Well, There It Is

Linda Lou Burton posting from Zanzibar Serena Hotel, Stone Town, Zanzibar, Tanzania – I’m not just looking at the Indian Ocean right now. I am smelling it, hearing it, and within inches of touching it. Which happens to be the next part of my plan. You see, there are five oceans in the world, and they cover 70% of the Earth’s surface. So if you plan to See The World, you’re going to have to swim, cruise, or fly over a lot of water! And naturally, you’ll want to get your foot in it. I may have come in contact with Atlantic waters when I was 5 and Dad and Mom took me swimming in Virginia’s York River. But that’s a stretch, although salt water does come inland that far. Certainly during the 60s and 70s I spent time on the Atlantic seaboard with my kids, wading and splashing from Florida all the way to Maine. In 1978 my sons and I went plowing into the Pacific waters at Santa Monica Beach, after a long drive cross-country to California. Then I had 25 years of living on the West Coast and enjoying the Pacific waters from California to Washington state. It was 2005 when I did the quirky thing of going NORTH of the Artic Circle and SOUTH of the Antarctic on the first day of summer at each. So, June 2005 I put a boot into the Arctic Ocean, and December 2005, a boot into the Southern Ocean. Yes, for both of those, I was surrounded by snow; a guide had his rifle ready on Artic Ocean day and barely agreed to let me out of the Hummer. “If a polar bear is coming, I can’t see him until he’s close,” he warned. In Antarctica, the penguins were much less a threat; the idea there was to protect THEM from US; my boots were sanitized before going ashore. It’s 2022 now, and here I am, FINALLY, at Ocean #5 – there it is – the bluest, warmest, and 3^rd largest ocean in the world. Pardon me while I sit on my porch just 20 feet away from it. I’ll do the touching thing tomorrow, but right now I’m going to look at it until it’s pitch plum dark. Room service, please?

Know Your Oceans

• Pacific Ocean: 104,800,000 sq miles between Asia and Australasia and the Americas. 
• Atlantic Ocean: 52,899,000 sq miles between the Americas and Europe and Africa.
• Indian Ocean: 43,844,000 sq miles between southern Asia, Africa and Australia. 
• Southern Ocean: 13,645,000 sq miles between Antarctica and the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans. 
• Arctic Ocean: 9,667,000 sq miles between northern North America and Eurasia in the Arctic.

Zanzibar Serena Hotel https://www.serenahotels.com/zanzibar

Next Post: The Pause Button

A Story of Water

Linda Lou Burton posting from Zanzibar Serena Hotel, Stone Town, Zanzibar, Tanzania – This is the prettiest drink ever! And I promise, the most welcomed. We arrived at our exotic Serena-By-The-Sea (Kingdom by the sea? Poe) just after 3 PM, with a poet’s bag of stories (I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence.” Frost). There’s the story of Ben’s flight-booking surprise, that turned into turmoil for everyone. There’s the story of our strange pilot (Santa?) who “spoke not a word but went straight to his work” for the entire two-hour flight. There’s the story of Immigrations (Give me your tired… Lazarus) where, even though Zanzibar is IN Tanzania, and we were IN Tanzania on a Tanzanian visa as evidenced in our passports, we had to fill out paperwork for Zanzibar. And then there’s the story of water.

I was the last person on the plane (slowly, slowly; pole, pole) being pushed and pulled up the tiny steps and squeezed into the last seat. The person carrying my backpack threw it into the pile of luggage secured behind a cloth curtain at the back. As the plane taxied down the runway, my seatmate began recording our flight, his camera-on-a-stick held to the window, technology capturing his dull monotone voice. I looked around, surveying my surroundings; the plane had 1-2 seating with me in the aisle seat. Friedrich (I decided to name him) was on my right and his traveling partner Frieda (as I named her) had the single window seat to the left of me (yes, they had grabbed both windows). About 30 minutes into the flight, Friedrich reached into his backpack and pulled out two water bottles. He leaned over me and handed one across the aisle to Frieda, then tucked one into his seat pocket, unopened. This set off the “thirst command” in my head, and I realized that MY water bottle was in my backpack, and my backpack was way beyond my reach, oh criminy! After 30 minutes of staring at those two unopened water bottles, I nudged Friedrich’s arm and said, in gesturing English, “I need some water badly but mine is in the back. I’ll be glad to pay you for your water bottle.” He shook his head and frowned. “No. This is my water.” Then I started coughing. I didn’t MEAN to, I swear! But I couldn’t stop coughing! My mouth was completely dry; I was reminded of those poor zebras in Amboseli, dying of thirst. My throat hurt. I was thinking evil thoughts. Friedrich never looked my way, nor did he ever open his water bottle. Frieda didn’t either.

This beautiful drink I’m sipping now, in the lobby of my Serena-by-the-Indian Ocean, isn’t the much-craved water I needed so badly on the plane, but bungo juice, which is found only in Zanzibar; it tastes of pineapple, mango, and orange; refreshing but not too sweet. The flower is hibiscus; red and orange blooms surround the hotel. A poet would have a word for a place like this, I’m thinking, as I looked past the massive hand-carved doors to the lively street scene out front.  “Friedrich and Frieda will probably hate it here” is the best line I’ve got.

A record of our day, so far, beginning at Seronera Airstrip. See, I had water with me!

Zanzibar Serena Hotel https://www.serenahotels.com/zanzibar

Even Safaris End

Linda Lou Burton posting from Seronera Airstrip, Serengeti National Park, Tanzania–Some things you never want to forget. I’ll remember my gripes about this fast-paced-energy-charged safari for a long time. It’s been exhausting! But I’ll remember the giraffes forever. That very first day, when I gently placed a pellet on the gray velvet tongue of a giraffe and looked straight into those eyes with their Hollywood lashes, I was forever taken in. They look amazing in the wild too; in every photo I took, zooming across the grasslands, those beautiful long lashes stand out. I’ll remember the neat-looking zebras, and their unlikely best buds, the scraggly wildebeests, what an odd, but wildly successful, relationship! I’ll remember the pudgy hippos with their sublime mudpuddle grins and the rhinos with those not very attractive outgrowths stuck to the top of their faces that make them a desirable target for mean money makers. I’ll remember the elephants, going at life full-force, pushing over trees and slinging dust every which way, but so tender hearted they grieve when they lose a loved one. I’ll remember the many species of antelope, with their dainty, pretty, sometimes fairytale swirls of horns, and the big broad sweep of the buffalo’s “boss” stretching across the top of his head. I’ll remember the land plover, fearlessly guarding her two tiny eggs laying among the rocks at the side of the road. As for the lions, well sure, I know they have teeth and jaw powerful enough to bite off my arm, but what I’ll remember is all that sleeping, and stretching, and sleeping, just like my sweet little Katy cat. Overall in my memories, however, is the land, the landscape, the home for these animals. The acacia trees dotted across the open plains are planted firmly in my dreams. What a fitting place to end our safari today – the Serengeti. Even the name is beautiful – “serengeti” is an approximation of the word “siringet” used by the Maasai meaning “the place where the land runs on forever.”

Early morning packing (don’t forget that hustle!) to taking pictures of each other, just before boarding our plane. The first animals of the day were two cape buffalo by our front porch (yes, I called security). The last animal (surprise!) was the long awaited “tree-climbing lion.” I reminded Willy of our fruitless search at Lake Manyara, saying “Willy, don’t let us leave forever without seeing a lion in a tree.” By golly, he found one. Do you see a lion in that nice shady tree? Willy did! He moved the 4×4 so we could see both back and front.

Serengeti National Park is a World Heritage Site covering 5,700 square miles of grassland plains, savanna, riverine forest, and woodlands. It lies in northwestern Tanzania, bordered to the north by Kenya, where it adjoins the Maasai Mara National Reserve. To the southeast is the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, to the southwest the Ikorongo and Grumeti Game Reserves, and to the northeast and east the Loliondo Game Control Area. This space teems with wildlife – over 2 million ungulates, 4,000 lions, 1,000 leopards, 550 cheetahs, and some 500 bird species. The Serengeti is well known for the largest annual animal migration in the world of over 1.5 million blue wildebeest and 250,000 zebra along with smaller herds of Thomas’ Gazelle and eland. The Park is also home to the largest lion population in Africa.

The park is divided into three regions:

• Serengeti plains: The best-known feature of the Serengeti is the almost treeless grassland in the south. It has kopjes, granite formations that serve as observation posts for predators.
• Western corridor: The Grumeti and Mbalageti. Rivers, big groups of riverine forest, and small mountain ranges stretch to Lake Victoria. The great migration passes through the corridor from May to July.
• Northern Serengeti: This remote and relatively inaccessible area is dominated by open woodlands and hills, ranging from Seronera in the south to the Mara River on the Kenyan border.

Human habitation is forbidden in the Park except for the Tanzania National Parks Authority staff, researchers and staff of the various lodges, campsites, and hotels. The main settlement is Seronera with its primary airstrip.

Serengeti National Park https://www.serengeti.com/

Next Post: A Story Of Water

Crossing My Fingers

Linda Lou Burton posting from Seronera Airstrip, Serengeti National Park, Tanzania– “He never helped with pictures.” This was the complaint every member of the gang was voicing, as we sat in the airstrip terminal this morning. Ben (remember, not his real name) was running here and there, supposedly getting tickets, supposedly for the right people, going to the right places. I sat terrorized, my confidence level in the “right thing” being done for the “right time” at a good minus-ten. (That’s -10.) Fond memories of Abdi, our guide in Kenya, and our drivers in both countries (Daniel and Willy for our 4×4), all expert photographers, were recalled; how they’d take any one of our cameras (if asked, and sometimes, even if not); make the correct adjustments for the circumstances, and “get the shot.” Anyone on the wrong side of the 4×4, no matter, they were always willing to take our camera and help. Ben (remember, working on his Masters in Tourism) had his own fancy-schmancy camera with lens that could zoom to the moon, and he concentrated on his own photos at every stop. He said he was “collecting information” for a project. I wasn’t as bothered by THAT as much as his inability to get us anywhere on time, to listen to anything we might ask, and, most especially, to follow through on the trip itinerary. Promises by Globus, not carried out by Ben. Here are two:

DAY 12, WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 21, 2022. NGORONGORO. Full-day game drive in the crater includes a picnic lunch. (Remember the 4:30 AM departure and boiled-egg in a box?)

DAY 14, FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 23, 2022. SERENGETI. Special farewell dinner in the bush includes a traditional Maasai dance performance. (Guess what.)

I was still stinging over his double-cross about the day in the Crater, which caused me to miss one of my prime objectives of the trip. I strongly suspect he simply failed to book the lunch in advance, and then the Lodge couldn’t accommodate us. Or maybe he thought he’d get more photos for his project earlier in the morning. I’ll never know. But the missing Maasai dance at last night’s farewell dinner was the last straw! We did have a dinner on outdoor tables, but we were seated in the dark with a spotlight in our faces (not lanterns in the trees); and the entertainment was Ben making speeches about tourism in Tanzania. Remember our “last night” with Abdi at Amboseli? Sundowners as the gang  sat together around the fire, talking and reminiscing? When I asked Ben “where are our dancers?” he shrugged. “No dancers,” was all he said. I asked him to come to our tent afterwards. He did, wearing a distracted look. I put “tomorrow’s itinerary” in front of him, pointing to the arrangements, already paid for, that were critical for the next day. Rick and I were to move forward on our own, still as Globus customers, but sans a guide familiar with the territory to take care of potential goof-ups.

DAY 15, SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 24, 2022. SERENGETI–STONE TOWN, ZANZIBAR. Morning game drive. Fly (via Arusha) to Stone Town (a UNESCO World Heritage Site). STONE TOWN Free time in the late afternoon and evening.

“Do you have our plane tickets to Zanzibar?” “Do you have transport booked to get us from the airport to our hotel there?” “Is everything confirmed?” “Oh sure,” was his answer. Based on past experience, I am crossing my fingers.

Last night’s farewell dinner. A night-hunting lion strolling through, or some klipspringers dancing might have livened things up! It ended with everyone straggling off to their tent.

Mbuzi Mawe Serena Tented Camp https://www.serenahotels.com/mbuzi-mawe

Serengeti National Park https://www.serengeti.com/

Next Post: Even Safaris End

Let Sleeping Lions

Linda Lou Burton posting from Mbuzi Mawe Serena Tented Camp, Serengeti National Park, Tanzania–Almost time to go. Our gang disperses today. We’ve hung together, for better or worse, since Monday morning, September 12; twelve days of breathing the same air, eating the same food, and bumping our butts all day long in the same 4x4s. Some head home today. Rick and I are headed for Zanzibar, a few days added as part of the overall tour. Maureen and Ed are going to Zanzibar too, after more time in Arusha on their own. Ben and Willy head home to Arusha to begin another tour. Will the animals miss us? Gawking TOURISTS with our cameras pointing every which way at them as they try to eat, and sleep, WOW-ing even when they fart? Yes, that was Rick’s story from yesterday’s game drive – several male lions were spotted in the grasses so of course all vehicles in the area parked within view, and every safarian raised their cameras. People in the States WARNED me to “Be careful in Africa, those lions will eat you up!” These lions, however, simply noted that the 4×4 created some shade, so walked over to begin napping in the SHADE for a while. One lion was so contented, he rolled over and farted, the sound reverberating through the 4×4; then nodded off to sleep again. I guess that’s telling them, Leo! I share Rick’s photos of the Lazy Lions, plus more lions and a few other good shots he got yesterday, like the striking kopjes he saw near a museum, while I was sitting on the porch gazing at our camp kopjes.

Sorry about the last photo. Rick tells me it is a leopard, and it certainly has its spots. Don’t know why the color is off, but maybe it was excitement — the leopard sighting rounded out the Big 5 for Rick — elephant, buffalo, rhinoceros, lion, and leopard. He was elated!

Mbuzi Mawe Serena Tented Camp https://www.serenahotels.com/mbuzi-mawe

Serengeti National Park https://www.serengeti.com/

Next Post: Crossing My Fingers