Sherry:
B sounds great as does Kisma Ngeda.

I had the same problem with editing my long posts --it was very frustrating to make the changes and then see the typos. Perhaps it is because it is a long post. Try editing and then going back to preview to see if that will make the edits "stick." I was going straight from edit to post.

I'd guess 3 - 3 1/2 hrs. Patty

Don't know what happened to the rest of the above thread - strange happenings when editing.

So on our first night we picked up Momoya - a great semi non traditional Datoga guide who keeps in touch with various local tribesmen - he speaks 5 languages. We went to a blacksmiths' encampment where they make spear heads and other needed supplies. By our request, we were made 3 brass bracelets 2 for me and 1 for B. They melted down brass master locks to achieve this - it was pretty impressive to watch.

The next day we left early in the am to meet up with the Hadzabe tribesmen to go out on a hunt. Once intros were placed we followed them and their dogs to try to spear something for dinner. These guys fly thru the brush and are so quiet and agile all minus shoes BTW, it's truly amazing. We had a real hard time trying to keep up with them. They did manage to bring a gazelle down but we were too slow to see the actual kill but did see the gazelle fleeing with dogs and spread out tribesmen on it's trail. They offered us the first blood - I declined however, as I had a large breakfast that morning. By the time the remains reached camp most of it was already cleaned and skinned and mostly consumed by the men. The women were quite please with the rest of the take. We hung out for awhile and shared a few translated universal jokes and left to have our boxed lunches.

We later visited the more traditional Datogas and hung out with them around their bomas. These people hunt and gather. One's sign of prosperity is to have many wives and children. People like Momoya and others are trying to change this, while still allowing these tribesmen to continue their current lifestyles - not an easy task to educate and remain the same.

Next morning Ngoro Crater

Sherry -

Sorry to be late to the game.
But, I'm enjoying this; great that you wound up with a private safari. Waiting for more. Thanks.

Pretty cool, Sherry. What an interesting itinerary. I'd love to include Lake Eyasi someday.

Sounds like Baricke was a joy to be around. The unofficial Mayor of Karatu as your personal guide; I'm impressed. :)

We stayed at Kifaru in 2004, and I agree that it's quite pretty. At that time they had an (interim?) Tanzanian woman manager. She was really nice and our guide liked her and they way the treated guides there. I think 2 months later they found or sold to an Austrian couple who were supposed to live on and manage the property fulltime. So who knows? Also, when we were there it was more than half empty so we had our "house" to ourselves. No noise from other guests in that case.

Waiting for more!

One more congrats on the private safari!
Glad your glasses followed you and the nausea ceased.

And to the naysayers. They didn't get to go hunting with the Hadzabe bushmen. And you were offered first blood! I'd decline too.

So cybor and dayoung meet up in Kikoti.
Actually, I'm surprised I don't see more of that.

As for editing. I type anything lengthy in Word and copy & paste it over. I don't think that violates the no copy & paste policy since it is not from some other source.

Looking forward to the rest of the report.

Thanks for the comments.
Atravelynn - how do you c+p from word to here?

part III

Ngorongoro Crater
We left after breakfast to head to Ng Crater with plans of arriving for an early lunch. We headed to the Sopa Lodge and checked into room 60 after checking out the astounding views. The room is a bit shop worn but has decent views of the crater. After lunch we decended quite easily from the Sopa into the crater, Wow! what an amazing place. We had so many sightings of bull elephants, hyena, jackal, buffalo, wilderbeest, zebra, warthogs and 2 lion pride sightings. Close to the end of the day, B's head just about snaps off and he excitingly grabs the binocs., puts them down and repeats over and over til he finally says that he thinks he sees a rhino and he's heading our way - he guns the engine like a bat out of hell and then quietly rolls to where he anticipates the rhino will cross and sure enough - he's right on with his prediction as usual. This giant male walks from the left of us to directly 10 ft. in front of us, stops and does a long spray marking and continues walking in front of us, all the while keeping one eye on us, he walks by and past us, then turns to further check us out, B and I were practically hyperventilating as Mike 1st shot photos and then as it walked in front he video'd him and then reverted back to photos on the same camera. After our rhino was a distance away, Mike tryed showing us the video but he only seemed to capture 30 seconds due to the angle he was shooting from - The video didn't take, as he didn't have he shutter fully down. Being the good wife that I am - I didn't call him an idiot - didn't have to, as he felt pretty bad on his own. He did, however, get some good close photos before our rhino entered the road and when he was off to the other side. Talk about a lost opportunity. We just about made it to the gate for closing.

We then came back to the lodge and watched the incredible sunset and got ready for dinner in the dining room. One thing that we weren't crazy about at the lodge was that we couldn't dine with B like we previously had, as there's seperate facilities for the guides. We also found the dining room, the food and service a bit of a disappointment after coming from the intimate camps that we had been to. We were very tired and it took 2 1/2 hrs. to get our food and that wasn't even dessert which we couldn't wait any longer for. The entire staff was made to come in begrudgingly to sing Sopa songs - they sure didn't seem to be in a Sopa kinda mood while singing - poor souls. The dining room really reminds me of a bad cruise ship - sorry to those of you who love the place.
Anyhow, day 2 proved to be just as fortunate as the 1st, minus the rhino sighting. We saw all the same and additionally cheetahs, a leopard, hippos, more female and male lions, monkeys,hartebeests,flamingos,eland,newly birthed wilderbeests and more.

Being at the gate at 6:30am was great as we saw so much and virtually had the place to ourselves for the first couple of hours. I did keep wondering how the Serengeti would compare after this.

More later:

The early arrival at the gate is key! You had an exciting couple days in the crater. The pictures that I've missed are the images most clear in my head. I'm sure you got some good stills of the rhino.

What were the cheetah doing?

How annoying to wait two plus hours for food. I don't recall any Sopa songs, which could get old in a hurry.

copy & paste to Fodors:

1. type whatever I want in Word and make all the corrections.

2. select it all with Ctrl A or the mouse

3. copy with Ctrl & C or right click and copy

4. Go to Fodors and click the Post button or Post My Reply button.

5. Inside the box I paste by doing Ctrl & V or right click and paste

I still do a preview but most of the corrections are done.

Thanks Atravelynn,

I'll try to c+p using word on my next entry. Not only are my edits not taking but I'm losing big chunks of my report in cyberville.

The first of our many cheetah sightings was a mother and 3 cubs (6 mos. old) hidden in the bushes sharing a kill while Mama kept a keen eye out for sculking hyenas who kept a safe distance out of a least 100 ft away. each time they got a little closer Mama would let her presence be known with some pretty aggressive body language.

B stated that she must be an excellant mother to have 3 healthy cubs of that age survive.

B used to be part of the cheetah project in Ngoro and the Serengeti so he could spot them from such incredible distances and in such unlikely places. We saw so many cheetahs in both parks that we actually lost count.

We would observe many vehicles that would ride past the cheetahs without a clue that they were missing out on spectacular cheetah sightings.
Sherry

Great cultural contacts. That is interesting that Momoya is trying to walk the line of maintaining some traditions and abandoning others--I did not talk about it in my trip report but there is a problem with female genital mutilation among some of the plains masaii. A guide we met is married to a masaii woman whose tribe became agrigutural awhile ago and does not practice it. He was the person who talked to us about the ongoing problem among some of the plains masaii.

lucky and wonderful rhino sighting--good wife not to make Mike feel worse.

Interestingly, female mutilation was a huge topic of conversation for us with B, Momoya and Zambia who are not only opposed to this but are all actively persuing doing away with this brutal practice.

All 3, including B's wife in Arusha, actually go to areas where this is presently practiced and discuss this with the Maasai. They said that with peaceful discussion and education that also includes the girls fathers, that they feel they and others are making good progress.

Let's hope that these proactive folks can rid this awful practice entirely.

Sherry

Good for them. I was impressed with the men with whom we spoke about it--who strongly opposed it and had a sophisticated knowledge about the situation. I had the feeling from one of them that he felt that some of the tourism--creating a view of "the noble Masaii warrior" obscures the background reality of the women's lives.

Shery -

Re our postings getting lost in cyberheaven. I've found that it's best to access Fodor's thru Explorer rather than your own ISP.

I would create my report in Word, then copy it into Fodor's... but it's best that Fodor's is open before doing so or somehow it can get lost, as happened to me a few times, till I figured out the problem.

I also found that if I was trying to transfer large chunks of my report, it wouldn't be accepted (maybe Fodor's has a limit on number of characters per posting). So did smaller chunks. Yours don't seen to be as large as mine were.

Re the female mutilization - we also had this conversation with our guides, young man and like your guides, seems that the guys are dead set against this, though it's taken the women a bit of time to realize the negativety of this procedure. Let's hope for better education and change and not too long to see the results.

Great report. Thanks.

Thanks for your interest.

Unlike certain governments (20 mos. to go ughhhh - sorry, I'll shut up now)

I like the way that the Tanzanians do things in a pole, pole peaceful way rather than jumping in head first with strong aggressive demands.

Very intelligent people.

Peace;
Sherry

Sherry,
I’m beginning to understand how you got healed and I’m looking forward to reading the Serengeti part. Congratulations on ending up with a private safari.

Asante sana Nyamera.

Before getting to the Serengeti, I wanted to comment about the money thing in Tanz.

We wrongly thought and were told that most perm. camps would accept a charge. We ended up having to pay with USD because of this for our bottles of wine and extras - in our case really it really adds up ((d)).

As we were concerned about having enough cash for B's tip we tried to unsucessfully to get an advance at the Sopa. They will however, accept a charge for the end bill as well as for the staff tip.

We went to an ATM and the bank in Karatu and they would only accept Visa - we only had M/C.

Some out of the way vendors, BTW, will only accept Tanz. $$ as they have no access to banks. Most of the vendors in tourist areas will accept USD.
This was purely my observation and others may find this to be different.

testing 123

cybor, your report was interesting in the beginning but it is becoming so looooooooooooong, too long. Sometimes less is more.

To lose track of cheetah sightings is fortunate indeed. How lucky to get a cheetah expert with superb cheetah spotting skills.

z:
As someone who posted a very looooong report also, I can tell you that there are a number of regular readers who encourage long and detailed reports. For those who don't like such reports the solution is simple--simply don't read them and certainly don't comment on them.

Re. trip reports, especially Sherry’s: the longer the better.