Just got back from 3 weeks in Africa. Here are a couple of links to some pictures. Amazing trip. Spent a couple of days in a camp in the Serengeti. Since there were no roads there, you could drive all over the place and go right up to the animals. The first link has pictures from there. The second link contains pictures from Ngorongoro crater. The crater, Tarangire National Park and Kruger National Park all had roads to stay on for the game drives. While the scenery and animals were great, the experience at Kusini Camp in the Serengeti outweighed them all. https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=EAA9...928163D4AA0&id=EAA98928163D4AA0!157&sc=photos https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=EAA9...928163D4AA0&id=EAA98928163D4AA0!199&sc=photos We were in the Serengeti during the Wildebeest migration. There were Wildebeests in essentially a single file line as far as you could see and in the late afternoon, they would start running and running and running and running. Incredible stuff.
One walked right next to our jeep. My wife and I were both tempted to reach out and pet it, but cooler heads prevailed (although the ensuing arm stump may have made for a good picture). We were probably 20 feet away from the leopard and he was kind of ticked off we were there. He had a 'kill' having in the tree he was in.
I honestly don't know without doing a lot of digging around. We got part of the trip in a charity auction and it was essentially 4 nights in two different camps and intra-Africa airfare and transportation. It was all inclusive. Each camp included 2+ private game drives and 3 meals. Each of the camps had outstanding chefs and the meals were high quality. They also included a personal attendant who would wash clothes, get things and escort you, armed with a spear, if you needed to walk outside at night. I'd still bet on the leopard. Anyway, I think the auction package was valued at around $7500 and we paid more than that. We were responsible for getting to and from Nairobi, but a donor included 100,000 Delta miles to help with the tickets. They ended up bumping it up to 130,000 for my wife's ticket and I used my miles for mine. We had Business class to Amsterdam, then to Nairobi. We added extras to the trip which included the Ngorongoro crater part and then a week near Kruger National Park about 3-4 hours from Johannesburg.
nice timing. i just got back from 2 weeks in south africa. I did a safari around Kruger but in a smaller area. Also similar experience w/our leopard (it was eating its kill).. and lions. we followed the lions around at night as they were searching for prey. Then as we were heading back, they walked right by our jeep, within 3 or 4 feet. I could hear them breathing so deeply Saw the Big 5 in 2 days. Seeing a baby rhino was pretty cool.. also saw a baby hippo and baby cheetah (managed to see that one nursing) and yet somehow the warthogs (plenty to be seen) were probably my favorite.
We saw the Big 5, but never got a good Rhino picture. We saw dozens of lions, tons of elephants, a lot of cape buffalo and 3 leopards with the one providing outstanding photo ops. We'll definitely go back. We also spent 3 days in Mumbasa to visit a charity (Lighthouse for Christ) that we support. I thought Houston was hot and humid. I think I was more miserable in the Mumbasa heat and humidity than I can ever remember being.
It was. Zoos will never be the same again. Also, the trip was as close to logistically perfect as possible. We flew from Minneapolis to Amsterdam to Nairobi to Mumbasa to Nairobi to Kilimanjaro to Kusini Camp to Manyara to Kilimanjaro to Nairobi to Johannesburg to Atlanta and back to Minneapolis. Every single flight except one departed from the gate on time or early. The one late flight departed about 20 minutes late. The lines to get Visas in Kenya and Tanzania were non-existent. Customs in Kenya, Tanzania, Johannesburg and Atlanta were a breeze. Our luggage made it to every destination. We were picked up on a number of occasions to be transferred to or from airports or camps or hotels and they were always waiting for us.
Wow, great pictures. I'm so happy you had such a great time in Africa. You brought me back to my many safaris in Kruger as a child. People who've only been to the zoo don't realize how incredible it is to see these animals in the wild.
I'm totally envious. That sounds great. Very cool that you were able to do that. I'm sure it's something you'll never forget. All the better that lines and red tape stuff was a breeze too.
The Internet was really crummy at the camps so I had to knock the sizes down from about 7+ MB to 500K. Most of the zooming was on a Canon EOS T3i using a 250 mm lens. Someone here suggested looking into renting a bigger zoom, but I never got the opportunity to pursue that. There were a few times when I wish I had a better zoom. There were a couple more leopard pictures and the thousands of flamingos in the lake in the Ngorongoro crater would have been an amazing shot. This is probably my favorite: https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=EAA9...928163D4AA0&id=EAA98928163D4AA0!183&sc=photos It was really cool to see a wildebeest challenge a cheetah. The cheetah was lying in the grass eyeing some impala in the distance. Eventually a few wildebeests came walking by. One stopped and stared at the cheetah for a while. After a bit, the wildebeest jumped in the air and spun around about 270 degrees and kicked and snorted trying to scare the cheetah away. The cheetah didn't budge. The wildebeest held his ground another 5 minutes or so, snorting every so often to warn other animals that the cheetah was there.
Great pictures! Everyone in my family beside me was born in Africa... Did you get to check out Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Zambia?
