On the next leg of our trip, we visited the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Now, you may ask, “Nicole, your last adventure was in a national park, and this is a conservation area — what’s the difference?” And I’d answer that a conservation area has people living on it, whereas in a national park, no permanent […]
The hard work and ingenuity of the Tanzanians never ceases to amaze me. While traveling one day, we passed the man you see in the photo below, and several more like him. When I asked Simon (my driver guide for the day) what was going on, he explained that they were hauling water. A water […]
Our first game drive through the 285 square miles (460 km2) of Lake Manyara National Park did not disappoint. Covering 89 square miles (231 km2) of the park, Lake Manyara is a salt lake ranging from 20 to 50 feet deep. The lake’s high alkalinity comes from sodium bicarbonate, which leaches out of the volcanic rock […]
See that guy? That is Martin, and today we visited his house. He is one of the chiefs of the Irwq tribe, the second largest group in Tanzania (after the Maasi). The Irwq (which is nearly impossible for English speakers to pronounce because it requires a guttural sound) are agriculturalists. The traditional Irwq house is […]
Some hotels leave mints on pillows. But in the African Serengeti, you get assassin bugs. Dave and I had been actively searching for invertebrates on our trip to no avail. The guides thought we were weird (crazy) from all of our questions about insects (as well as snakes and lizards). No one goes to Tanzania […]
Jambo! Now that we have a good Internet connection to the Internet (there aren’t a lot of Internet cafes in the middle of the Serengeti), I thought I should update you on our adventures! The second evening in Tanzania, a brave few were fortunate enough to be taken on a late afternoon nature hike. We […]
We arrived at the Kilimanjaro airport well after dark. There are no gates, so we deplaned onto the tarmac and walked in to get our visas. Everyone was in a chipper mood — we had arrived, we were up and moving around (which was awesome after two long flights), and we were ready to begin […]
Today we saw dozens of very photogenic zebras. This got David and me talking: What came first, the zebra or the stripes? There are plenty of theories as to why the zebra has stripes – some more fantastical than others. According to one African tale, the zebra was once pure white. One very hot day, […]
In a previous post, I mentioned that beetles are my favorite invertebrates — which sort of begs the question, “What’s your favorite vertebrate?” And that’s an easy one: Alligator mississippiensis or the American alligator. I am lucky that we live in Houston, close to alligators, and even luckier that we have a juvenile alligator in […]
The safari, which literally means “journey” or “voyage,” began when Europeans traveled into Sub-Saharan Africa. They came to observe and record the flora and fauna of Africa, but the tales of the unusual animals brought other travelers — those in search of adventure and danger. Originally when one went on safari, one went to hunt […]
