A Tower of Giraffes

Did you know that a group of giraffes is called a tower? Every animal,  it seems,  has a group name. Some make sense, some are whimsical,  and some seem strange. A group of crows, for instance, is called a murder.

 A tower of giraffes seems appropriate.  

Of all the African  animals, the one I wanted to see most were giraffes. I wasn't sure we would because they weren't mentioned in the literature for the trip. 

But we have seen them, many times often at quite close range.  Tower after tower of them. 

On our first day of the two day pre safari we were totally unprepared and astonished by the quantity and variety of wildlife we saw. There were zebras, giraffes, a variety of antelope species,  and perhaps more impressive of all, a herd of elephants that we saw first from a distance and then later, they came in a procession up the hill to right beside our land cruisers. They were literally close enough for us to touch them, although we didn't.

The thirteen of us agreed that nothing  could top this first day, and perhaps we were right. But no day has been a disappointment.  We have seen more and more species, and more of each one, every day. On the second morning we saw a pair of lions close up, just at the edge of the path. They seemed as docile as pet cats, lounging and not a bit concerned by our presence.  We sat watching for quite a while. it could have been fifteen minutes,  or a half hour. I lost all sense of time. Eventually  the male stood up, and mounted the female. The mating took perhaps five seconds.   Our guide Nixon (yeah he was born during Nixon's presidency) said they would mate repeatedly, every half hour or so. So we watched and waited until they did it again. Easy to miss if you had not been watching closely.

We've seen lions a few times since then, at times a pair,  other times a couple of males. Each time they have been equally languid, although they probably wouldn't be if we ventured beyond our vehicles. We wonder if they have just become used to humans.  

Where the wildebeests roam, and the zebra and the antelope play

The wildlife we have seen on the trip have been incredible, far beyond my expectations. I tried to keep my expectations low, or not to really have any expectations. But if I thought about it I would have said we'd maybe see wildlife from time to time from a distance, maybe just from a distance.

Instead it's been almost constant sightings, of individual and group sightings. We've seen more species than I can remember. But I will try to list as many as I can. There have been lions, cheetahs, elephants,  giraffes,  warthogs, antelopes, baboons, rhinos, storms, wildebeests, hippos, hyenas, and ostriches , jackals, and more. There are 20 species of antelope in the country of which we have seen about a half dozen. Not sure I could name them all, quite sure I couldn't recognize them all.

Yesterday we saw our first kill. We didnt actually see the animal being killed,, but the immediate aftermath was impressive enough.  First  we saw a cheetah, then two more.  We later found out that they were three males known to the rangers and referred to as the three brothers. We could see blood on their faces. Then we saw the victim, a wildebeest,  although unrecognizable as one. We could see the ribcage and some of the innards. A black backed jackal slowly approached, taking its time, cautious.  It then took its time picking the parts it wanted.

Meanwhile an eagle circled overhead. More big birds approached, vultures and storks, more and more of them. The birds waited their turn patiently, while the jackal continued to pick at the carcass. When it had its fill the jackal moved off and the vultures moved in. In turn, the storks waited until the vultures were finished. The storks attacked the wildebeests' intestines with a couple each pulling on an end, stretching it out between them. It was almost comical to watch, but also rather unsettling to the stomach. 

I will continue with account tomorrow.

Into Africa

We left Boston on a Monday night, flying to Amsterdam and then Kilamangaro airport in Arusha, Tanzania. We arrived the following evening, with a seven hour time difference ahead of home. 

At the Arusha Serena hotel, they served us a full meal even though it was about 11pm. And I do mean full.  

Our material for the trip told us to watch The Lion King movie, which seemed a bit silly to us. We watched a documentary and a drama set in Tanzania instead. 

But on the plane both the original movie and the more recent sequel, both animated, were offered. So I watched a bit of each, about 15 minutes of each film. That was enough. Then I switched to a movie about Temple Grandin I'd always wanted to watch. 

The two Disney films were entertaining, and reintroduced me to several Swahili words  (ie Hakuna Matata, which they really do say.) And Simba, Pumba, and a few other animal names. And the music for the original was by Elton John, and by Lin Manuel Miranda for the new prequel. But I didn't watch enough to hear much of the music.

Our tour leader, Dolly, had also suggested some books. One was by Sy Montgomery, a prolific nature writer. We'd read several of her other books, including the one about the pink dolphins of the Amazon. She had actually stayed at Amazon lodge we'd stayed at when we went to meet Carolina's birth family. And of course knew Dolly and Paul Beaver, owners of Amazonia tours. And it's Dolly who is now leading our group here to Africa. 

Sy Montgomery's book was about the great migration of the wildebeests, which happens twice yearly. We aren't here for the migration, but have seen many of the animals in the last few days, both afar and upclose. 

We bought several other books with a Tanzania theme, one historical novel about the Leakey's and their research. We are going to the Ulduvai site and museum tomorrow, where the bones of Lucy were found, and why Tanzania is called the cradle of civilization. 

And also bought Hemingway's short story The Snows of Kilimanjaro, which I probably read in high school but haven't yet read here. 

Several of the folks in our group have been to the Amazon lodges, and that is what led them to this trip, like us.  One, Shannon, went there to work with Dolly, helping the villagers with health care and education in the same village where we went with Dolly to meet the basketmakers and buy some of their wares. 

There were thirteen of us on the pre trip to Tangire, in two Toyota Landcruisers with a guide each. 

After those three days, a number of others joined us, including a school group with about 14, half students and half parents. Together we have now become a group of 36 plus seven guides and Dolly, a much larger group than we had expected.  We weren't thrilled about being part of such a large group, unexpectedly. But everyone is nice and it's kind of interesting to have the teens along. The school is in Tampa and is where Dolly and Paul's daughter attended, and is how the school began these trips. They actually do three trips a year, to different places, all of which are optional to both kids and parents. I'll stop here and continue in a new blog entry.

The pre- Safari Safari

 We met the first two members of the group the first night, Cathy and Susan. The next arrived the following night and we met them at breakfast. 

We'd deliberately come a day early to acclimate to the time change and rest before starting the safari.  That first night, we arrived close to midnight, and to our surprise were served a complete dinner. We chose parrotfish, and also had cream of cauliflour soup, and a flan for dessert. All was delicious. 

The next day we hired a driver and guide to take us to the local twice weekly market. We've been to many markets in many countries. This one was quite expansive, with largely produce, of which there was an incredible variety. We didn't see any other foreigners, nor were there many people buying things. It made us wonder what the vendors did with all the produce they didn't sell. Many came in by bus from outlying areas, and I also wondered how they were able to carry all that they sold. The great majority were women, some with young children who might have been their grandchildren.

The piles of produce were beautifully arranged in small piles, which Loring thought were arranged in advance to be a certain weight. We saw carrots, melons, many kinds of beans, much more.  I noticed thin green beans, even thinneer than the wonderful French haricots vert, and asked if I could try one. Our guide looked puzzled when I bit into it, astonished that we would eat them raw.  I didn't try to explain what veggies and dips were, but Loring explained that we often ate a lot of them when we were preparing to cook them. I wonder if he will try at home. Probably not. 

There were other areas of the market that sold clothing, and some that had shoes, both new ones and used. They were also artfully arranged.

One thing I didn't see were small restaurantas within the market for the vendors and locals and anyone else. We have seen them in many places in the past, but I didn't notice any here. 

Throughout the market people were friendly and said "Jambo" which means hello.  I knew that, probably the only word in Swahili that I knew, because years ago, when I was managing a children's bookstore, we had a book titled "Jambo Means Hello." Funny the things that stick in one's mind. 

The breakfasts here have been delicious and copious, at both places we've stayed. We've hardly needed lunches. But we were served them, boxed lunches with more than I could eat. I am still full from today's lunch, and it's almost time for supper. The lunches have been different each day, one day a beef stew with rice, plus fruit, juice, chips, chocolate bars, more. Another spaghetti with sauce, with as many accoutrements, and one day sandwiches with a  good filling that I couldn't place. 

Each day we set off at 8am after breakfast, and the first day drove to Tangire National Park, where we stayed two nights in a lodge, in tents. The tents were quite fancy, with bedroom and bathroom, and shower, and electricity. To us it seemed like glamping. But one of our fellow travellers was very excited because she had never slept in a tent before.

 The shower was the most interesting part. We each had a helper, a young man who brought hot water to mix with the cold when we asked him to. He stood outside the tent and hoisted up the bucket with a pulley. It was actually quite a good shower, strong and a perfect temperature. 

At night the men escorted us to our tents after dinner. They were pretty spread out, you couldn't see one from another, or hear others.

The first night two of our fellow travellers camae to dinner asking who was in tent !2. That was us. They said there had been a lion right outside our tent. But we'd already been up to dinner and didn't see it. But another couple came up rather late, and explained that the lion had been sitting  calmly outside their tent for almost an hour, and they sat there watching it until it moved along. 

Too bad we missed it. But that doesn't mean we missed seeing wildlife close up. We had an incredible first day, beyond anyone's expectations. I will stop here and describe it in the next post, because it's almost time for dinner. It's also time for Dolly to arrive to join us, along with the rest of the group. 

And onto Africa

 We left Boston five days ago(I think) on route to Kilamanjaro airport in Tanzania. 

The flights went smoothly, six hours the first flight, a 2 hour layover in Amsterdam, and about nine hours to Tanzania. 

Dolly and Paul Beaver had urged us to watch the Lion King before coming, which seemed rather comical to us.  Hakuna Matata? We didn't watch it at home, but it was available on our flight, not just the original one, but a more recent one with music by Lin Manuel Miranda and voices including  Seth Rogen, Beyonce, and also her 14 year old daughter. I watched about fifteen minutes of each. That was plenty.  The second one had much more sophisticated animation, of course. 

They had also suggested several books, including Sy Montgomery's book about the great migration of wildebeests, which we aren't going to see. Wrong time of year. 

You may be familiar with some of Sy Montgomery's books or her regular appearances on Boston Public Radio with Eagen and Broude. We first encountered her writing on our trip to the Amazon, about six years ago. Her book about the pink dolphins was at the lodge, and I read it. We met her later on at a book signing, told her about our Peru connection. She had stayed at the Amazonia lodge also, and knew Dolly and Paul. 

But we have seen an incredible amount of wildlife in the last three days, on our pre-safari safari with some of the group we'll now be travelling with . There have been thirteen of us so far, plus our two guides, in two vehicles. 

Paul is the founder of Amazonia and the lodges, and Dolly is his wife, and is Peruvian. We had met Dolly in Peru, and went with her to purchase baskets from a women's collective of artisans, which she had created.  She also founded Angels of the Amazon which is supporting the same village by building two schools, providing Christmas gifts for the children,  and more. 

One of the women on our current trip has done volunteer work with Dolly and the Angels of the Amazon, and has been there twice. Anothe couple has stayed at one of the lodges as well. It's an interesting group of people. About half are from the West, California, Arizona, maybe another state as well. The other half of us are from the Boston area, two couples who know each other well, and us. Coincidentally, the Easterners all wound up in one vehicle, and the Westerners in the other. But we all spend time together, at the lodges, at lunch and dinner, etc.

We will meet up with Dolly and the rest of the group tonight, at the Arusha Serena Hotel, which is sort of our home base. We stayed here the first two nights, back again now, and back once more at the end of our trip.

Jambo Means Hello

Jambo is the first word I knew in Swahili from many years ago in my children's book selling days. There is a book with that title, Jambo Means Hello. More recently I learned a few other words, basically names of animals from The Lion King. 

I have to mention that despite my slightly disparaging attitude toward the Disney movies, I thought the Lion King play was one of the most spectacular and creative Broadway shows I've ever seen, one on the short list of plays I'd consider seeing again. 

Now we've learned caribu (not sure of the spelling)  which means welcome, and  the response asante sana, which means thank you very much. Caribu means both welcome and you're welcome, which means they say it a lot, in a way that's different from the way we do. 

The staff at the hotels here are friendly and gracious, although a little unctious. Not sure how much that's the culture, and how much it's because the hotels are pretty fancy. The servers, for instance, spread the cloth napkins on the women's laps when we sit down to meals. (But not the mens'!) The staff at the hotels are constantly asking how we are, is everything fine, etc. which is kind of charming.

The meals are delicious and copious, a combination of local and more international dishes. A few examples: coconut curry with peas, barbequed beef skewers, fish stew,  sweet potato greens (much like spinach.) A wealth of choices at each meal. A different creamed vegetable soup every night. I could write an entire entry just about the food, but there's so much more to tell. And this is, after all, a safari. 

One more night (With a nod to Phil Collins)

I thought the previous post would be the last one. But it turned out that our flight home was first delayed, multiple times, and then after hours of confusing messages, was cancelled altogether. At that point it was not a bad thing, as the previous message had been that the flight would leave at midnight, getting us home in the middle of the night. We wound up at a very nice hotel near the airport. We could only stay there until 4:30 am because our flight was rescheduled for 7am the next morning. At least half the passengers were Dominican, although certainly some of them were U.S. residents returning to the States from a visit home. Some no doubt changed their plans, as the plane was not at all full on the way home. The flight itself is only about four hours, one of the reasons that we chose the location in the first place. We got home at about 10am and were able to catch the Logan express bus back to Danvers, just 10 minutes from home. This is our new best way to and from the airport, inexpensive and convenient. Just one problem, and I didn't know this until afterwards: The bus driver was texting while driving on the highway. Loring took video. This makes me very nervous, and conflicted about whether to report him. I don't want him to lose his job, but I also don't want to put anyone in danger. I think I will send a message without identifying him. Maybe they can issue a strong warning to all the drivers. Now that I have created this additional post, I want to share a couple of things that I didn't fully describe before. One is the images of two different parades of people, on the two different sides of our house in Las Terrenas. Part of the appeal of this house is the two different environments that the house sits between. I've written about this before, in these current postings, and also, looking back, from our previous trip three years ago. The front door of the house is on one of the main streets of town, replete with restaurants, bars, shops, condos, hotels, etc. Our primary sense was the loud sound and view of a never ending parade of vehicles, some cars, many more motorcycles, and an equal number of ATV's. And a very occasional bicycle. You have to wait for a break in the traffic in order to cross the street. It's overwhelming in sound and sight, but also quite entertaining. It's best appreciated by sitting at a cafe, or in our case, the local ice cream place. Some bikes have a sole rider, most have two, some have three, including a kid or two. The ATVs as well, and it's quite a mix of what seem to be natives and visitors. In some cases, I am assuming, it is long term expats rather than short term visitors like us. On the other side of the house, past the outdoor living room and garden, is a small gate, and past that, the beach.The door is nearly unnoticable from the beach. Even after two weeks there,I could mostly spot it by seeing our two lawn chairs sitting in front of it. It was covered by a lot of foliage and coconut palms. Although the morning we left, Julio, the owner's caretaker, came by with another man and a boy, probably his son. As we were waiting for our driver to take us on the three hour though not many kilometer trip to the airport, they were hacking away at branches. So now probably the gate is not as obscured as during our stay. I'm sure they must do that on a fairly regular basis. We spent many hours sitting on the beach between our other activities of walking up and down the beach, playing in the water, having breakfast and lunch (pretty much our only times indoors, just the preparation because we ate at the outdoor living room table.) and walking barefoot down the row of small restaurants to eat at our choice of venues for dinner. And during those hours reading and reclining on our beach chairs, we also observed a parade of sorts, a quiet intermittent procession of other beach goers. There were children on the weekends and afternoons and evenings. And many adults walking up and down the beach. Most must have been staying in locations not on the beach, but nearby, because our house is the only one on the beach itself. They were a mix, many Spanish speaking folks, but also a surprising number of French speaking people. Just the occasional American or English speaker. One of the servers in the fanciest beach restaurant, a bit upscale than any of the others, was French. But she said she'd lived in the DR so long that she didn't feel French anymore. And we remembered from our other trip that there'd been a restaurant owner who was French, although she did't seem to be there anymore. We read somewhere that there was an influx of Europeans in the 1970s, so maybe that explained it. The restaurants mostly had signboards on the beach with menus. In some cases they had menus in English, but mostly they were in Spanish and French. Sometimes I had to look at the French to help me understand the Spanish! And sometimes the English translations were pretty entertaining - ie. one described the various methods of cooking fish, " to the beach, to the pepper, to the fungus. The children on the beach were often unsupervised by adults. WE thought this was wonderful, that it was safe enough for their kids to be "free range." Some were probably children of the people running the restaurants, but I am guessing that some were from further away in the town. I will end with an encounter one night while we were eating dinner. The restaurant next to us was closed for the day. In the small space, several adults were sitting, playing music, and one woman was dancing with some children, teaching them steps to a line dance. It was quite delightful. We stood up to watch and Loring took some photos and a video. The dancing woman came over to us. It was kind of hard to hear her over the music, and with the language difference. We were'nt quite sure what she was trying to tell us. But gradually it became clear that she didn't appreciate our taking pictures of the kids. She wasn't unfriendly, not at all, but was clear that she didn't like the idea. We kept talking. It turned out that she was from there, but lived in Belgium. She asked our names, and her name was Joanna, the same as mine. Loring offered to delete the photos, but she didn't seem to want that. Our meals came and we sat down to eat. I don't remember if they kept dancing after that. I really wanted to talk to her some more, and hoped she would be there the next night. But she wasn't. It really got us thinking about if we were exploiting them by taking their pictures, presumably to post online. That's what we think she was trying to tell us. The video and photos were great, but I guess I won't post them because of her feelings. I will end here. In another six weeks we will be off on our next adventure, to Tanzania and South Africa.