Excursion to the dam

3 ladies in an autorickshaw:

 

 rickshaw from outside:

 

Malamphusa Dam garden:

 

a good occasion to wear my shalwar: 

 

and afterwards a detour to Palakkad Fort: 

very busy in the moat: 

 

And after all this I was SO exhausted just from sitting in the rickshaw in the heat... but it was good to see something outside the resort for once. 

My first days at Kairali

So here I am doing an ayurveda treatment for the first time of my life. The "Kairali Ayurvedic Healing Village" is in a very remote place, a few kilometers outside a town called Palakkad, which itself is 1.5hours by car away from Coimbatore in the south of India. Everything is lush green here, the whole surrounding looks healthy already. At the resort there are lots of palm trees, mango trees, beautiful blossoming bushes, huge butterflies are flying around, little squirrels hop among the trees and some majestic herons try to catch fish from the stream that is running through all this. The air is filled with birdsong and crickets. You can smell the damp soil from the last rain shower mixed with the scent of the flowers. In this setting little huts are placed hosting the guests, every hut individually designed according to Feng Shui... in short: it is SO beautiful here. My program is called "detoxification and rejuvenation" and for the next 3 weeks I will do exactly what I'll be told and see what effect is has on my body (and mind) at the end.
This is how my days look like, every single one:
6:30 Yoga
8:00 Breakfast
9:00 Massage and treatments
13:00 Lunch
15:00 Massage and treatments
18:30 Meditation
20:00 Dinner
21:30 Bedtime
In between the different events there's never more than 2hours gap. Just enough to take a walk or read a little, but definitely not enough time to get bored, which was my biggest concern in the beginning.
Apart from me there are 3-6 other guests only as it is low season. The staff however outnumbers the guests by far as the resort usually can capture around 30 guests. Within one day I gathered the other solo ladies around me and we were a nice group of one 34years old Brazilian living in Geneva, one 50something Indian mother living in Kuwait, a German in her late forties and me. Guests are coming and going, some only stay for 2 days, but by now we've never been more than 7.

Our Yoga-teacher is Santosh, a young Indian with the typical moustache. He comes in the morning on his motorbike, quickly changes into his Yoga-outfit and than it's all about stretching and breathing. We don't tie knots in our body, morning yoga only has simple exercises, and all we're listening to is Santosh's "Iiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnhaaaaaaaaaaale - Eeeeeeeeeeexhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaale" with closed eyes while stretching every single part of the body. It seems tough to do 1 hour exercise before breakfast but it is not hard and you barely break out in sweat. And still you feel nicely energetic afterwards.

After breakfast it's time for our first treatment. In the very beginning a doctor did ask me some questions, gave me some medicine and defines the treatment procedures. In Ayurveda there are many different type of massages, most containing different types of oils. Every massage is given on 3 consecutive days only.
My morning team consists of 2 Indian ladies. And it will always be ladies and always be 2 for all treatments. The men are treated in a different wing of the building by men. During the treatment (which is not always a massage) I only wear a kind of loincloth, nothing else and even that comes off during the massage. And then the 2 ladies are covering the whole body in oil, they massage, or tap or rub it and when I say whole body, I mean every single part. No time to be shy or embarrassed. These ladies are professionals and they have seen it all...
It took me a couple of session to be able to relax while lying fully exposed on a wooden bench, but as usual, I got used to it by now.
After the morning session I go in the "steam room" which is like sitting in a sauna cupboard and after every session I have a shower and wash the oil off with some green powder that is mixed with water for creamy texture. Every second treatment (so either every morning or afternoon) I wash my hair because they put oil in it. And then one hour is over and I have some spicy tea before I'm released.
During the whole sessions the ladies are SO sweet. Their English is very limited and mostly their sentences consists of 2 words. But still they give you every comfort you could ask for. They give me head massage before treatments, they tie my hair up, they wrap a cloth around me when I change from one room to another, they help me get in my shoes and turning my body on the bench, they adjust the water temperature in the shower before I go in, they clean the shower cabin after every single person using it, they make compliments about my nose or other features they like... I'm feeling like reborn Cleopatra, seriously.

For the afternoon session I always have a different treatment than morning and always 2 other ladies but with the same comfort... nah, I think the morning ladies are better.
And then comes meditation and Santosh comes again around on his motorbike, we sit in the same room, do lots of funny breathing exercises (inhale through right nose, exhale through left nose and vice versa) and again, there is no sound around us but Santosh's voice and the tropic birds outside. For beginning and finish he is chanting... and it feels completely normal in this environment.
The ayurvedic food is strictly vegetarian and not very spicy. It is specially defined for me only, the others get different diets and as I'm in the detox program it is not very much. I get strict portions for every meal, for breakfast only fruits. Except when they gave me the laxative that day I had rice soup for breakkie...
And there is no possibility to eat anything in between the meals. All I can do is drinking my specially prepared warm herbal water which I get in thermos jugs on my room every day.

And that is life in Ayurveda. The treatments might not be physical work for me, but they do something to the body which is new (blood circulation, activating organs etc) and hence I'm very exhausted after the treatments and need to lie down and relax.

I figured: Life could be so healthy if only I had my own cook, masseur and Yoga teacher :-)

my home:

 

my neighborhood: 

 

in the steam room:

 

the treatment room: 

My first (3) shalwar kameez

Today I did what most girls love doing on a saturday: I went shopping.
I thought that 3 months in India should justify to invest in some traditional clothes, especially as my backpack doesn't contain lots of "appropriate" garments. There is that one harem pants from Zanzibar and a long skirt from Malawi, but the latter looks so African that I'm attracting attention with it. My shorts and miniskirt are no-go and the jeans are waaaay too hot.
I was toying with that idea for about 3 days but never dared to go in a shop. I feared to be laughed at or simply scammed... So today I plucked up courage and went in the store that looked not too cheap but with a good selection. I would have preferred to be served by women expecting more understanding and less embarrassment on my end, but whereever I looked I only saw men doing the job...
At the chosen shop I was shown all different designs of shalwar kameez, they ensured me that they could sew sleeves onto everything or alter the pants or whatever I need. But they didn't have a changing room... There were 2 types of pants, the tight fit was definitely not made for my chubby legs, so I chose the loose fit which looked like Beth Ditto would fit in it and I paid. I thought I better try it at home and if I needed alterations I might come back to them. A tailor is apparently part of every cloth shop anyway.
A little bit proud of myself but not completely happy I went to my favourite coffeehouse and for about 2 hours was sitting by the window, watching the university students passing and sipping my chai latte. Now that I owned a shalwar kameez and knew better how it looked "underneath" I checked out all the women passing my window regarding their clothes...
Unfortunately university students are young and hip and cool and western, so I saw them in shorts, tight jeans, even minidresses and I wandered why THEY were allowed to wear this but I would bee too conspicuous. Out of a sudden I felt very old-fashioned and thought to better invest in a summer jeans. But then again... All these women were either in a group or accompanied by men which I'm mostly not. And Mumbai is not India. Everywhere else I would meet much more traditional people and didn't I want to spend most of my travels outside of big cities anyway?

Luckily after 2 hours pondering I decided to give it a second try at a department store just across the street.
This was a much more expensive place, actually one of the kind I had tried to avoid. But changing rooms are priceless, aren't they? Around 3-4 men tried to persuade me of different designs and cuts and didn't understand why deep purple doesn't suit me, why long sleeves are not wanted or dark colors and why these Europeans have so big feet...
As I'm considerably bigger than the average Indian woman (I mean I'm even bigger than the average European woman), it was kind of embarrassing to try the clothes. The tight fit pants were so tight that I couldn't squeeze my feet through the pant leg and when I did it was alarmingly tight around my calves. The loose fit was so big with lots of cloth around my bum that I felt like a balloon... And of course they were giggling and discussing about me in Hindi, but I tried to smile it away.
To cut a long story short: I bought 2 more sets in different shades of green. Each set for 6 times the price of my first bargain. But they had it altered for me (wider legs, slits at the end for my feet, short sleeves etc) and they didn't let me go without bangles, earrings and hairclips in matching colors...
Look at the result:

(Sorry for the bad quality but I can't take self-shots from the distance with my smartphone, so all I could do is a homesession with my webcam which is rubbish as you can see)

Now I only need to have the courage to wear it on the streets :-)

Mumbai & me

The last quiet days in Nairobi I used to prepare myself for India. I read a lot about it, what to expect, how to behave, what to wear and where to go (and most importantly also what NOT to expect, or wear, how not to behave and so on) and I was quite... alert, if not anxious about being by myself in a country that people either hate or love.
I am by myself now, because John had to go back to London. Farewells are never nice and especially not when you depart from your loved one to travel dodgy countries all alone. But everybody should follow their own dreams and not someone else's, so this is what we had decided. Sounds mature and makes sense, but there were tears involved and sweet promises...

Arriving at 3:30 a.m. didn't give me the opportunity to have a first impression of India, the next morning (well, actually the same morning) I had some lentil-dish for breakfast and bumbled around in my room as the aggressive street noise from outside the hotel intimidated me. But I had several tasks to do, so I forced myself out in the damp heat, trying to find shops for phone charger, copying documents, passport photos etc. And I was successful! :-)
In my favour: a) everybody talks English (sometimes hard to understand, but I get there), b) everybody is very helpful, they would tell me where to find what if their shop doesn't have it and c) everything is available somewhere. You might think the shop which does photos could photocopy something or the shop that photocopies might have some stationery... very wrong! A shop is mostly a 2x2m stall and very specialized. Once owns a copy machine so he does photocopies only. another one owns a camera, so he can take your picture and so on. So I was running circles, but was lucky to find everything eventually.
I even made my way to the nearby train station of my hotel neighborhood, bought myself a train ticket 1st class to downtown and jumped on the next train after I had to ask someone if it was the right direction... The train doors always stay open and it barely stops at the stations, just slow enough for people to hop on and off. It took about 30 minutes to the last stop and we were mainly passing slums. But thanks to 3 months in Africa I wasn't shocked by the dirt and the poverty anymore. I saw people chucking waste out of their window on the 2nd floor, which landed on a huge pile under that window. I wondered how they can live with that, the smell, the ugliness and not feel guilty... but then again... as there is no such thing as a communal waste collection the city should feel guilty, shouldn't it?
Somewhere on that drive sandwiched between many people, but luckily standing close to the door to catch some breeze I realized that I was surrounded only by men. It took me a while to find that out, because nobody behaved as if it was unusual me in that coach. But it was! All women and children ride on the ladies coach, I had read about it but totally forgotten. And then I realized that I had bought first class tickets but was now standing in "normal" class... Anyway, I enjoyed the ride until the heat took its toll and I had to sit down on the floor in order not to faint...
I got out at the famous Victoria Station (for tourists, for locals Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus) and walked around something that was considered the tourist area. And only here I was harassed again by touts, street sellers and beggars, so I didn't enjoy it that much. I couldn't even find anything interesting about the "gateway to India" an undecorated, dull gate at the harbor. No, Mumbai's beauty doesn't come from architectural sights.
After several hours walking around, trying to survive the traffic, seeing everything but without looking at anything (to not attract anybody), sipping a freshly squeezed pineapple juice I made my way home with all the commuters after work, but this time sitting in the ladies coach (no 1st class though).
And then at dusk back in my neighborhood (called Khar West btw) looking back at my day I started to enjoy myself totally. Despite the warnings from my guidebook (saying "Be prepared to be stared at; it's something you'll have to live with so don't allow it to get the better of you"), nobody neither men nor women is giving me a second look. It is by far less conspicuous to walk around without a man on my side than it was in Africa. Everybody is friendly and not importunate. Maybe it's specially Mumbai, I'm sure in the rural areas they still stare at Westerners, maybe it's because I wear my hair in a bun, big sunglasses and harem pants, but here I feel very comfortable.
I collected some of the most astonishing contrasts that I came across:

• I think everybody has heard of the cows roaming the streets in the middle of the city, but seeing it myself that in an area which couldn't be further away from grass and meadows the cows walk around with a rope around their neck eating rubbish and dropping poo still surprised me. And amazing how patient everybody on the streets is with them whereas they would honk at every pedestrian, turning traffic or red light. Speaking of honking, it is a never ending, omnipresent sound on the road (and in front of my hotel). They honk to warn other cars/tuks tuks/biker/pedestrians, tuktuks honk to attract customers, they honk if traffic is slow even when it's due to a red light, they honk to greet each other, or just for fun and to annoy me... but they would never honk at a cow!
• So the cows are fat (god knows from what they can only eat rubbish here) but the dogs are skinny, even the ones who have owners.
• Old women wear Saris which show a good part of the belly but you would get shocked looks if you flash your knees.
• All women are either dressed in Sari (short top, long skirt and a shawl draped around the body) or salwar kameez (long trousers and tunic blouse) in the most amazing colours! All parts are always perfectly matching with each other and with the jewellery they wear. Even the poorest women in the slums wear good clean clothes, look very neat, have their hair done... But the streets are SO dirty, far away from neat! Not only in the slums, everywhere you have to watch your feet in order not to step in some poo, mud, hole, or stumble over something. Rubbish is kept on the streets everywhere, everything is dusty, sticky and smelly. How can they look after themselves but not after their neighborhood?
• On a street stall serving fruit juices you would get a handle glass with your drink, so you have to finish it on the spot, but when you are in a shop or beauty salon they would serve you chai in a plastic cup... 
• Food is either very hot or very, very sweet. They is no such thing as "slighlty sweetened" or "mildly spiced", it's all or nothing. My dear tastebuds will have to deal with it.
• For 20 minutes internet and some print-outs I spent 480INR (ca 5.60EUR), but for 2 veggie samosas and sauce only 20INR (0.23EUR)

The list will be continued I'm sure :-)

On my second day in Mumbai I was busy in my neighborhood. I had to organize a few things and ended up walking around aimlessly for 4 hours. A turn here, an interesting looking shop there and I came further and further away from the hotel. The Khar West suburb seems to be a richer one even though not comparable to western standards rich. A branch of the university is situated here, so I saw many young women in western clothes. The traffic of course is crazy as usual. Everytime I have to cross a street, no matter how small, I am grateful to have survived. You just cannot oversee from where the next vehicle might come, so you just run and hope for the best. But other than this I enjoyed myself a lot. I got my pictures taken, screened several shops for a salwar kameez for myself (unsuccessfully, yet), had a chai here, a pedicure there, dropped my laundry and got my bag repaired.
And at the end of the day I had a nice dinner at a vegetarian restaurant, asking the waiter for recommendation (as none of the names on the menu sound familiar) and ended up with some nicely spiced potato dish and naan.
Oh what a lovely day!
(Sorry for all the visual people I haven't taken one single picture yet... too busy exploring ;-)

Africa summary

And here again the complete trip on the map (give it some seconds to unfold).
8 countries, more than 10.000km (not sure how much exactly) in 106 days.

View Full Size Travel Map at Travellerspoint

Nairobi Part II

We didn't want to leave the beach but we had pre-booked our train tickets already, so it was time to go back in the cold, rainy city. At least we were lucky with the train this time. Only half an hour delayed at departure and only 3 hours late in Nairobi. We could enjoy the dinner and the night in the compartment much more this time. We were better prepared though with lots of sandwiches and nibbles, boiled eggs and sweets which we couldn't possibly finish during the train ride.

And we were positively surprised by the good weather in Nairobi. It was hot and sunny, albeit not as damp as Mombasa. Before departure from Nairobi the previous week we had selected a nice midrange hotel in the city center, where we had the relieving shower.
Most of the must-dos in Nairobi we had already ticked off, so it was hard to come up with more things to do. John was a bit reluctant to walking around aimlessly in the city, even though we were always on the search for something, be it a coffeeplace or a bookshop. On the busiest corner in the middle of the day it then happened: I felt a sudden rip on my bag, turned around and at first saw nothing suscpicious. But when checking my bag I found out that someone had tried to slit it with a knife! My brand-new Africa-bag for which I had bargained so hard at  Bamburi beach! Luckily nothing had dropped out, but I was mad at that idiot! Yes, everybody warns you of "Nairobbery", but I always consider myself cautious and alert... well, thanks to this guy I was reminded that you should never ever feel safe! For the rest of that day I couldn't stop thinking about what if things had run differently... what a nightmare!

But let's not focus on the annoyances here. We enjoyed ourselves in our favorite bar, had streetfood-like Swahili cuisine (which gave me the runs), went to a fancy shopping mall to do nothing, went to the City Park to do nothing, except watching African families dealing with monkey families and glue-sniffing streetkids in between, went to THE restaurant attraction in town called "Carnivore" where different sorts of meat were served Brazilian-style, went to the elephant sanctuary and to the Nairobi National Park safari walk, which was nothing else but a depressing zoo, went to the very touristy and annoying Massai market for souvenirs and that's about it. By now we had our own designated taxi driver Ken who took us everywhere for fair price and we didn't have to negotiate anymore.

We didn't feel the need of doing more exciting stuff, we mainly enjoyed each others company and had time to reflect on our travels, our observations and thoughts about Africa... because that was the end of it.
 

Aaaaaaaaawwwww

Today at the elephant orphanage:

Bamburi Beach

So we arrived at our hotel at Bamburi Beach, a little north of Mombasa. Instead of morning we arrived after dark and despite having pre-booked and paid the room, despite having send an email about our delay our room was not available anymore. But by coincidence the owner of the resort was present and welcomed us, invited us to the bar, recommended some dinner and after all this they had made a spare room available for us.
It turned out the resort is a true gem hidden between all the 5star-international hotel chains along the beach. We had booked a self-contained cottage (and after that first night we moved in what we booked), the kitchen was installed on the huge balcony, which also served as dining room and lounge room. We felt immediately comfortable there and couldn't believe the low price of it. Aside from us mostly local families lived in the other cottages. And despite the low price the rooms were spacious, very clean and tidy and the staff was sooo friendly (sounds like I'm advertising here, right?)
First thing we did was driving to the nearby mall and bought groceries, so happy about finally not having to go out for meals anymore. Own cooked breakfast, lunch, dinner... lovely!
The beach itself was similar to Zanzibar with a lagoon and white sand, but not as clean and with more hotels. Due to the insecurity about safety in Kenya and due to the hot summer in Europe the beach was rather empty. What should be high season was not even quarter full. On the weekend many local families visited the beach but during the week it was almost deserted. It was hard for the local touts and in general for the tourism industry to make a living on that days. And as so few muzungus roamed the beach, we were constantly harassed by someone trying to sell us a safari/snorkeling trip/souvenir/massage/camel ride and it was so annoying that we couldn't sit and relax on the beach. It was possible to walk busily from one point to another, but as soon as you stopped or hesitated someone would approach you asking innocently how we were and where we were from... We understood that these people were just doing their job, but it was hard to stay friendly.
We booked a snorkeling tour, which was a real rip off, but as always you only realize that afterwards. The lagoon, the coral fish and the sea were worth a trip and we pushed our anger aside.
Our days at the beach were slow and lazy, most of the time we just enjoyed each others' company while reading or watching long missed satellite TV and we watched each others bellys getting fatter and fatter...

One rainy day we went to a park nearby displaying some animals... nothing we hadn't seen in Serengeti but it was good to do something and support the local industry.

And the rest of the time, we did nothing. And it was so great! :-)

 

 

 

Nairobi Part I

After the safari we spent another day in Arusha, but changed the hotel to a nice Ethiopian B&B and did nothing more than organizing our onwards travel.
The next morning we boarded a shuttle bus which should bring us across the border to Nairobi within 5 hours. As we have so much routine in border crossings now it was unspectacular and only the waiting time was annoying... especially as we could watch the immigration officer handling the passports in a secret sequence which made our passports always be on the bottom of the pile. The whole bus had to wait for us and eventually the bus driver came up and talked to the immigration officer to hurry up.
We could tell by the traffic that we were approaching Nairobi, the most international metropolis in East Africa.
And here we found it again, what we haven't seen since Cape Town: Western Lifestyle, highrise buildings, expensive cars and women in jeans (and with hair!). But this doesn't mean you can't find African tradition, slumlike shacks, old minibusses and streetkids around.
Our hotel was a bit outside of the citycentre at a newly built outbound road. the neighborhood consists of shabby housing, the local minibus stop (which means conductors shout out their destinations from the slowly driving minibuses constantly and the condition of the cars made the traffic noisy & smelly) and numerous market stalls selling everything from vegetables to clothing. The hotel staff however was so friendly that we felt quite comfortable there. One night some drama happened just underneath our hotel balcony. We woke up from several people shouting at each other. As with African language you never knew if people are fighting or just exchanging news, I got up and had a look and apparently there was a serious discussion going on. It was cold and rainy outside so I didn't stay long plus I didn't want to be seen and be a possible witness at the end. But a few minutes later a police car stopped on the road and the police officer was talking to the 8 discussing people at the side... Until with an enormous bang a car came from behind around the corner at fast speed and crashed in the police-car making it jump a few meters. Suddenly everybody was quiet, nobody was discussing anymore and in silent agreement they tried to secure the scene... I don't know how serious people were hurt, I made sure I disappeared in the hotel room again... crime scenes in Africa is nothing you want to be caught in...

The next day we bought ourselves a Kenya guide and by scanning the sights spontaneously decided to take the train to Mombasa. I mean, it was cold & rainy, and Mombasa was hot & sunny, any further questions? There is a convenient overnight train connecting the 2 cities in about 14hours. The last cold day we spent at the National Museum of Kenya circling through school classes reading about the cradle of humankind and Kenyan's colonial history, a short visit to the connected snake park and that was enough Nairobi for us at that time.

Unfortunately the so conveniently looking train journey turned out to be a real marathon. The scheduled departure should be at 7 p.m. and we seriously waited until 2 a.m. in the morning (!) in the cold until we could board the train which was delayed from Mombasa. The booked dinner which should have been served at departure time was now served at 2:30 a.m. We skipped that and went straight to bed (2 bunk-bed compartments with a sink) being totally frozen and tired. The next morning breakfast was scheduled at 8 o'clock and after that you should arrive - under normal circumstances. But we had to spend another 11 hours on the train, without food (only 2 meals are provided and no kiosk was on the train) and with a hole in the ground as toilet... We couldn't even sit and look out of the window because the compartments were made for sleeping only, so the glass was milky and when sitting you could only watch the opposite wall...
Anyway, we got to Mombasa eventually just to be caught up in the next traffic jam by taxi making our 26hours journey complete. We truly deserved a holiday!

Serengeti-safari

In order to go to safari we had to leave Dar. A 11 hours bus-ride (which under normal circumstances would take 9 hours) took us to Arusha, the hub for all safaris to Serengeti and Ngorongoro crater. These 2 big names, known by everybody who ever watched animal documentaries we had on our list.

But first of all we were very disappointed by the weather. Arusha was cold, grey and rainy. The hostel we had booked via internet was outside of town on a hill overlooking the town. Sounds romantic until you find out that the only way to get there is by walking up the hill on steep muddy tracks which we had to do in the dark with all our bags... Solar-powered electricity didn't work as there was no sun during the day and our room was less than basic. It turns out we had been blinded by the fancy internet page, which is unusual as normally the hostels have only rubbish homepages.
Anyway, we were there for a reason and the next morning we made our way to the town to find a safari for the next day. Apparently the way to go is in small groups with a guide and a cook. Not the big busses we've seen in Etosha. We asked at several safari booking offices and were lucky enough to find a group which we could join the next day, just how we wanted it. So we packed our stuff into smaller bags, left the big backpacks at the hostel and met Laura&Russell a couple from London with whom we spent the next 5 days.
Our guide was Thomas, a guy from the south of Tanzania and apparently a popular one as Laura&Russell had booked him specifically because he was highly recommended by others. Our cook was Moses who spoiled us with fabulous meals over the following days...
First we went to a Nationalpark at Lake Manyara, where "lions climb trees" according to the guide books. But Thomas tough us that this was a myth and that lions' paws are to small compared to their body weight. However, 10 years back there might have been the occasional lion on the tree because of nasty ants on the trees... But we shouldn't see predators in that park anyway. We stopped to see wildebeests, zebras, hippos, we came very close to giraffes and elephants but in hindsight this was just a teaser before we should go to the "serious stuff". Luckily it was a bit warmer once we had left Arusha, but it was still jumper-weather.
Our camping ground was outside of the park in a village called Mto wa mbu, which means "mosquitos by the river" but luckily it was too cold for mozzies, so all wildlife we had to deal with were some marabu storks which preferred to fight in the trees above us... or was it mating behaviour? it's hard to tell, but it was scary to watch these huge, massive birds (maybe double the size of a European stork) flapping wings and clattering their bills...
The next day we entered the famous Serengeti Nationalpark and we had company of numerous other cars and tourists. Someone said there are about 280 safari companies visiting the park... But luckily, the Serengeti is huge, is vaste, sheer endless, just how the name says: Serengeti = endless plain.
Before we went there we told Thomas what we would like to see, and while it was Laura&Russell's first safari and they freaked out seeing a giraffe already, we already had seen most animals in Etosha except leopards and cheetah and put that on the list. Thomas said, it would be no problem to see all of them. But as we drove around, Thomas on the driver seat looking for tracks, us sticking our heads out of the popped-up roof, it was us who spotted a giant black snake lifting its head in the grass (identified by Thomas as Black Mamba, but we were not convinced as it head cobra-like features) and later a serval cat, very rarely seen. And later on we had giraffes, hippos, elephants and lots of antelopes ticked off the list. "Ticked off" might sound a bit bored, but in fact, we always stopped, shut the engine down and watched the creatures for a while. It's amazing how little they are bothered by cars. They don't regard cars as predators or competitors... they are just there like rocks or trees. It must be strange for the animals that the "rocks" or "trees" are talking but they absolutely don't mind and still they are far away from being tame and they can't be touched. And finally at the end of the day we saw a leopard and his freshly killed gazelle high up in the tree. Leopards are the best killers when it comes to success-rate, we learned. Lions hunt in packs and their success relies on their skill as a pack. Cheetahs are fast but only for 3 minutes whereas their favourite food, the Thompson gazelles can run high speed for 30 minutes... But the leopard is most skilled and most successful. Leopards creep in the high grass unseen until they are very close to the prey, they stick their tail up and make the tip dance in the high grass, which makes dumb gazelle curious and that's when they get it...
Our camp this time was in the middle of the nationalpark and unlike Etosha it was not fenced. So we were told the biggest intruder over night could be a hyena (anything bigger avoids humans) and hyenas would never attack humans... Still... I didn't go to the toilet that night when I heard them laughing (yes, hyenas bark in a way that sound like laughter) and roaming around the tents...
The next day we spent driving around and witnessing very spectacular scenes. The leopard of last night was still hanging around at that same tree, but when we drove there and watched him for a while, his food, the half eaten gazelle suddenly dropped down and almost out of nowhere there was a hyena which took the meat away and the leopard halfway down the tree could only watch... But he had a full belly and the gazelle meat was too old for him now anyway.
Further on we saw a pack of lions, 2 mothers with their asolescent cups. Seeking the shade they came over to our car and stayed there and we couldn't get enough of watching them so close up, we couldn't believe it. We almost couldn't get rid of them went we wanted to drive off... But there was so much more to come. We saw lions making love, which they apparently do every 15minutes and it took them 30 seconds including foreplay ;-)
We saw a cheetah sitting in thge shade of the tree, but veeeery far away. We watched amazingly colourful birds and incredibly huge birds (vultures, bustards, cranes, storks), some monkeys crossed our way, but not a lot as there are not many trees in serengeti. We came across more elephants and giraffes, but most of the time we just enjoyed driving through the landscape, head sticking out of the roof, wind (and lots of dust) in the hair and finally it was a bit warmer.
After lunch we would witness the highly dramatic scene of a pack of 10-12 juvenile male lions chasing a herd of buffalos. Buffalos are not easy to kill, it takes a few lions and many hours to be successful. Also buffalos are very likely to turn around and chase the lions instead and we watched exactly this. The herd of buffalos was several hundred animals and while the lead group tried to flee, the last buffalos, apparently the bulls tried to chase the lions away. The buffalos crossed the road on which several dozen cars lined up to watch the scene. One old buffalo cow was bleeding on neck and tail and snorting nervously as she was attacked before. But buffalos help each other and even now we could see how other buffalos tried to give her relief by chasing away the birds which tried to pick the wounds and they almost seem to console her by nudging her with their snouts, very touching. So they kept on crossing the road in front of us and we saw the lions trotting behind them, waiting for their next chance. Another buffalo cow was suddenly changing direction and instead of following the herd, she ran in the opposite direction, obviously searching her calf.  But a buffalo separated from the herd... that's not good and we tried to talk her into turning around seeing the inevitable... We were so excited. We didn't want the buffalo to die but we didn't want lions to starve either. It felt like in a movie where you are supposed to watch but still you give comments when you see more than the lead character...
At the end the buffalo escaped as the lions were only practising... too inexperienced to finish the job. We all were reliefed, but excited like after watching a thriller.

As usual we finished the day with a big dinner and some card games.
Day 4 of the safari was a bit dull. We spent half a day to leave Serengeti and once we entered the Ngorongoro crater it was so full of cars, it was cold again and there was nothing to see we hadn't seen before. Except the rhino. There are no rhinos in Serengeti anymore, but in Ngorongoro they settled around 20 rhinos, which are rarely seen. So everbody was excited and the cars chased around the plain to come closest to the rhino which walked its way not caring about all the hustle around it. At least Thomas was proud to now having shown us "the big five". Every tourist wants to see the big five, but it's not the 5 biggest animals, but the 5 animals hardest to hunt on foot as the expression is from the early days. So the hardest to hunt on foot are lions, leopards, rhinos, elephants and buffalos. And we've seen them all. And not only seen. We had some unforgettable encounters!
The rest of the day wasn't very spectacular, we had lunch on a lake full of splashing hippos (but with enough distance to them) and with many other tourists around. And at the end of the day we went back to the village of Mta wa mbu where we wanted to do some walking the next day as everybody was sick of sitting in the car.
The walk turned into a bike tour which took us around the village and through it and we learned about the fishermen, the banana plantation, banana beer and we visited a primary school. The village seemed to be very dedicated to tourism and nobody seemed to mind us muzungus driving around their backyards. Of course they tried to sell us stuff but we are very good in saying no by now.
So that was a real safari in the real Serengeti, definitely a "once in a lifetime"-experience!

 Lake Manyara giraffe:

 

Serengeti giraffe (can you see the difference?):

 

 Lions in the shade of our car:

 

Posing hippo: 

Wildebeest threesome in Ngorongoro: 

 The 4 game-spotter:

 

 

Typical Serengeti (How many lions can you spot?): 

Warthogs in Ngorongoro:

 

Happy zebra:

 

 Lake Manyara elephants:

 On the edge of Ngorongoro crater - freezing cold, windy and always cloudy:

 Overlooking Serengeti plains:

 Serengeti elephants:

 Hyenas with cub:

 Leopard and his kill in the tree:

 Lion love scene:

 Funny looking antelope - the Hartebeest:

 Buffalos in distress:

 Buffallo crossing (the one in the lead is the cow that had been attacked):

 Disappointed and exhausted - the lion youngsters