cougfan

I didn't even know that I wanted to go on an African Safari until I read about them here while I was researching our Feb. 2006 trip to Egypt. So this is our first safari and my first trip report.

My husband (Steve) and I (Julie) along with two friends (Cindy and Eric) went on a safari to Kenya and Tanzania in Sept. 2007. After much research and reading of Fodors Africa Forum we chose Good Earth Tours to arrange our safari. We took one of their group tours, changed a few things and made it a private safari. Good Earth uses Safariline to do the Kenya portion. This was our safari itinerary:

Sep 1: SEA - AMS
Sep 2: AMS – NBO (Nairobi Safari Lodge)
Sep 3: Nairobi - Maasai Mara (Mara Serena)
Sep 4~5: Maasai Mara
Sep 6: Maasai Mara – Nairobi (Nairobi Safari Lodge)
Sep 7: Nairobi – Amboseli (Amboseli Sopa Lodge)
Sep 8: Amboseli - Arusha, Tanzania – Tarangire (Tarangire Safari Lodge)
Sep 9: Tarangire
Sep 10: Tarangire - Lake Manyara (Kirurumu Tented Camp)
Sep 11: Lake Manyara – Serengeti (Serengeti Sopa Lodge)
Sep 12~13: Serengeti
Sep 14: Serengeti - Ngorongoro (Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge)
Sep 15: Ngorongoro - Arusha - JRO - AMS
Sep 16: AMS - SEA

Sept. 1: The flight from Seattle to Amsterdam was a good flight. It wasn’t to cramped back in cattle car class and the food was alright. There were several movies to watch since I can never sleep on a plane. We both remarked when we arrived in Amsterdam “how good the flight was”. That remark came back to haunt us.

cougfan

Sept. 2: In Amsterdam you go through security at the gate. After that we sat around until they boarded us. We all got on the 747 and waited to leave. The captain came over the speakers and said that there was a leak in one of the lavatories, which couldn’t be fixed, so we would have to change to a different 747. First we had to all stay in our seats so that the caterers could take off the meals and drinks. After about an hour or so we were able to get off of the plane and onto the other. They had closed off part of the terminal so that we stayed secure and didn’t have to go through security again. By the time the plane took off we were two hours late. With about 4 hours left in the flight the Captain came on again and made an announcement in Dutch. The only word I recognized was “Cairo”. When he repeated the announcement in English he said that we were running out of water and had to land in Cairo to take on water and refuel. So 45 minutes later we landed in Cairo. We were able to get up and walk around the plane until they started to refuel. We then had to go back to our seats but not fasten our seatbelts. So we finally took off from Cairo and now were 4 hours late. We finally arrived in Nairobi at 11 PM. We purchased our visas and went to collect our baggage. Our bags were almost the last ones off the plane. We then were hoping that there was someone to pick us up seeing that it was almost midnight. When we came out of the customs area we quickly found Mathew from Safariline waiting with a card with our name on it. He drove us to our hotel the Nairobi Safari Lodge. We checked in, went to our room, called our friends (they had come the day before) and tried to sleep.

Sept. 3: We had to be up fairly early because we had a 10AM flight from Wilson to the Maasai Mara. We met up with our friends and ate a buffet breakfast at the hotel. Before leaving for the airport we met with Catherine from Safariline. She explained our itinerary for Kenya. Mathew than took us to the airport. We had left a small bag at the hotel so that our bags wouldn’t be overweight but we shouldn’t have worried. They weighed our four bags all together and never even looked at our carryons. When we checked in we were told that we would fly to the Kichwa Tembo airstrip and change planes. We would then fly to the Mara Serena airstrip. So we had a 35 minute flight to the first airstrip, quickly changed planes and then a 5 minute flight to the second airstrip. We met our driver, Peter, and did our first short game drive to the Mara Serena. Saw some Topi close to the Serena. We had room #12 with a beautiful view of the river. All meals at the Serena were fine. The showers were the best of the trip. They did have a strange lighting system in the room. There were three master switches, and if you accidentally turned one off you would try one of the other switches and think that you had no power, which is what I did one night. We had an afternoon game drive and saw jackals, elephants, zebras, wildebeests, impala, Thomson gazelles, Grants gazelles and various birds. The best sighting was of some lions coming down off of one of the hills. There were two males, two females and one younger one. Peter felt that one of the pairs was mating, and the reason they were away from the rest of the pride. We learned later that there were 19 lions in the pride.

cougfan

Sept. 4: During the morning game drive we went towards the Mara River to try to catch a crossing. There were a lot of wildebeests on the other side of the river congregating close to edge of the cliff but none crossed. We did see three swim back to the other side and climb up the bank. We saw our first cheetah, a mom and her three grown cubs, on the way to the Mara River bridge. She was sitting on a mound and the three cubs were back in the bushes. We took a potty break at the bridge and watched the vultures, marabou storks and other birds eating the unlucky wildebeests in the river or washed up on the bank. On our way back by where the cheetah was we saw 18 other vehicles watching them. The mother cheetah had tried and failed to kill an impala. We went back to the Serena and had lunch and a nap. Our afternoon game drive was spent trying to find a rhino, but didn’t have any luck. We did see waterbuck, elephants and two hyenas lying on the road on the way back to the Serena. We did have to put the top up on the van because it started to rain.

Sept. 5: This morning we had a very early wake up call. We had to be up and ready for our 4:30 drive to our balloon safari. We basically had a kind of night game drive on the way. We had to drive to Governor’s Balloon Safaris at Little Governor’s camp. We really did enjoy the balloon ride. I had not wanted to do it but was talked into it and I am very glad that I did it. We got to have tea and cookies waiting for all of the other people to arrive. Our pilot was Neal. He explained all about how to get in the balloon and then how we would land. We watched them fill the balloons and tried to take some pictures, which for the most part came out dark. So when it was time, the guys got in really fast and then us girls got in, and off we went. We didn’t get really high which I was glad about. Neal was very knowledgeable about at what height we would need to be to get where he wanted to go. He took us right along the river. We saw a crocodile laying on the bank and some elephants in the trees. On the plains we saw zebra, topi and the largest herd of wildebeests that Neal had seen that year. Neal told us that the day before he had won the prize for the closest landing to breakfast and he did it again with us. We did have a pretty rough landing and found out later that we had hit an ant hill and really bounced around. At breakfast the other pilots kidded Neal about his landing. We landed so close that we got to walk, which was fun. After breakfast we had a game drive back to the Serena. At the Serena I watched a large troop of baboons playing in the field just down from our window. There were also zebra and impalas in the field. I took a walk to the other side of the lodge and took pictures of the hyraxes that played next to the walkway. I even saw one laying on a rock with a lizard on its back. On our afternoon game drive we saw more elephants, hyenas lying around and more wildebeests. We did go back to see if we could find the same pride of lions from our first night but instead we found a cheetah family eating a baby wildebeest. Peter felt that it was the same ones we had seen before because it was in the same general area. It again rained on us at the end of the drive so had to put the roof back on again.

cougfan

Sept. 6: We did a game drive on our way out of the Mara. We did see two wildebeest swim across and climb the bank right beside us. They then looked at the other side and grunted to try to get the others to come but they didn’t come across while we were there. Four other wildebeest did find the other two and they became a small herd. You could tell they didn’t like to be alone and couldn’t seem to understand why the others didn’t come across. We drove across the bridge where we had the potty break the other day and were on our way to Nairobi. We had driven for some time when we say a sign for the Mara Sopa and we were very happy we had changed to the Serena because it was so close to the action. We stopped at a Maasai village. I was not sure how I would feel about this since I had read so many other peoples stories about their visit. First the men came and sang and danced. Steve and Eric danced with them. Then the women came and sang and danced. They then took our hands and led us into the village. We went into one of their houses, which was very small and so dark we couldn’t even see where to sit. After the house they showed us how they make fire. They then took us out behind the village where the women had set up there crafts for sale. I was on the lookout for a nice necklace for my mom and found one here that we didn’t see anywhere else. My husband also bought a wooden mask. My husband is a very good negotiator so I felt we paid good prices. So now we were really on the road to Nairobi. The roads were the worst ones I had ever seen. The main road was so bad that people tried to drive on the new road they were building right next to the main one. They had tried to discourage this by putting lines of rocks every few yards but people still tried to drive on it. We had our first box lunch along the way. It was OK, but we ended up feeding our chicken to a young kitten that was at the place we stopped. The kitten really seemed to appreciate it even though they, the people in the store, kept assuring us that they did feed it. It seemed like it took forever to get back to Nairobi and to our hotel the Nairobi Safari Lodge. We had planned on going to Carnivores but they only had reservation times that were late so we just ate at the hotel and went to bed.

Sept. 7: Today we were off to Amboseli. The road to Amboseli wasn’t nearly as bad as from the Mara to Nairobi but it was still bad. We made it to Amboseli at 11:30 and had a short game drive through the park and out the other side to the Amboseli Sopa Lodge. On the way we saw an Oryx and a lot of dust devils. It did appear to be very dry. We checked into the lodge, we were in bungalow #20, and had lunch along with a short nap before our afternoon game drive. At the lodge there were many Vervet monkeys and a large group of Banded Mongoose in the yard. On the game drive we saw a herd of Oryx, our only fairly close sighting of an Eland, some fighting Grants gazelle, some tommies and herds of elephants. One family of elephants had several very young babies. They crossed the road right behind our vehicle and a young one came right over to us and almost touched our truck. Peter said they were on their way to the trees for the night. Peter told us that the groups could only move as fast as the youngest members. We saw one group that was just waiting for the really young ones to wake up from their naps. The little ones were lying flat out on the grass sleeping. We also saw a tuskless one, which Peter said happened once in a while, but not very often. We drove to a marshy area where there were more elephants up to their bellies in the water eating the bright green grass. We saw a band of baboons when we drove through some trees. There were several babies. On the way back to the lodge we saw a lot of vehicles off to the side and drove over to see what the fuss was about. There was a pride of lions all just lying around a ways from the road, but it was the only group of lions we had seen in the park, so they were very popular. We drove back to the lodge all the while hoping that Kilimanjaro would come out from behind the clouds but no such luck.

cougfan

Sept. 8: The next morning we came into the dining room for breakfast and got to see the mountain with the sun shining off of it. It was a beautiful sight and I am glad we saw it still with some snow on it. We took a few pictures, had breakfast and got on the road to the border. On the way back through the park we saw one lone female lion walking across the road. We drove down the road to the Namanga border. First we had to get our passports stamped to leave Kenya, then we went to get our visas for Tanzania. I had printed out the forms and had them filled out so we just gave the forms to a woman in the office. Our friends had to fill theirs out. It didn’t take that long to get our visa. We went back to the van to wait for our driver from Good Earth to pick us up. Peter said that usually they come the night before and are already there in the morning but that our driver hadn’t done that. So the driver, Moses, finally showed up and we transferred all of our luggage into his land rover. We said goodbye to Peter and got on our way to Arusha. Our vehicle didn’t have the extra seat in the back like some have but it was fine for the four of us. As the trip progressed someone was usually in the front seat, one person in the back seat and the other two in the middle two seats. The seats were comfortable enough. We arrived in Arusha and had to wait at a gas station for the rep from Good Earth to come with the documents and a boxed lunch. It appeared that Moses being our guide was a last minute decision since he was late picking us up and didn’t have any documentation pertaining to where we were going and staying. So once Moses got the packet of info and our lunches we took off for Tarangire. We stopped at a shopping spot for lunch and once again we fed our chicken to some cats that were hanging around. These cats were a little leaner than the ones in Kenya. One was a very tiny kitten, which we fed the most to. The mommy cat didn’t eat until the baby had its fill. When we went to get back in the vehicle Moses noticed that we had a flat tire. Luckily there was a handy man there that helped Moses change the tire. We than got back onto the very nice paved road heading to Tarangire. We were just driving along kind of sleepy and all of a sudden there was a loud crash and the back side window was shattered all over my husband. Moses pulled the truck over and we all got out. Steve had glass all over him, which we washed off with some of our bottled water. We tried to sweep out the glass as best we could and I went back along the road a ways to see if I could find what hit us. A car had been coming towards us and we think they threw something at us even though we didn’t find anything on the road or inside the car. Maybe they had a club or something. So we put a cushion up by the window to help keep out the wind and continued on our way to the park. We did a game drive in the park before we got to the lodge. We saw giraffes, warthogs, dik diks, zebras with babies and several elephant families with very tiny babies. The elephants were right by the road so we got really good views of them. We stayed at the Tarangire Safari lodge which is a tented lodge. We were assigned tent #30 which had a great view of the river valley. We enjoyed the lodge, sleeping in the tents with running water, showers and flushing toilets in the back.

Sept. 9: On the way to breakfast we took a picture of three of us trying to circle the very large Baobab tree on the way to the dining hall. After breakfast we set out on our morning game drive with the broken window now taped up with plastic. We saw a black backed jackal carrying something in his mouth; it looked like some kind of meat. We also saw Cape buffalo, some vervet monkeys and impala eating the blossoms from the sausage tree, two male elephants fighting, an unstriped ground squirrel, ostriches and more elephants. We also saw numerous birds: white bellied and bear-faced go-away bird (my favorites), white headed buffalo, yellow-collared lovebirds, male and female Von der Decken’s hornbill, Lilac-breasted roller, superb starlings and a relative of our Red Belly Parrot. We also saw our only leopard. He was in a tree very, very far away and the only way to see him was through my camera lens at the highest power which was 19X optical zoom. Back at camp for lunch we saw a dwarf mongoose behind our tent. I also found a small group of yellow-collared love birds in a hole in a baobab tree right outside our tent. They kept coming back to feed the babies in the hole. After lunch we sat on the deck of our tent, read and watched the valley below, it was very peaceful. The afternoon game drive was not as exciting as the morning one. We say some more elephants, warthogs, giraffes and three southern ground-hornbills walking down the road. We did see a lot of Tsetse flies. At one point the hood of the car was just covered with them. None of us got bit, we just kept a watchful eye out for them and everybody swatted them out of the car. So back to the lodge we went for dinner and bed. We did have one small problem that we were able to straighten out. We were told by Moses we would have another boxed lunch on the way to Lake Manyara, but we had had enough boxed lunches, we asked if we could go to Kirurumu for lunch (we would pay) and than back to the park for the game drive. Moses said he would check into it.

cougfan

Sept. 10: Today Moses told us we would be able to have lunch at Kirumuru and we didn’t have to pay. We were very happy he did this for us. We did have a short game drive in Tarangire before we left, we saw a couple of lions, another Southern ground-hornbill and more giraffes. So we set of for Lake Manyara and Kirumuru tented camp. The drive was fine, on paved roads. At the top of the edge of the valley we stopped and took pictures of Lake Manyara. The drive to Kirurumu was an adventure; the dirt road was very rough. While on the road we saw Kenyans riding their bikes to a small town that was also on the way. We got to Kirurumu, checked in, dropped off our bags and had lunch. Cindy and I walked down to look at some of the other tents, which had locations right on the side of the hill, they had very good views. The view from out tent was of bushes. While Moses was paying the entry fee into the park we stayed outside in the shade and realized that a very large male baboon was systematically going through three Karibu Africa Safari vehicles parked across the parking lot. We watched him climb into each one and check out things. I guess he was looking for something to eat. We than watched him go over to our vehicle and climb up on it and go through the roof. I wasn’t thinking clearly, so Eric and I went over to the truck and tried to shush him away. He had grabbed a small bag that Moses had in a pocket on the back of the front seat, but when he saw us by the truck he climbed out and stood upright by the front door. At that time I realized all I had was my hat in my hand and I backed up slowly. He than ran off into the bushes where the other baboons were. So after that excitement we went off on our afternoon game drive through Lake Manyara. We saw Blue monkeys, more baboons, Gray-headed Kingfisher, Yellow billed Egret, hippos fighting over a spot at the hippo pool, giraffes walking up from the lake, one elephant, more giraffes, a very large troop of baboons (maybe 40) walking if front of us on the road and right along side the road as we left a group of Banded Mongoose. As we drove back up the hill to the lodge we got some beautiful sunset shots. We had a wonderful dinner and had entertainment, two young men playing and singing. Steve bought the CD they were selling. The tent was very nice, in fact a lot nicer than the one at Tarangire Safari Lodge, but the view at Tarangire won hands down. There were a lot more bugs at Kirurumu so we couldn’t sit out on the porch and at night we could hear dogs barking. This was probably due to the fact that this lodge is outside of the park.

Sept. 11: We woke up and took a few beautiful sunrise pictures from our deck. We had breakfast and set of for the Serengeti. While driving on the road to and from Lake Manyara, my husband had noticed a very small mud house that had a very nice garden, with plants all around it, very well kept. My husband is an avid gardener and he wanted to take a picture of the house and speak with whoever had done the garden. So Moses talked with the woman and she came out to see us and to get her picture taken in front of her house. My husband gave her a little something to keep her garden beautiful. It took just over an hour till we arrived at the gate to the NCA and started the drive up the crater edge. It was very foggy so we couldn’t take a picture at the first overlook. We had to go further along the rim in order to get to the other overlook where we could stop and take pictures of Magadi Lake in the crater. We arrived at Oldupai at 11:30 (three hours since we had left Kirumuru), had lunch and listened to a talk about the area. The first animal we saw on the way to the Naabi gate was a Kori Bustard right along side the road. We stopped at the Naabi hill gate and while Moses was paying for the entry we walked up the hill to see the view. Not much to look at up there but it was nice to walk around and catch the breeze. After Naabi hill gate we basically did a game drive to the Serengeti Sopa, where we would be staying for three nights. We saw our first Hartebeest, warthogs and lions, with cubs, at the Simba Kopjes. Along a small river we saw a pair of lions and further on we saw some hippos outside of the water, one a little baby. Right on the road to the Sopa before it got into the trees we saw a small family of Cheetahs, a mother and two nearly as big as her cubs, sitting up on an anthill. We were the only vehicle around so we could just sit there quiet and watch them. When we got in the woods we saw three owls sitting on a branch right by the road. We arrived at the Serengi Sopa at 6PM. Our room was on the top level so we had a good view of the area down towards some woods and the small water hole. We had dinner and went to bed early because we were to have an all day game drive the next day.

Sept. 12: We woke up, had breakfast, grabbed our box lunch, than set off for our all day game drive. Our first game viewed was a group of safari ants crossing the road. We made sure to not run over them. We than saw some fisher lovebirds and White-rumped Helmet-shrike in a tree. Later we saw vervet monkeys in a thorn bush, female lions under another bush and a male lion by himself. For about 40 minutes we watched a cheetah walk along a stream, he would lie down, drink and walk along with about 10 vehicles following his every move. We left the scene and later Moses got word about a female cheetah with cubs. We found the mother and her two young cubs; we were the only vehicle there. During the morning we drove to the Barafu kopjes and another kopjes which I don’t have the name for. We stopped for lunch at the visitor center. While eating lunch the hyraxes would come over under our table and look for handouts. I fed one my dried fruit which it seemed to like. Afterwards we walked along the path to read about the Serengeti and the animals in it. After the walk we sat around and watched the monkeys try to steal people’s lunches. They seemed to like the juice boxes. There was also a band of banded mongoose going around looking for food. After lunch we drove along the Seronera River. We saw a couple of young crocodiles sunning themselves and one hippo which we thought was dead until it finally twitched it’s ear and opened its eye to look at us. On our way back to the Sopa we saw a herd of Hartebeest. We got back around 5PM. After we ate dinner we watched a lightening show from our room.

cougfan

Sept. 13: This morning we got a breakfast box and left very early for our game drive to the Moru kopjes. Eric was sick the night before so he didn’t come with us. The first animal we saw was a male lion right along side the road. I mean so close we didn’t realize the orange in the grass was a lion until he moved. We took some wonderful sunrise pictures with the trees in the early morning mist. We saw another vehicle and went to see what they were looking at. They had found a male lion lying in the grass seemingly by himself. We sat there and watched him and pretty soon two females popped their heads up from some bushes just past where the male was lying down. One of the females came down the hill right past the male but she kept walking till she had crossed the road right in front of us. All the time she was calling for something or someone. On the other side of the road we had seen a hyena far out in the bush, maybe she was telling him to go away. She then circled around behind us and went back into the bushes. We then went to where there were some Maasai paintings on the rocks. We were able to get out of the vehicle to eat our breakfast and then walk up the rock to look at the paintings up close. We were the only people there, it was great. After this we went to the Ngong rocks (music rock). Again we got to get out of the truck and climb up to play the rock. It was nice to be able to be out of the truck. In the distance we could hear jackals barking. We saw one other vehicle but they didn’t stop to see the music rock. We drove past Lake Magadi where we saw various shore birds. On our way back to the Sopa we found a pair of red-billed hornbills digging on the side of the road, a troop of baboons, one lone hyena, a crested hoopoe bird and we got the best picture of a Lilac-breasted Roller of the whole trip. Right when we turned on the road to the lodge we saw two Topi’s with very small babies. After lunch at the lodge Steve and Eric went swimming, then we had tea and played card games for awhile. It was a nice relaxing afternoon. That evening it rained so hard that it was like a river coming off the roof.

Sept. 14: We ate breakfast at the lodge, got our lunch boxes and set off for a morning game drive out of the Serengeti on our way to the Ngorongoro Crater. We decided to drive towards the Simba Kopjes and see if we could see any of the mama and baby lions we saw on our first day in the Serengeti. Because of the rain the roads were very muddy and Moses had to get out and lock the tires so that he could turn on his 4 wheel drive. We got out to the Simba Kopjes and just caught a quick sight of some babies crawling around a rock pile covered with trees and bushes. We couldn’t really see them, just flashes of gold color. We than went back to the small river where we had seen a pair of lions before and found another pair of lions (maybe the same). We were told by others they had been mating but when we got there they were sleeping and didn’t do much of anything except raise their heads to look at us. We drove to the main road and headed to the Naabi hill gate. We ate lunch here, then Moses paid the fee to get in and we took off towards the Crater. We stopped and took a picture of the Crater at the top of the descent road and then drove down. During our drive across the crater we saw Gray Crowned Cranes, two hyenas, flamingos in the lake, hippo with the flamingos, black-backed jackals, two male lions and one lioness, and our only Rhinoceros views of the trip. There were two, Moses thought a mother and almost grown calf. Looking at my very far away pictures they may have been Black Rhinoceros. We drove up the very nice ascent road to the Sopa Lodge. We liked the lodge; we only spent one night there. They did seem to run out of water pressure while we were trying to clean up for dinner. But it eventually came back. At this lodge we ran into the most people at dinner. The tables were quite close together. On the subject of lodges, we learned from Moses that another group with Good Earth was sent to the Sopa because the Serena was overbooked. So I guess you can have your lodge changed with little notice.

Sept. 15: This was our last day. We at breakfast, grabbed our lunch boxes and set off back across the Crater. On this day we saw one male Ostrich chase another one off from his lady Ostrich, another jackal, some of the resident Wildebeest, Zebras, more hyenas, a lone bull Elephant walking towards the swamp, and a lone lioness. When we reached the ascent road we ran into a troop of Baboons. The ascent road was very scary to me. I am glad we didn’t run into any Elephants on it, though we did see one lone Elephant on the side of the hill. Moses said he had never seen on so high up on the slope. So now we were on our way back to Arusha. The drive was very nice and paved once we got out of the Ngorongoro area. We stayed at the Impala for the afternoon. When we arrived there still with our uneaten lunch boxes, the Good Earth rep said we could eat lunch there at the hotel but we were tired and just wanted to clean up and rest before our long flight home. We were picked up and driven to JRO for our flight to Amsterdam. The flight to Amsterdam was an uneventful one, which was nice.

Sept. 16: We had a 6 hour lay over in Amsterdam so Steve and I took the train into town and walked around for a few hours. We ended up in the red light district but did see some of the canals and the many churches they had. Our flight back to Seattle was very good except Northwest had the same movies we had seen on the way over so we mostly played games and tried to sleep.

cougfan

So I hope this TR helps someone. I know that several people have safaris coming up using Good Earth. If you would like to see our pictures they can be seen at:

www.cougfan.smugmug.com/travel


Julie

somuch2c

Thanks, Julie! Enjoyed reading your report and viewing your photos! Glad you took the time to post!

We'll be at the Mara Serena for 2 days the end of this month. Can't wait! Your report has just added to the excitement!

Thanks again!

Dana_M

Better late than never Julie. Thanks for posting. Great report with alot of good details. Now I'm off to look at your photos.

Dana_M

The photo of the wildebeests at the edge of the river, and the one of the lone wildie climbing back up the other side show how lucky you were with the migration. You were also lucky to be in open sided vehicles. The photos of all the vehicles with pop tops watching the lions shows that.

The vehicles all lined up along the road watching the cheetah in the Serengeti is disturbing. There must have been over a dozen vehicles there.

You got some beautiful sunrise photos. I often see wonderful sunset photos, but not too many of the sunrise.

You were certainly lucky with your sightings throughout your trip. Even if the only leopard sighting was at a distance up in a tree, you still saw all the bigs cats, lots of lovely birds, and plenty small creatures as well. It was a very productive safari.

Leely2

Hi Julie,

Thanks for posting! Great photos and a very nice report. You were able to see quite a bit. You saw an oryx! Now that's luck.

What did you think about doing Kenya and Tanzania together in 2 weeks? Did it seem rushed to you or...?

Thank you again,

Leely

LyndaS

Just in time Julie for me to put in the index - I am still in Sept 2007, so you weren't late at all!!

Haven't read it all yet, but wonderful report, thanks for posting. OFf to view your photos over breakfast....

cougfan

Thanks guys for the good words. I wasn't sure if it was too much or not enough info.

Somuch2c, you'll love the Mara Serena. I wished we would have stayed longer and seen a real crossing. I hope you are planning a Balloon Safari, we really enjoyed ours.

Dana, we were actually in the same type of vehicle as we took pictures of. In Kenya we had a van and in Tanzania we had a Land Cruiser. I do agree that there were a few times, Cheetah viewing in Mara and in the Serengeti, Lions in Amboseli, when the size of the vehicle groups just got ridiculous. On two other Cheetah sightings (Serengeti) we were the only vehicle around.

Leely, we didn't feel rushed at all. We only did the Mara and Amboseli in Kenya. Amboseli was just a park and a night on the way to the border, but we did see a lot of Elephants there and Mt. Kilimanjaro. Maybe if we had tried to do more parks it would have been more rushed or longer, which we couldn't do.

Lynda, I am glad that you found the report. I was going to email you and say that I had posted it.

Julie