Buenos Aires

Flying from Dubai to Buenos Aires was loooooong.  Our first flight was 14 hours.  We stopped in Rio, mucked around for a bit, got back on the same plane, got diverted to Uruguay because of thunderstorms, sat around, and finally made it to Argentina a gajillion hours later.

Our first few days in the city have been nice and we've been slowly acquainting ourselves with South America.  On our first day we went to one of their local bookstores called El Ateneo which has been considered to be one of the top ten bookstores in the world because of it's beauty (it's inside an old theater building).

The next day we tried some empanadas.  Shannon and I had never been introduced to empanadas before and that's a travesty.  It turns out they're classy Hot Pockets.  Om nom nom.

Then we took a walking tour.  First, we saw the congress building and we slowly walked East with our gigantic tour group.  On the way, we crossed the 9 de Julio Ave with and the huge Evita sign.  Evita is a bit of a controversial figure around here... as are basically all other politicians.  It seems like in the country's wild history there has been a lot of different regimes.  The history lesson was.... confusing and I will summarize it this way:  corruption, regime, revolution, repeat.

Finally, we made it to "The Pink House" which is kind of like our American White House.

Yesterday, we went to check-out a tango show.  We know very little about Tango but we quickly observed that it's not easy.  We'll be in Argentina for more than a month though so maybe before we leave I'll be twirling Shannon like a pro.

Dubai!

Dubai (like Iceland) ended up on our trip as a layover city where we sort of thought... why not stick around for a few days?!  We weren't sure how long we would stay... and then we learned about their indoor ski area and we quickly settled on two days.

We arrived late at night and quickly crashed.  After some long sleep we headed to the Mall of the Emirates the next day.

After wandering around and having lunch we headed to Ski Dubai.  They've done a good job creating two runs that are actually reasonably difficult (blue square perhaps).  The snow is good because they control the temperature (which means it's cooold) and they pumped Christmas music while we were there.  It was very ironic that we felt the most Christmas Spirit in Dubai of all places.

 Dubai is working hard at catering to tourists so we ended up exploring the Mall more and stumbled into bowling and Chili's (the restaurant).  After 3 months on the road, a little Mid-Western afternoon was in order.  And don't worry friends, we haven't lost our touch both bowling over 120.

The following day we signed up for a city tour where we learned about Dubai.  Essentially the city is 40 years old and followed the discovery of oil in the region.  We now understand why oil is such a big deal, it's clear that it creates enooormous wealth.  Dubai is actually running out of oil so they are rapidly investing in things (the world tallest building, fancy hotels, indoor ski areas) to attract more dollars.  They're turning their massive wealth into... more massive wealth and we just hope the bottom doesn't fall out from underneath them... 

Anyway!  Here we are next to the world's tallest building the Burj Khalifa.

And later on our tour we checked out the "only 7 star" hotel in the world.  While this is mostly a marketing hype, the building is really cool.  Did we stay there?  Negative.

We're really glad we stopped in Dubai.  The culture and place is pretty surreal!  Also, we learned that it's technically Asia so we knocked another continent off!  Next stop, South America!

Safari and Africa Endings...

Our last day on safari was pretty bittersweet.  We had spent 6 wonderful weeks in Africa and we already miss it (especially Tanzania).  The day consisted of another 2 bush plane rides and eventually a big international flight to Dubai.  Here's some observations from our time in Kenya and Tanzania.

-I'm so so happy we tried volunteering and was surprised how quickly those 3 weeks went.  It takes a lot of time to invest in a community properly.

-The people we met were so welcoming and friendly.  They truly had an interest in sharing their lives and their culture with us.  In turn, they were curious about our culture.  In this way, I would say that we made the deepest connections with people here than anywhere else on our travels.

-We really enjoyed volunteering in a rural community.  Small town vibes are universal.

-Our education system is relatively very good and we should be thankful for it.

-We should be thankful for... everything.

-African singing is really beautiful.  It's too bad we don't emphasize singing as a group regardless of one's ability in the USA.
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-All of the animals we saw on safari were very interesting and great to see in their natural environment.  Despite being numerous.

-The Serengeti looks like what maybe the American plains (with buffaloes) once did... stuffed with animals who live in surprising co-existence.  I didn't expect to see so many of the animals literally right next to each other (zebras, wildebeests, gazelles right next to each other).

-Bride price is a big deal in both Kenya and Tanzania.  This seems to be a hot issue that maybe changing.  We also got asked a lot what crops we grew.  Sort of pounded home how distant we (Shannon and I) are from our food production.

-Accessibility to water is a huge deal and really improves people's lives.  Electricity will do the same but water is first.

-The Masai people are very interesting and it will be interesting to see how their culture changes during our lifetime.

-I (Scott) really like physics.

-The views and scenery in Africa are repeatedly just overwhelmingly vast.  It's very hard to describe but very cool to see.

Safari Day 13- Last Game Drives- Masai Mara

This day would sadly be our last day of safari game drives, so we headed out into the Masai Mara to see what we could see!  One of the highlights of the morning was actually a little strange.  We saw a hyena that looked like he was chasing something, so everyone perked up wondering what he was chasing.  Turns out....it was a black plastic bag.  We watched this situation for a while.  The bag had been blowing in the wind and when it stopped, the hyena appeared to be afraid of this unknown "animal" and slowly walked away.  A few minutes later, some jackals came to inspect Unknown Black Creature and deemed it...just a plastic bag.

It's hard to see in this picture, but the hyena is located to the right of the black plastic bag.  For those environmentalists out there, you should know that as soon as the wild animals had left the area, our driver made sure to pick up the bag so as not to confuse future hyenas.

Our drive this morning included a stop at the Mara River.  This river is famous for the times during the Great Migration when thousands of wildebeest and zebras cross the river (many of which subsequently die by crocodiles or drowning).  At this time of year, the wildebeest population is actually in the Serengeti.  But we did witness a few brave zebras make the river crossing.  I am happy to report that they all made it to the other side!

Other fun sightings on our game drive included topi, this is a type of antelope that we only saw here in Masai Mara.  They like to stand on the termite mounds to keep lookout. 

We ended our last game drive with a beautiful sunset.  Of course, we had to capture it with the silhouette of an acacia tree for the ultimate African photo.  

We went back to our camp for our last dinner in the bush.  Tomorrow we would head back to Nairobi and continue on with our journey.  

Safari Day 12 - Masai Mara Ballooning!

The family started off our first day in Masai Mara very early as we headed to a morning of hot air ballooning.  I can't remember what time we woke up, but I know it started with the dreaded number 4.  Still, this scene is a pretty neat way to wake up:

Our hot air balloon ride was peaceful and very scenic.  At first, we struggled slightly with the winds, but eventually they picked up and we drifted over vultures, elephants, ostriches, etc.  A highlight came right at the end as we moved over a big group of buffalo.  You don't get views like this everyday!

We really enjoyed the ballooning experience and had a great soft landing.  Success!

In the afternoon, we set out on a game drive and had our second and best sighting of cheetahs.  Cheetahs are actually on the bottom of the predator chain but c'mon, speed is cool.

I also thought I should include a photo from this game drive of Thomson Gazelles.  Mostly because we've put up many lion/elephant/giraffe photos and one of the coolest parts of our trip was the lesser known animals like these guys.  They're small, fast, and pretty cool to see.  By the end of our trip, we had met way more antelope creatures than I expected and could actually identify most of them!  This was a pretty cool thing to learn about!

Safari Day 11 - Airplanes Forever

The Serengeti is remote.  So to leave you have to drive forever (on unpaved roads) or take a bush plane.  Our plan involved a bush plane ride.  This was pretty unique as the plane landed on a primitive dirt runway and the plane only held 12 passengers.  We're not talking about a big aircraft here.

There is also only one flight per day from the Serengeti which means they may stop multiple times at all the different camps.  It turns out we would have 3 stops before getting to Kilimanjaro International Airport where we would still have 2 flights to get to Masai Mara our destination for the day.  That means we had 6 plane rides in approximately 10 hours.  All in little planes that looked like this:

It was a pretty neat to see the animals from above in like... the first two flights... but by the time we got through customs into Kenya and finished our flights we were tired, hot, and a little motion sick.  Still, Masai Mara greeted us with yet more lions.  I suppose we shouldn't complain!

Safari Day 10 - Serengeti Day 2

On our second day in the Serengeti we headed into the central area to look for (more) leopards and see the kopjes of the central area.  Kopjes are rock formed hills that basically mean heads sticking out of the ground.  Here's an example:

We saw a lot of animals around these since they provide a unique ecosystem.  Giraffes were a pretty consistent favorite of the group because they're so different than any other mammal.  We really enjoyed watching them run on this trip partly because that's something you can never see in a zoo and partly because for something so huge they're really damn graceful.

After lunch we managed to bag our THIRD leopard sighting (we were on a roll).  Leopard pictures are really elusive, but here's my best.  You can click it for a bigger size.  She's right in the middle with her tail hanging off the tree branch.

After a successful full day game drive we headed back to camp to relax.  Here's our group including Philip (guide, left) and Clement (driver, right) and our trusty rig in the background. We really enjoyed our guides in Tanzania. They were SO good at spotting animals (even birds) and taught us a lot about the animals and culture of Africa.

Dinner this night was local dishes which were pretty good (although, we'll admit, maybe not as local as our Volunteer Project time, sorry Mom and Dad) but did include dressing up in traditional Masai garb.  Here's Shannon and Mom looking local.

This was a great way to enjoy our last night in the Serengeti!!!

Safari Day 9 - Serengeti!

On our first full day in the Serengeti we would make a morning and an afternoon game drive.  In the morning we ran into a really great elephant encounter.  This elephant was eating food right bythe road so we stopped for a while and watched and listened to the crunching of the thorny trees that the elephants seem to like.  It's particularly cool how dexterous their trunks are.

After this, we headed out of the trees and into the endless plains that give the Serengeti its name.  In this park (and area) the Wildebeest make a gigantic clockwise migration and they were currently staying close to Kusini camp.  We ran into endless herds and concluded that we had seen more of them than any other animal we've ever seen (cows in the US being the runner up).   One wildebeest alone isn't very exciting but thousands of wildebeest are spectacular to see running/fighting/eating on the plain.

In the afternoon, we headed back out and Dad spotted a leopard on our drive back into the plains less than five minutes from camp.  This was our second leopard in less than a week which is pretty good for safari groups (some don't see any) so we were pretty excited even if we didn't get any good pictures.  

Our drive headed out to the Simba Rocks where we ran into the resident lion pride.  We saw a lot of lions on the trip but every time they were doing something a little different.  This day the lion cubs were out and about playing and inspecting us.  The only correct word to describe these future killers is... adorable.

We had a great sunset on our ride back to a delicious dinner at camp.  The Serengeti had lived up to its reputation!

Safari Day 8 - Journey to the Serengeti

After a wonderful day in the Ngorongoro Crater, we had a long travel day to get into the Serengeti National Park.  As Shannon mentioned earlier, we had left paved roads and had about 5 or 6 hours of bumpy roads and the occasional vague path we followed through open plains.  We did stop once at Olduvai Gorge.

Olduvai Gorge is like Disney World for archaeologists and was one of the first places that helped explain human evolution with remains of homo erectus, homo habilis and homo sapiens all in different layers of the gorge.

One of the cool discussions of the gorge was a sort-of call for peace from our tour guide as ultimately we're all brothers and sisters.  Below is the gorge:

And after hours in the car, things got a little silly.

Once we got to Kusini Camp where we would spend three nights, we went out on a quick afternoon game drive.  This was just a taste of the great Serengeti game drives to come the following day!

Safari Day 7 - Ngorongoro Lions and Rhino

This day was one of the most exciting on our safari and started with a "powder day" (skiing terminology) early start.  We were up and eating breakfast at 5:30 AM and headed into the Crater by 6.  The goal was to catch the lion prides in the Crater as they moved around... and man, we did.  We stumbled upon a big pride who had killed a Buffalo during the night and were still very much feasting.  It was a little grotesque but very interesting to see them take care of business.  Since we had gotten up so early, we were the first safari jeep to witness this.  By the time we left the scene, there were at least 6 other safari jeeps there.

We watched across the plains as two female lions and a few cubs from another pride tried to get close to the kill to get some food of their own.  It was at first a very slow motion dance as one pride protected its food from another... but suddenly the fight was ON.  We chased the... lion chase and managed to see a real lion fight.  There was not time for cameras, but I can assure you we won't forget this blur of battle.

We lingered for quite a while and eventually the males of the pride wandered over... right by our car.  Close enough that eventually they decided to "mark" the vehicle in... the same way a dog would mark a fire hydrant.  Yes, that happened.

If you don't believe how close they were, here's some more photos.  In the first, they're using our car for shade and that's Mom's head poking out the window.  Photo credits go to my Dad for the second great close-up.

After all the lion excitement we continued to explore the crater and had a great morning checking out hippos, zebras, etc.  The crater is just full of life!

This day was also pretty darn sweet because we got to just baaaaaaarely see a black rhino in the distance.  The black rhino completed our site of "The Big Five" game animals in Africa (Rhino, Elephant, Lion, Leopard, and Buffalo).  Black rhinos are usually one of the rarest of the Big Five to see.  We were pretty far away (hence, blurry picture, but we got em!

We had a pretty great lunch down in the Crater.  Our camp crew set up a beautiful picnic lunch for us in the woods. Smiles all around for a great game drive morning!

We enjoyed a leisurely drive back to camp and just hanging out with our crater view.  We were surprised by a group of Masai people who visited us to dance just before dinner. This day was truly a whirl-wind but the scenery and animals in the Crater were just fantastic.

Safari Day 6- Tarangire to Ngorongoro Crater

Today was a travel day as we left Tarangire and headed to the Ngorongoro Crater.  The drive was mostly paved until we reached the entrance to Ngorongoro, where we would leave behind paved roads for the next 7 days.  On our way, we stopped at this beautiful flower/vegetable garden called Gibb's Farm.  This began as a coffee plantation years ago by a British couple.  It is now run by an American and continues to grow coffee, various vegetables and flowers, and operates specialty cottages for guests to stay in. We enjoyed a delicious, farm fresh lunch with this view.

After lunch, we were able to get a tour of gardens.  Christina, our tour guide, pointed out all of the vegetables and explained the story of Gibb's Farm.  She also allowed me to try carrying vegetables African style.  This basket-on-the-back thing was not so bad.  I'm glad she didn't ask me to carry a bucket of water on my head (which African women are also skilled at).  

After lunch, we continued our drive until we reached the rim of the crater, where we stopped to look in.  The Ngorongoro Crater is the world's largest, intact, and unfilled volcanic caldera, formed when a huge volcano collapsed into itself about 2-3 million years ago.  The landscape of the crater is pretty incredible and was a highlight for us.  

Family picture on the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater.

We continued our drive around the rim to an exclusive "mobile camp", run by our safari company.  This meant we were the only people staying there and it provided a slightly more rustic camping feel. However, the amenities of these tents are still amazing (flush toilets, hot water showers, king sized bed, etc). I should also mention the INCREDIBLE staff members who kept us safe and made us feel comfortable.    Each of these camps is guarded by Masai warriors, who are trained to recognize animal sounds and behaviors.  As someone who is maybe a little afraid of animal noises around my tent (especially predators!), I appreciated their vigilance. (And...I also started sleeping with earplugs...)

We enjoyed a delicious dinner and a little Amarula (a tasty African liqueur) before going to bed and preparing for our big day in the crater tomorrow!

Safari Day 5 - Tarangire National Park

(This entry also written by guest blogger, Dave Youmans, Scott's dad.)

We arrived at Sanctuary Swala (impala in Swahili) late last night just after dusk.  So we were surprised to wake up to the watering hole view from our tents; there were elephants within 100 yards. We watched the mother and baby elephant take a bath while we ate our breakfast on the outdoor deck.

Perhaps in error, we jokingly suggested to our guide, Philip, that this should be "bird day" because we had already seen so many other animals.  He proudly informed us that there were 550 species of birds in this park, and he was a specialist in birds.  During the day, we may have seen more bird types than we ever need to see again.  We saw a huge variety of birds - storks, cranes, ducks, hornbills, ostriches, plovers, weavers, starlings, grouse, bustards, pelicans, vultures, etc.  Some were very iridescent (google a Superb Starling).  some had bright colors and some had extravagant plumage.

One of our first stops was a group of about 8 bull elephants.  One in particular was huge, with very long tusks.  They stopped all activity and stared at us from about 10 yards away.  Our guide took this opportunity to tell us about the disastrous poaching of elephants for their ivory tusks.  Only later did we learn that, while we were happily shooting pictues, both our guide and driver were concerned  about a charge from this arrogant bull.

We stopped during mid-day for a sumptuous picnic lunch overlooking a huge marsh.  A number of animals and birds drifted into and out of our huge field of view.

Our guide and driver are both fantastic animal spotters.  They found two male lions laying in the bush.  The lions had just finished a big meal, bellies were bloated; we hung around to watch them yawn, stretch, get up, look around a little, and then just lay back down in the shade.  It seemed like the post Thanksgiving dinner snooze.

By the way, the next picture shows the inside of our "tent" - king bed, sitting area, large bath area, and indoor and outdoor showers.  Room service brought coffee and tea for the wake-up call.  This was the what Sharon had always envisioned for "camping", and it is a break for Scott and Shannon from hostel world.

We returned to Sanctuary Swala in the late afternoon for a sundowner cocktail by the pool, while watching impala, waterbucks and monkeys at the waterhole.