Monday, August 01, 2016


Africa 2016

Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana



My photographs form my journal: are my way of remembering my impressions.  This trip was nostalgic - it has been a long time since I have been in Africa and there has been change.  Some of my images from this trip will reflect that.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

A few images from Tanzania




Selous Pride

Our last day in Katavi

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Selous, Ruaha, Katavi....

It's hard not to sound like a tour brochure or the Brandt Guide... but these parks offer an amazing range of animals, terrain and experiences. Selous has an abundance of animals -- we were in awe after our first drive from the airstrip to the camp....


Who sees a wild dog den on the first day in Africa?


Did I mention the lion?


and landscapes formed and constantly changing without man's intervention. make me ask, "how did that happen?"

                             
I'm admitting that I am a closet twitcher.  Must be -- I got too excited at my first spot which wasn't a leopard or a cheetah but rather a bird.


                 


The ancient volcanic activity that formed Ruaha provides breathtaking landscapes and the animals are abundant and varied but the baobobs that invade the landscape of this park brought to mind Tolken’s Ents and had me expecting Hobbits under every tree.



Katavi, a remote and largely ignored park with few visitors gave us glimpses of amazingly large herds of ellies and cape buffalo, massive crocodiles and pods of hippos– I imagine it as a real view of how Africa must have been before safari camps, landrovers and tourists.  While we were there, only seven other visitors roamed the  4000 square kilometer park and less than 500 people visited the park in all of 2009.  The animals are less used to humans, more recently impacted by poaching activity and, not surprisingly, less willing to have us close by.  Perhaps, as it should be for we just don’t live in a Hick’s Peaceable Kingdom painting.  More pics later -- I have to pay for the next trip tomorrow...




Sunday, June 27, 2010

On my way back to Africa and yes, I have had my shots.

Southern Tanzania 2010


Curious that the first question most people ask is about shots and it is a question virtually everyone asks. My first thoughts of Africa are always of deplaning into the dry savanna air. Dust particles, driven by the wind from herds of wildebeest, zebra and cape buffalo crossing the winter earth in search of water, are visible in beams of the African sun.  The smell of smoke is there– sometimes slight, the tendrils from a cooking fire – sometimes heavy, the fires of the season that run across the savanna like the herds chased by the flames.  And I smell the sage and mopani.  Sage so strong the lion rolls among the woody branches to mask her presence as she hunts.  The scent of mopani, the elephants’ favorite, with its leaves looking like cartoon renditions of an elephant’s ears, gently stings my nostrils – a sharp smell familiar from another place in my subconscious.




Colors crowd my memory – the blues of the African skies made deeper in contrast to the vast expanses of the golden grasses.  Bright splashes of color worn by the birds seem a dare to their predators. Blood red, too, because there is death here -- necessary to life.



And then I think of settling into the routine of the bush…. Early, biting cold mornings hugging a tin coffee cup to warm my hands, hearing the guides speculating on the direction of the lion’s roar heard in the night and walking in the footsteps of the elephant that came through camp while we slept....

So, those are my anticipatory thoughts but perhaps, before the rich memories of my first trip and those that followed, I thought about shots, too….. but I don’t remember.

This trip is all Tanzania – the southern circuit which more remote than any area that I have visited in Africa.   First stop in the bush….. Selous Game Reserve.

Parts of this reserve date back to 1896; it is the largest reserve in Africa covering 55,000 square km.

The Rufiji River which bisects the reserve, provides a home for a large population of hippos and crocodiles, and a riverine habitat that creates perfect hunting conditions for leopard.  Farther from the river, a more savanna like terrain is perfect for cheetah.  The lion population hunts wherever it wants.

We stay at the “luxurious” Rufiji River Camp.
http://rufijirivercamp.com/

Then we fly “by light aircraft” (another way of saying a really, really tiny plane flown by someone who has chosen a life of no FAA regulations and who dodges elephants and cape buffalo on dirt landing strips. He also doesn’t look like Robert Redford – at all) to Ruaha -- Tanzania’s largest national park with rugged and striking terrain.  In a convergence zone where northern and southern hemisphere mammals overlap and on the path of migratory birds, there is remarkable diversity in the wildlife.

http://www.tanzaniasafaris.info/Ruaha/accomodation.htm

From the largest to the smallest – Katavi has only 200 to 600 visitors per year perhaps because it is inhabited by the spirit, Katabi – or because it is difficult to reach with limited access to most areas. The wildlife is abundant and I can’t wait!!

http://www.tanzaniasafaris.info/Katavi/accomodation.htm






More when I return.... I'm off to find new wonders, African repayment talismans and ancient tribal dances to invoke spells....

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Traveler, observer and, on good days, wiser than the day before. Visit the Gallery at: www.wildeyedcam.smugmug.com

Taking flight...