direction to Empakaai crater on the lesser frequented but beautiful ridge road. We do not manage to arrive there within our time slot but are inspired also by Olmoti crater and the soft slopes of the depression between Olmoti and Empakaai. It would be really great to return here for some days of hiking!    Read more

  • Safari Safi
    Day 22

    Meeting Dirk and Sara

    December 27, 2022 in Tanzania ⋅ 🌧 22 °C

    We finally meet Dirk and Sara on Migombani Campsite where I met them exactly a year ago for the first time. Having some light rain, we share a veeery lazy banana-pancake breakfast under my awning with their friend Florian from Uganda and one of his kids. A great place to relax and to get some things sorted and ... to watch birds comfortably directly from our camping chairs. An evening hike up the steep ridge opens great views along the rift valley over lake Manyara.Read more

  • Safari Safi
    3
    Day 23

    Ooooh, these sweet little bee-eaters!

    December 28, 2022 in Tanzania ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C

    Many people I sporadically talked with during my past years of travel have not been super-fascinated by Lake Manyara National Park. But hey, how can you not love this landscape, uh? Take just one look on a topographic map: You will be squeezed between a fancy lake and a steep, several hundred metres high cliff. And this is exactly what you get. Take two elephants and drop them left and right of the road and no light will shine through between lake and cliff. During high water you might not find the road. Planning to do some camping between two rivers with heavy rains? Better pack some extra rations as you might be running out of bridges!

    We are surprised to find ourselves among just a few other tourists. Entering from the north we dive into thick, juicy tropical jungle and open our windows in order to enjoy the hissing sounds of insects and other flying fancinesses. Huge, winged termites are swarming out of their nests and are being picked with astonishing precision directly from their nest by awesomely looking silvery-cheeked hornbills! As if you were sitting on a burger machine which is spitting burgers at 1 Hz. This is a life which also the endemic Manyara monkeys know to appreciate. In a tree directly above us we find two giant Verreaux's eagle-owls chilling in the shade of the leaves and blinking at us with their pink eyelids. Ground hornbills with their distinctive red necks are waiting in the next curve for us. Not far from them a family of baboons is having a lazy morning. What is going on here?

    On an elevated picnic site we start our late breakfast with freshly baked bread which we were able to acquire from Migombani campsite this morning. With baked beans and pan-fried tomatoes it could not be better. Nice views down on the lake. More tourists appear. Feeding Michi is taken to a new level when a German family presents me with fried chicken legs and boiled eggs from their tour operator's lunch pack. Paradise! If just Franzi's stomach wouldn't make any stress ... hmm.

    We continue further south. Some elephants are hiding in the bushes. During the last years the water level has been rising by several metres, as it has been the case in nearly all rift valley lakes. I observed this in Kenya two years ago already. Unfortunately, many trees are dying because of that. But the buffaloes do not care and chill at the waterfront.

    After half distance along the lake, south of Jambi river and Endabash campsite, we meet no tourists anymore. It's our park! As we continue down to the hot springs the landscape changes multiple times. Arriving there, Franziska falls in love with green-yellowish little bee-eaters with their blue eyebrow while I fancy the hot and sulphurous springs barefoot. The water colour looks strange, brownish-red. Doesn't seem to be sedimentary but rather like flaky organic material. Maybe algae? A few kilometres further down the road: "Ist das Dreck da im See, oder lebt da was?" No, it's hippos! The low afternoon sun already starts casting long shadows from the cliffs over the narrow slice of land we a driving on. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to camp at the southern exit gate without extending our entry permit. Off we drive into the night!    Read more

  • Safari Safi
    Day 24

    Time to relax

    December 29, 2022 in Tanzania ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C

    Both our stomachs decided to squeeze a small rebellion in between our plans and we relax a whole day at a calm, simple spot without much of infrastructure but with friendly staff. At night, zebras and elephants rustle in the hedges around Wild Palm campsite and bush babies jump from tree to tree. We start to value our surroundings even more in the morning because we can simply stay seated for watching birds throughout the whole day. A hamerkop couple is in the process of building a huge nest in the tree behind our car. Franziska spots a bright-blue kingfisher uttering a distinctive loud call and identifies it as woodland kingfisher with our field guide. In the same moment I use my mobile birding app to record a sound snippet for identification of this specimen, yielding the very same result. Awesome 😄! After powernapping in the hammock we leave for a short drive and try to buy our permit for the next day's excursion into Tarangire national park. Without success. We would have liked to start off very early without any delays. But their stupid system does not allow to predate any tickets. Who implemented that? We return to camp with fresh veggies from the market and end our day with an ordinary camping dinner. Some birds start to go crazy around one of the bushes at dusk and after a while of investigation we indeed find a very tiny spotted owl sitting between branches and trying to tell us: "Hey, can you please turn off those annoying birds behind me?!". It's a pearl-spotted owlet, Tanzania's smallest owl! What a contrast to yesterday's giant Verreaux's eagle-owl, Tanzania's biggest owl!Read more

  • Safari Safi
    Day 25

    Of cats under bushes ...

    December 30, 2022 in Tanzania ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C

    We manage to enter Tarangire national park as early as our bodies allow: shortly after gate opening. To our surprise many animals welcome us directly from the beginning. Zappy zebras, elegant elands, itty-bitty impalas and gregarious Grant's gazelles left and right of us. It's not even 9 a. m. when I nearly shit my pants for the first time this day: Bacheloring elephant bulls 🐘, mommies 🐘🐘 and their cubs 🐘🐘🐘 crossing the road in front and behind of us. And we being immobile with having our engine turned off (Michis Arsch auf Grundeis, jetzt schon!).

    Before continuing to the renown Silale swamp we take a small detour through "little Serengeti plain" north of Tarangire river. "Little" but yay! We see beautiful grey crowned cranes for the first time while many trees around us are occupied by brown snake eagles. A whole class of baby ostriches is being escorted by just one female and one male ostrich. Are things going right here? And there, a sweet warthog with an erect tail! Woah, way too many impressions! But let that be just the beginning ...

    We stay north-easterly of Tarangire river and follow it upstream where it turns in from the south. Where the easterly side arm (from Mbweha campsite) crosses our road, tourists from another safari car point our gazes into the direction of three lions crouched in the shade of a bush. Awww, we would have never spotted them alone! In the hard shade of the bright sunlight they are perfectly camouflaged with their pale, greyish-yellow fur.

    Our curiosity and our instinct for the more adventurous routes let us continue east onto a track which is not frequented by commercial safari cars at all. This is what I like. We are heading directly to Silale swamp now. The sandy track meanders smoothly through the now denser bushland when **BAM!** suddenly a leopard lady with her cub jumps up from under a shrub and darts off into the void, not being seen ever again. Yeeehaaaaw! Filled with joy and adrenaline, we are unable to grasp what just happened. Remember that prominent saying? "Don't search for leopards. Leopards just happen.". So true! So beautiful! These must probably have been the two most exciting seconds of our trip. On a viewpoint near Balloon Camp we have to digest the first half of this crazy day. From here, the terrain descends into the Silale basin.

    African fish eagles! Non-pink flamingoes! The swamp is full with birds and we only see the backs of grazing elephants overlooking the high grass. We got recommendations to drive as far as to Oliver's camp but this would be rushing today. Instead, we decide to find a picnic place near the t-junction and ... get to a stop. A safari car is blocking the road coming from the right and in front of us, where we are heading, one single, adolescent elephant. Can you imagine what happens next? Yes, Michi's heartbeat reaches a critical value for the second time this day when this very elephant decides to sway slowly into the direction of our car, which, again, has the engine turned off for "more authentic wilderness experience". Shit 🙈. The guys in the other car must have been praying excessively for the elephant to take our direction. But, reaching our car, luckily it turns away towards a small tree in order to scrub its trunk and tusks in a very fulfilling manner, underlined with an even more fulfilling scrubbing sound 🐘. We enjoy this pleasant pause and shortly afterwards also find our own peace with a satisfying power nap, coffee and tea on the pretty Hondo Hondo special campsite, being watched by waterbucks and warthogs.    Read more

  • Safari Safi
    1
    Day 25

    ... and about gnus under cats.

    December 30, 2022 in Tanzania ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C

    Now it's Franziska's turn in off-road driving and no longer me who's supposed to curve around the puddles. Unfortunately, as we have to reach the public campsite for our wilderness overnighting before dusk, I get a bit stressed. The perfect situation to drift into first-hand communication problems 😬! Before every more challenging pond of mud we hold for a short briefing. By indicating our possibilities of which track to choose and which not in front of the car, I feel pretty confident that I communicate my idea of how to avoid getting stuck profoundly. But after the first round, I realise that our interpretations of "that puddle there" and "that other puddle there" seem to differ to an extent that does result in the exact opposite of what I intended to explain as "the drivable path". Still, we don't gets stuck. In front of the next muddy pothole, we again weigh our odds for getting through successfully. "With the left wheel you try to take this edge and with the right wheel try to stay on that side. Better avoid that big puddle on the left there." And off we go straight into "that big puddle on the left there". What has happened? Apparently there must have been two different "big puddles on the left" and each of us must have meant "the other left one" 😂. But, we don't get stuck. Wonderful! Yet again I learn that life offers multiple valid paths to success. And, that simply switching places with the one next to you might indeed change the perspective you take on things ahead of you.

    We follow the wide riverbed of Tarangire back northwards and enjoy the now lower sun. Great colours!
    "Where should we go next?"
    "I don't know, maybe back to the lions?"
    "Yeah, it's 4 in the afternoon and still hot. They most probably haven't moved their asses yet."
    When we arrive at the dry riverbed of the sidearm, the three lions are still under one of the bushes. We stop the engine and watch them from the opposite bank with our binoculars. No other tourists far and wide. This is our private moment. After just a few minutes a wildebeest appears down there, crossing the riverbed in a lazy trot from our side to the lions' bank. Once the wildebeest is less than hundred metres away from the bush, one of the lions rises and observes it curiously from behind the shrubbery. This wildebeest is so very determined in holding its course that it directly walks towards where the lions are snoozing in the shade. Unbelievable! I take out my cam with the telephoto lens. Fifty metres. I switch to video mode. Twenty metres. Is this really going to happen? **BAM!** All three lions jump up and pounce on the beest! A moment of just a few seconds. Cats are quick. Even dozing ones. Wahoooo, what an excitement! We watch for a looong time how they play around with their prey like kittens playing around with tiny mice. Interestingly, this whole hunting and killing process doesn't look cruel at all. No furious slaughtering. No squealing. As if this was the most natural thing on earth just happening. One lion even affectionately licks on the wildebeest while the others concentrate on suffocating it. As if to calm it down. After a while they drag the gnu to where they have been chilling out and finally start to tear it into pieces. Yum! 🦁

    In orange-yellowish rays of sunlight, herds of elephants are escorting us the last mile to our campsite. Friendly staff shows us a free spot next to a big tree from where we can overlook the soft hills. Such a beautiful landscape around Tarangire river here! While setting up our camp, more elephants walk by closely, throwing curious looks at us intruders. Franziska is beaming with joy 😃. But just until night falls in when we huddle together by the fire for our dinner cooking. Blinded by the flames we are unable to see anything around us when at the same time we hear branches breaking and elephant bulls grumbling with their deep voices not more than 20 metres away! It's the third time this day that elephants make me almost shit my pants. Later that night Franziska is woken up by howling hyenas but is too intimidated to also wake me up.

    Before sunrise we wake up by crackling branches again. Cuddling, we watch a baby elephant passing right next to us from inside of the car. What an exciting dawning of the day! Unfortunately, we have to hurry because our permit is about to expire. There was a miscommunication at the gate and we got issued just one instead of two days. How stupid! I am really pissed and deeply disappointed about that. All the romance of a lazy wilderness camp breakfast stolen by stupid bureaucracy. But anyway, 150 USD per day for just my foreign-registered car is way too much and we are not willing to support this system. We've seen and experienced more than enough during our short visit here and take it as it is. A sweet jackal leads us the way back to the gate and we spot a pair of honey badgers ending their night shift before the rising sun turns Tarangire river into a glistering golden beauty again. Good morning life!    Read more

  • Safari Safi
    Day 26

    No bang, nor any boom

    December 31, 2022 in Tanzania ⋅ ☁️ 30 °C

    Spending another wilderness night over the year's turn in Tarangire national park would have been a nice opportunity. But instead, we use these days for relaxed mileage eating in order to relocate our asses to the southern end of the Eastern Arc Mountains. Our next destination Iringa lays two driving days ahead and will require a stop-over in Tanzania's political capital Dodoma. On my previous excursions I never gave Dodoma a real chance and only rushed through. Somehow my impression was very disillusioning but this time we will be taught a better one. It's vibrant but friendly around the market areas and not far from our hotel we find ourselves strolling along a traffic-free pedestrian zone with shops and stuff to the left and right. Wow, this must be the only "zone" one in whole Tanzania! And, finally, we find a kiosk serving freshly squeezed juices. Until now we found fresh fruits en mass everywhere along the road but nobody ever thought about turning them into juice. What a market gap – finally filled. We fall asleep long before "the event" and wake up in 2023 without any noticeable bang or boom.Read more

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