Northern Tanzania safari, Sept.-Oct. 2013

[Zubbie15]

Nasikia Central Camp

 

Nasikia was a basic tented camping experience, our first of the trip. The set up was a group of canvas tents, all in a row, with a central eating/lounge tent.

 

 

Each tent had a small outdoor sitting area, although it was somewhat hard to use as the canvas roof dropped down quite low.

 

 

The inside of the tent had a central sleeping area, in our case with two double beds.

 

 

The beds were reasonably comfortable, but surprisingly short. As a man slightly taller than 6 feet, I had to sleep with my knees bent to avoid kicking the metal frame at the end.

 

One one side of the sleeping area was a washing and toilet station, with all that was needed.

 

 

The other side had the shower section.

 

 

Perhaps not the ideal design, if one had a lot of freedom to move the rooms around, but not a big issue. This was our first experience with a bucket shower, which we of course had to photograph for people back home.

 

 

I learned the hard way that it’s a good idea to save some water in the bucket each night. We were unsure how far the 40 shared gallons we had would go, so the first night my wife, who showered first, went very fast. I, going second, wanted to test how much was left, so remained in the shower until the water was exhausted. This gave me a pretty good amount of time to shower. The second night, my wife was jealous at the length of shower I took, so I was the first to go. However, not having any ambient temperature water to dilute the hot water meant that the water was extremely hot! Lesson learned – we didn’t empty our bucket after that.

 

Each night there was a fire, with a group of chairs arrayed around it to meet your fellow travelers.

 

 

It was interesting to hear what others had seen during the day, and to learn more about them.

Dinner (and breakfast and lunch for those around camp) was served in a communal tent, but with individual tables to allow groups to stay together.

 

 

I remember the food being good, but not too fancy. One thing that was nice about the private tables was were we able to eat with our guide – at all other lodgings on this trip that was not permitted, which we thought was quite ridiculous.

 

Overall, I thought Nasikia while basic offered all the amenities one would need. Our tent was near to the dining tent, and so we didn’t hear too much wildlife nearby, but another couple in our group was on the end and had a hyena outside their tent during the night.

We did have one major issue with the camp however, and it was with the staff. The camp is run by a tour operator in the area, but they allow other groups to stay there. The time we were there, our group was the only one that wasn’t on a trip organized by the TO. For us, because we only had the one full day in camp, we wanted to be out as close to 6AM as possible to maximize our time in the area. When our guide requested this to the manager upon arriving our first night, we were originally told that breakfast was at 6:30, and no exceptions were allowed. After some discussion with our guide, he went back and managed to convince them to give us basic breakfast boxes to leave early. This was fine with us, we didn’t need anything fancy, just something to fill our stomachs. However, we were surprised when we left out tent at 6AM to see that several of the groups with the other TO were already hitting the road with food – apparently the breakfast requirements were only for “outside” tours. Furthermore, our guide told us after we left that morning that he had overheard the staff, after our group had gone to bed, complaining that we wanted to leave early, and in particular badmouthing our guide in pretty bad language (he wouldn’t tell us specifics). We were sufficiently disappointed that we almost didn’t leave a tip (but backed out at the last minute), and made it clear to our TO that they should use the camp in the future.

[Zubbie15]

Day 11 – off to the airport (and the start of our best day of the safari)

 

We woke up early this day, in order to be ready for our flight up to Kogatende. The sky was just getting light as we exited our tent.

 

 

Our flight was scheduled to leave the Seronera airstrip at about 9AM, but because the flight timetables seem to be more of a suggestion than definite we were advised to be at the airstrip an hour early. This, combined with the distance we had to go to get there, meant there wasn’t much time for game viewing on the way. However, we did stop for this African Fish Eagle along the way, our first of the trip.

 

 

 

Arriving at the airstrip, we saw a plane there, and realized just how small our craft was going to be…

 

 

Unfortunately, this wasn’t our plane, and we didn’t get to leave until almost 9:30. It was quite an experience being in the first row behind the pilot.

 

 

Somewhat unfortunately, I got so interested in his flying that I forgot to take pictures of the scenery. We were a little disappointed leaving Seronera, which is known for its big cats, without any good sightings of Cheetah or Leopard. But our last days would make up for that…

[Marks]

Shame about the breakfast debacle.

Great look at the fish eagle, though!

 

You're hyping us up for the remainder here...

[Zubbie15]

Day 11 – starting off in Kogatende

The flight north was quite short, and by 10AM we were back on the ground. On the approach in, there were two things that were very obvious – firstly, the area was much greener than where we’d been previously.

 

 

Secondly, there weren’t any obviously visible large Wildebeest herds – had they all left the area to go further south? That wouldn’t be ideal.

 

However, we soon forgot that when we met up with our guide, who had been talking with a friend of his who was also picking up people off our plan. He had found a Cheetah mother and two cubs in the area the day before. Our two vehicles set off to that area right away, and after not too long found the mother and babies on the move.

 

 

 

 

 

They headed through a very rocky streambed, and we thought we might not be able to follow them.

 

 

However, a couple of hundred meters further on there was a reasonable spot to cross, so we got to the other side. Pretty quickly we developed a flat tire though, which was annoying. At this point there were 4 vehicles with the family, including us. We stopped to change the tire, while the others continued. This was, actually, almost a good development, as the mother had settled into the shade of a tree to nurse. The other vehicles stopped for a few minutes, took some pictures, and then left, such that by the time we arrived there was only one other truck there, which also left a couple of minutes after we rejoined them. The photography was a little challenging, due to the Cheetahs being in the shade and the bright sunlit grass behind them, but it was enjoyable to be alone with them for a while. Cheetah mother and babies sequence:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After eating, the youngsters got tired and fell asleep, while mom held off for a little while, ensuring everything was safe. Eventually though she also started to drift off to sleep.

 

 

 

 

 

We decided they were going to be settled for a while, and so continued along our way, aiming to cruise along the Mara River to see if we could get lucky and see a crossing.

[Zubbie15]

Day 11, continued.

 

We were pretty content having seen the Cheetah family, and with a destination in mind all of us sat back in the car to relax for a few minutes. However, not much longer, our guide stopped the truck beside some rocks and quietly asked if we saw anything. We all got up into the pop-up roof, looked left, and saw very close to us…

 

 

 

These ladies were sufficiently close that had to remove the teleconverter from my 300mm lens, or else I wouldn’t have been able to photograph them. They were also very well positioned, with the rock they were on essentially at eye level with us when we stood up. It was interesting, for a while we weren’t sure who was watching whom. Lion sequence:

 

 

 

 

 

 

We looked at each other for about 10 minutes, at which point they got tired of the attention, and retreated further on the rock. So, back toward the river we went…

[Zubbie15]

Continued.

 

We did manage to make it to the river, and turned along the road that followed its course. However, our guide was being good and wasn’t fixated on just the river, and a short while later we did an abrupt turn away from the river. There was a grey form up ahead:

 

 

At the time, I’d understood that the only real place to see Black Rhinos on the Northern Circuit was the Crater (with some possibility around the Moru Kopjes further south), so it was a surprise to see him here. Subsequently, I’ve read that Rhinos from the Maasai Mara have apparently been moving into Tanzania as the habitat is more suitable.

 

 

We got as close as we felt was safe – whenever we stopped the engine for pictures our guide told us that if he started the engine we needed to hang on because he might need to escape quickly. In any case, he seemed quite relaxed in our presence, and let us take quite a few pictures.

 

 

 

 

But we were still aiming for a crossing, so we continued along…

[Zubbie15]

Continued.

 

Not too much later, we came across a group of vehicles on our side of the river, with a reasonable number of Wildebeest on the other side. It was early afternoon, so we decided to stop here to eat our box lunches and see whether we’d have any luck. It’s rather interesting waiting for the herd to start crossing – apparently experience has taught the guides that if the Wildebeest can see a truck in the open they likely won’t cross, so every vehicle was at least partially hidden behind the bushes available.

 

Anyway, we’d eaten our lunches, the men had all gotten out to “check the tire pressure” when I noticed the first Wildebeest go. When that happens, the herd mentality takes over, and there’s no concern about the cars anymore, so all the drivers rush to the river’s edge. This was the one last time I felt the behavior of the guides wasn’t ideal. For the most part, everyone despite the rush was well-behaved. However, the car that came up behind us did not leave an opening for the animals, and there was an obvious exit point carved into the river bank. I really thought they should’ve left more space, but there were several other places to exit so it didn’t have too much of a bearing on the ability of the Wildebeest to get out of the river. Anyway, I think I’ll just let the pictures try to speak for themselves – it’s hard to convey the chaos and noise that was going on, and difficult to know where to point your camera!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was quite something to see the hundreds of Wildebeest crossing, even if there wasn’t too much going on in terms of predators. While most of them made it across, eventually the momentum stopped and a small group remained on the opposite side of the bank. It was interesting to see, after a few minutes, that several adult females, and one younger calf, return to the river. Apparently their baby or mother hadn’t crossed, and they were looking for them. A couple actually returned across the river.

 

Once the crossing was over, and the remaining animals on the other bank had dispersed back away from the river, we decided to make our way toward our camp.

[Zubbie15]

Continued.

 

Our way back to the camp went right past the rhino from earlier, so we detoured to see what he was up to. He’d apparently decided to get up to eat, so we were able to get some nice shots of him standing.

 

 

However, he definitely knew we were there, and started to pay more attention to us.

 

 

 

We didn’t want to risk him charging us, so we decided to leave him in peace. We stopped to admire several Giraffe on our way.

 

 

We reached our camp, Olakira, a little before 4, and decided to head back out after taking half an hour to freshen up.

[Zubbie15]

Continued.

 

One of the nice things about Olakira was that we had a view of the Mara River from our tent (this was also not so nice for other reasons – more on that later). As we were finishing up our break in the tent, we started to hear more and more “gnu-ing” sounds outside near the river. Scanning along the banks with our binoculars showed that a relatively small group of Wildebeest were gathered on the opposite side of the river, so we rushed to our truck and headed down toward the water. Within about five minutes of reaching their, the first intrepid animal started crossing.

 

 

This was quickly followed by the majority of the herd.

 

 

 

The birdlife in the area was quite impressive, especially in terms of scavenger birds.

 

Marabou Stork

 

 

 

Ruppell's Griffon Vulture

 

 

Marabou Stork and Ruppell's Griffon Vulture

 

 

Hooded Vulture

 

 

Yellow-billed Stork

 

 

This part of the river had a large bend, and so a lot of carcasses were caught on the edge, attracting the birds.

 

 

The current here was much stronger than at our previous location, and the Wildebeest had a harder time crossing. Those that made it were noticeable tired.

 

 

A lot of them actually got halfway and then decided they couldn’t continue, so they turned around.

The crossing was relatively short duration, but a sizeable herd stayed on the far bank for a while, so we watched and hoped they’d cross. The Marabou’s watched with us.

 

 

 

Ultimately the rest of the herd decided to stop for the night, and as it was getting dark, we took one last picture of the Marabou Storks starting to roost and left back to camp.

 

 

That was the end of our best day of this safari. We were almost embarrassed to admit what we’d seen at camp, especially when one lady was saying that she and her guide spent 5 hours at one of the crossing locations, waiting for a large herd on the other bank to start crossing, only to have them give up and turn around.

 

As I mentioned, the crossing point near our camp was in a bend in the river, and being later in the season there were a lot of Wildebeest carcasses floating along the edges. This was the first time in my life I ever experienced the ability of a smell to wake you from your sleep – in the middle of the night the wind shifted, and the smell of decomposition was overpowering. For most of our stay, the wind was such that we couldn’t smell it, but every once in a while it got quite bad.

[Marks]

Oh my, those cheetah cubs!

 

The rhino encounter looks like it was rather a special moment.

 

Simply superb crossing photographs. From what I've read and seen, the vehicle behavior you witnessed sounds reasonably tame, so that's good. Certainly you were in a fantastic position.

 

And I've been woken by animal sounds in Africa...but never smells!

[michael-ibk]

A fantastic day indeed! Love the cheetah cubs most, but you really had one highlight after the other. Perfect safari - and perfectly captured! Awesome crossing shots.

[Zubbie15]

Thanks @@Marks and @@michael-ibk, it was definitely a day to remember. And, dare I say it, we had better experiences with the cheetah cubs and the rhino(s) over the remaining days... but that's still to come.

[Zubbie15]

Day 12, morning.

 

As usual, we were up early today to get out with the first light. The sunrise led to very nice colors in the sky.

 

 

 

 

As a side note, we generally didn’t have a lot of luck with our early morning game drives. In fact, by this time of the trip, we had started joking that we should sleep in an extra few hours, as we didn’t usually see anything particularly interesting until we’d been out for 3 hours. This morning, we saw a lot of the same herbivores as we’d seen before.

 

First was a small herd of Eland.

 

 

 

There was also a very young Zebra foal.

 

 

This part of the Serengeti had by far the highest concentration of vultures on our trip. Here, a Lappet-faced Vulture.

 

 

The one species we hadn’t seen well, but had hoped to, on this trip was a Leopard. This part of the Serengeti has a lot of kopjes, and so is good habitat for them if you can find them. Having seen the two crossings the previous day, today we spent searching around the rocky areas.

 

 

This led to our first views of Klipspringers.

 

 

 

There was a healthy population of Giraffes in the area.

 

 

And, while we didn’t see any large herds, Buffalo were a common sight.

 

 

After a while, we noted several lionesses up high on the top of a rock. They were hard to see, and in particular did not offer much in the way of photographs.

 

After a little while, one lion got down from the rocks, and started to walk away. We followed her, zooming ahead and then watching her walk past us, before repeating the process.

 

 

She seemed intent on going somewhere, so we were hoping for something interesting to happen, but she simply headed to the next outcropping and then disappeared amongst the rocks.

 

In the area, there were vultures picking over the remains of a carcass – likely her pride's meal from the night before.

 

 

[michael-ibk]

Very nice Klippspringer sighting, and really like the second sunrise pic - beautiful!

[elefromoz]

@@Zubbie15, what a treat to see the Cheetah cubs nursing, I've yet to see a cub, that Zebra foal is pretty damn cute too. The Marabou Stork is a wreck and makes the Vulture quite handsome. Absolutely stunning Rhino sighting, love the third shot particularly, his tiny little eye captured so well. Every time I see a photo of a Rhino, my heart breaks a little and I dream of days gone when they roamed the Parks in their thousands. What a sight that must have been. Thanks again for your lovely report and images.

[TonyQ]

What an amazing day. The cheetah cubs are wonderful - and the eye level lions superb. Great to see the rhino, and the "crossing". The klipspringer is very cute.

[Zubbie15]

Thanks all. @@elefromoz, I completely agree about the rhinos - I read in a book at one point while we were in Tanzania that as late as the mid-80's there were thousands of Black Rhinos in the greater Tarangire ecosystem. I really loved that park, and can only imagine how greater it would be if they can ever be restored.

[Zubbie15]

Continued.

 

Not too long after, we came across a mother warthog with her little babies.

 

 

There was also a decent sized population of Elephants in the area.

 

 

 

And Thompson’s Gazelles.

 

 

 

Not long after that, we came across a few cars around a tree, trying to look through the branches. As we approached, assuming they were trying for a look at a big cat, a Leopard descended the tree and started to make its way away.

 

 

It stopped to take a quick look at us...

 

 

...Before disappearing further into the rocks.

 

 

He wasn’t going to be moving anytime soon, so we decided to head back to camp for lunch and a mid-day break. On our way, we stumbled across this lone male Cheetah.

 

 

He seemed quite relaxed and tired though, and since we didn’t have lunch boxes with us the consensus was to continue to camp.

 

 

So, while we didn’t get a great Leopard look, it was still a good morning with all three big cats seen.

[Zubbie15]

Day 12, afternoon.

 

We hit the road again a little before 4PM, and headed along the river bank. There were several large Crocodiles in and around the water; we stopped briefly to watch one chow down on a Wildebeest carcass.

 

 

 

 

Others were basking along the banks of the river – with the amount of food floating in the river, there wasn’t much need to exert themselves for meals.

 

 

 

Crossing the road in front of us was this Tortoise.

 

 

There were also some Hippos in the water, although the water level was fairly high so they weren’t the easiest to see.

 

 

Because not much was happening along the river, we decided to return to where the Leopard had been earlier in the day. Now that we’d gotten our close views of the Cheetahs, our last wish was a good sighting of a Leopard. However, when we arrived there was no sign of the Leopard, but rather this handsome young man.

 

 

 

We hypothesized that the reason the Leopard had seemed stressed out earlier was due to the Lions being in the area, as this male was only about 100 meters from where we had initially seen the Leopard.

[Zubbie15]

Continued.

 

A little disappointed at not seeing the Leopard, but mollified by the Lion’s presence, we went off in a new direction to see what we could find. Not long after, we came across the Cheetah mother and her two young cubs.

 

 

 

It was almost 6PM, and the sun was behind some thick clouds, so the cubs in particular were showing a lot more of their playful side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

One cub also spent a lot of time bonding with his mother.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mom seemed also pretty happy to let them play on their own.

 

 

Eventually, the light was starting to fade and we needed to make it back to camp, so we bid a fond farewell to the family.

 

 

We got back to camp just as the light was going out of the sky.

 

[Zubbie15]

Day 13, Our last full day.

 

We were up early with the sun again today, hoping to get in a full day of game viewing. We felt the one animal we’d really missed out on so far was having a good Leopard sighting, so we had our fingers crossed that the safari gods would send us off with something exciting.

 

We started off in a different direction from previously, heading toward the area around Bolongonja (I only know that because of a route marker along our way). There were a fair number of animals here, but there were definitely less vehicles, and these ones seemed a little more skittish (or, an alternative explanation could be that they were closer to the border of the park and had faced more hunting pressure). Our first nice view was of a tower of Giraffes.

 

 

 

 

There were also some Dagga Boys in the area, although they were giving us the stink-eye so we didn’t linger too long.

 

 

In some longer bushes, we came across a small pride of lions, including some fairly young ones.

 

 

 

As you can see from their faces, there were a lot of flies in the area this day. It was our first day of having really annoying, persistent insects bothering us – not too long later we realized why. On a positive side, they were annoying as they clustered around your face, but they did not bite, thankfully.

 

We came across another (or perhaps the same) little Zebra shortly after.

 

 

As well as a Lilac-breasted Roller.

 

 

We tried our luck in an area that ended up being completely devoid of any animals, if I had to estimate (and going by our photos) it was over an hour without any sightings. We comforted ourselves with pictures of flowers.

 

 

 

 

We then came across a small herd of Elephants. The lower number of vehicles in this area meant that the youngsters were frequently trying to smell us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The matriarch of the herd had an odd, backward bent tusk.

 

[Marks]

Beautiful photos you've posted over the last few days. The cheetahs must have been a real treat to see. Also enjoyed the crocodile eating.

[pault]

Northern Serengeti is really working out for you, apart from the smell. I hadn't considered that as a drawback of Olakira being next to the river, but of course it would be at times, as they a re right next to that crossing point. The first crossing was a beauty.

[Zubbie15]

Sorry for the delayed response, I was travelling recently. Thanks @@Marks for the kind words. I agree @@pault, I never thought a smell could wake on up, it was a surprise!

 

Hoping to finish this report off in the next couple of days.

[Zubbie15]

Continued.

 

We soon realized that all of the flies were in the area because there were a lot of Wildebeest around. They weren’t clustered very tightly together, and I had trouble getting a photo that really represented what we were seeing, but these show how they were everywhere:

 

 

 

Of course, with all the herbivores the predators were doing well, and we came across the remains of one that was being cleaned by the vultures.

 

 

 

 

 

Interspersed within the big herd were a few other animals, including this Topi.

 

 

It was now around noon, and we needed to go back to camp for lunch and then to start packing up.