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Animals Landscape Travel

Monday August 23, 2010 Part I

MAASAI MARA, KENYA – Part I is our morning game drive.

Giraffe at sunrise

The Maasai who guard our camp at night (from from animals) walking 12 miles back to their village.

Maasai walking

Wildebeest:

Wildebeest

Setting up for breakfast in the bush:

Setting up for breakfast in the bush
Relaxing after breakfast

Lion up close:

Lion up close

Cape buffalo. These large, tough animals are considered dangerous if you’re on foot.

Cape buffalo

Here’s a Thomson gazelle with a group of impala. The guides refer to Thompson gazelles as “cheetah snacks”.

Impala and Thompson Gazelle
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Family and friends Landscape Travel

Sunday August 22, 2010 Part III

MAASAI MARA – In the late afternoon, under dull skies, we visited a Maasai village. The Maasai are nomads – they tend cattle which are their primary index of wealth. We find the Maasai friendly and welcoming. Their culture is sufficiently binding that they tend to return to their roots after being educated, and even after travel to the US. Our Maasai guide in the Maasai Mara, Ping, had spent six months in Orlando as a consultant to the Safari feature at Disney World. They are under severe pressure to change some of their ways, For example it was a coming of age rite for a young Maasai man to kill a lion. The Maasai population is East Africa is around 400,000, the lion population is around 25,000 so the numbers no longer support this practice. The Maasai also historically practiced female circumcision, a practice that has appropriately been banned by the governments of Kenya and Tanzania. Here’s a link the the Wikipedia entry on the Maasai: The Maasai

One interesting theory on the origin of the Maasai that we heard from several guides: A Roman legion was sent to explore the sources of the Nile and vanished. The theory is that legion trained a local tribe as legionnaires and that the Maasai descended from them. The Maasai wear red cloaks (colour reserved for soldiers in the Roman army) draped like togas and use spears which resemble the Roman Pilum and short swords which resemble the Roman Gladius.

Maasai

Nancy and Maasai:

Nancy and Maasai

Maasai chickens:

Massai chickens

Maasai child at play:

Maasai child at play

We were taken into a Maasai house – they are constructed of acacia branches driven into the ground and covered with cow dung. There is one very small window – 6 cm or so in diameter.

Inside a Maasai home

Maasai children in the door of a Maasai house.

Maasai boys

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Landscape Travel

Sunday August 22, 2010 Part II

MAASAI MARA, KENYA – On our two-hour drive back from our balloon landing site we again encountered plentiful game. Here’s a cheetah, the worlds fasted land animal. This specimen in injured – see the red spot on its thigh – probably a spotted hyena bite. Here’s info on the cheetah: Cheetah.

Cheetah
Cheetah

Here’s a giraffe confronting a spotted hyena. The hyena is the nastiest predator in the bush. It jumps on its prey, clings to it with it claws and simply starts eating it, crunching flesh and bone with its powerful jaws. It’s no match for a healthy adult giraffe though, so the hyena in this picture is making a respectful circle around the giraffe. Here’s a link to the Wikipedia entry on hyenas: Hyenas.

Giraffe confronts a spotted hyena

Crocodile. Rivers and streams are infested with them. Some look like they are about the size of nuclear submarines.

Crocodile

Vultures on a termite mound:

Vultures on a termite mound

Male ostrich looking for a date. The males have black bodies; the females are gray. The red neck and legs are a courtship display.

Ostrich
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Animals Landscape Transportation Travel

Sunday August 22, 2010 Part I

MAASAI MARA, KENYA – Another huge game day, so I’m dividing the day into multiple parts. We started at 4:00 am, driving to a hot air balloon launch site and making an hour-long balloon trip across the bush. Zebras from on high.

Zebras from the air

Ditto impalas:

Impalas

Here we are, eye-to-eye with the giraffes:

Giraffes at eye level

Bush:

Bush

Dry watering hole:

Dry watering hole

Hot air balloon landing:

Hot air balloon landing
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Animals Landscape Travel

Saturday August 21, 2010 Part II

MAASAI MARA – More game. The Mara Plains Camp generously lent me a Canon 50D (a so-so camera) and a Canon 500 mm telephoto (a helluva lens). The camera has a relatively small sensor and a 1.6x focal multiplier (producing the equivalent of 800mm with the telephoto) but was entirely adequate. Our vehicles were provided with platforms and bean bags in lieu of tripods – this worked very well. The 800mm focal length demands seriously good technique, but when mastered yielded terrific results.

Leopard mother and cub

More leopard.

Leopards
Leopards

So here are three wildebeest. It’s an odd-looking animal – it looks like it was assembled from the spare parts bin. It looks a bit like a bison, but smaller. Since the Serengeti plain looks a lot like the North American Great Plains (except for the acacias) the large herds of wildebeest give a sense of what the North American Plains must have been like before they were settled.

Wildebeest and acacia

Our only jackal of the trip. Here’s a link to info about the jackal: Jackal

Jackal
Categories
Animals Landscape Transportation Travel

Saturday August 21, 2010 Part I

MAASAI MARA, KENYA – Here’s where this gets intense. In the Maasai Mara we find ourselves in the middle of the Wildebeest migration. Here’s some info on the Wildebeest (also known as the Gnu): jWildebeest entry. Quoting from the Wikipedia entry:

“Wildebeest are known for their annual migration to new pastures. Many documentaries feature wildebeest crossing rivers, or being eaten by crocodiles or drowning in the attempt. Although it is assumed that this migration is a frenzy and that the wildebeest cross blindly, recent research has shown that a herd of gnu possesses what is known as a “swarm intelligence”, whereby the animals systematically explore and overcome the obstacle as one.”

Official estimates place the wildebeest population on the greater Serengeti at 2 million; knowledgeable NGOs suggest that its more like 1.2 million. The migration brings with it teaming game of all species. I’m breaking today’s entry into two parts because of the wealth of images.

Dirt airstrip at Chyulu Hills as we prepare to depart for the Maasai Mara.

Airstrip at Chyulu Hills

Our greeting when we arrive at Maasai Mara. Poaching is a serious problem throughout Kenya and Tanzania – these animals are killed for their ivory.

An elephant gives us the full Monte

On our drive from the airstrip to the Mara Plains Camp (a fairly simple tented camp where we will spend three days) we pass these hippos. Hippos are nocturnal herbavors, grazing on the plains at night. In the daytime the stay in the water as a strategy to regulate their body heat and as protection from the sun. A large group of hippos have found this watering hole. The crud on the surface is hippo excrement – they aren’t too selective about where they hang out. They are noted for their bad tempers and can move surprisingly quickly.

Hippos

A lion killing a wildebeest.

Another take on the lion and the wildebeest.

Lion and Wildebeest

A lion cub.

Lion Cub
Categories
Animals Family and friends Landscape Travel

Friday August 20, 2010

CHYULU HILLS, KENYA – Most of the images in the trip are taken with a Nikon D700 and various combinations of long lenses. There is a 15 kilogram baggage weight limit on chartered bush plains, so my photo gear severely limited luxury items like clothing and toiletries. Our typical day started with coffee in camp before sunrise (6:30) followed by a game drive in a Land Rover to catch the activity around sunrise, then breakfast in the bush. Game was not particularly plentiful in this region as it has suffered three years of drought. Impalas from our morning game drive:

Impalas

I also traveled with my Leica M9, which is not useful for game, but in the places where it can be used produces images that actually do stand out as having an intangible clarity and a three-dimensional quality.

Abandoned Maasai village

Acacias from our morning game drive. The Chyulu Hills are part of the vast Serengeti ecosystem, which looks heart-breakingly like Out of Africa.

Acacias

This from an afternoon bush walk.

Maria and Nancy do a bush walk

Here we are at sunset at the end of a bush walk. The man in red is a Maasai tracker; the man in green is armed in case of an unfortunate encounter with wildlife. In Ol Donyo Wuas’ experience this hasn’t been an issue but their view is better safe than sorry.

Sunset in the bush
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