BIG TIME SAFARIS

Lamu Island

2007-04-13T22:28:00.000-07:00

Ngorongoro was the end of our Safari. Next we spent a night in Nairobi then flew out to Lamu Island to spend 4 days on the coast relaxing.I'll add more shots later but here are a few teasers.

Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania

2007-04-13T21:55:00.000-07:00

After a morning safari at Lake Manyara we take an afternoon drive to the famous Ngorongoro Crater. This is a World Heritage site and it doesn't take long to figure out why.It has it's own little ecosystem on the crater floor and it's just crawling with all sorts of animals.We spent the night on the crater rim then descended early morning into the crater. Within minutes we saw a pride of lions then we had a great drive seeing all sorts of critters.This old guy was on his last legs.Lions returning form a hunt.
We watched this guy walk right toward us from about a km away.He stopped a few feet from the Land Rover took a leak and walked away with big erection.I think he was considering mounting the truck and I was in the backseat!

Lake Manyara , Tanzania

2007-02-15T21:04:00.000-08:00

We jumped the border into Tanzania for the next four nights of the Safari. First we went to Lake Manyara then to the Ngorongoro Crater for a night.Manyara was great ,but it was so hot that you pretty much had to hide mid day! We had a really close encounter with an elephant (See video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRe38_WoFFg Baby Velvet Monkee
BushbuckKen with a little friend in the background.Velvet monkee

Amboseli 2

2007-01-27T13:19:00.000-08:00

Here are some more Amboseli shots, to give you an idea of what the park is like.This time of year it is very dry but still has a spring fed swamp from Kilimanjaro, so there is lots of animals, because of the abundance of water and green grass around the swamp.It is so dusty in the other areas, the dust is almost like a fine talcum powder and blows around in little dust tornadoes and gets into everything.

These are the dust funnels, they suck the dust up to the clouds then it all returns to get into my camera gear!

This Masai took us on a tour, we thought he was being nice but then brought up the "price" after we returned to the camp.
Me and Masai chief in of the mud/dung huts.
Big air, just like the snowboard industry, whoever jumps the highest gets his pick of the girls!

Masai warrior

They call the elephants in Amboseli Big Jumbo because they are generally the biggest in Africa. The tusks on these ones where so thick.

Kilimanjaro in the background covered with cloud and obscured by dust.

Amboseli

2007-01-17T21:50:00.000-08:00

Amboseli is in South Kenya and borders Tanzania.It's famous for it's big elephants, we saw lots but most of the really big ones were pretty far in the distance.You had to sleep with a lantern outside your tent here to keep the elephants away.Mt Kilimanjaro is in the background , but it was always pretty hazy and dusty so I didn't include it in many of the shots.
On the way in to Amboseli I was asking our driver Joseph about African wild dogs, he was telling me how they were the rarest animals to see these days. Within ten minutes of the conversation we ran into a pack of 4 right in the middle of the road, I didn't get my camera out in time and all I got was this blurry shot.I still love it, I think it portrays their elusiveness!
We had another visit to a Masai village, this was was a little better photography wise and I'll ad more photos of the visit next post.These girls were so shy, but so cute.They live quite a different life from my daughter.

We saw two hyenas finishing off this Wildebeest when we first arrived at sunset.

Point N Shoot

2007-01-17T21:41:00.000-08:00

I had a little Pentax in my pocket for the whole trip .He is a bunch of shots from various days of the trip up to this point. I really didn't like walking around with my big camera, it was nice to have this one because it didn't attract to much attention.Typical African seen, these guys were everywhere.Amboseli sunsetcoffee pickers en-route to Samburu

Samburu 2

2007-01-16T20:30:00.000-08:00

Wow, it's been a while. Forgot about my Africa trip for a while over the Christmas holidays but I'm back. Here is so more shots from Samburu, I'm just trying to include shots of all the different things we saw so some of these shots aren't great but you can see the diversity of animals in the parks.

Water Buffalo

We met this guy within about 5 minutes of driving into the park.He started cruising right towards us , so we had to move on pretty quickly.

Baby Impala

Ken at Samburu campOryx

Samburu

2006-12-07T21:43:00.000-08:00

After leaving Nakuru we headed north towards the Equator and a park called Samburu.The dust was crazy going up there and we passed through lots of small villages and towns.Anytime we stopped crowds of people or kids would crowd the van trying to sell us stuff or trying to get food or candy.The last 30 or 40 km into the park ,the road was some of the worst washboard I have ever experienced.It made some of out logging roads in B.C. seem like highways. We got into the park at sunset and saw a lone male elephant pretty much as we entered the park.Just after the sunset we saw a pair of lions stalk and kill a baby Gerebuck about 30 feet from the van.The light was pretty much gone but I managed to save a few shots of the ordeal below.

Good old Joseph at Big Time really took care of us in Samburu, we got up close and personal with some big cats and were lucky enough to see a kill right in front of the van.I'll do the posts from this park in 3 or 4 posts so come back and check some of the highlights in a few days.Tasty meal. This baby's mom and dad watched this whole thing go down just on the other side of the van.The lioness in the background chased it into some shrub, it thought it had her beat ,took off towards mom and dad and got picked off buy this big male pretty much right in front of us Leopard, we stalked this poor guy for 30 minutes with about 10 other vans.He ended up walking right beside the van.This was at sundown on the second night at Samburu.I was shooting with low shutter speeds and wide aperature for this leopard but am happy with a few of these!This lion was right beside the van on the way out.I'll tell you a story about him in the next post.

Lake Boringo

2006-12-01T22:26:00.000-08:00

Well this is Lake Boringo, mostly it's just hot here. Fishing is the only thing that goes on here besides tourism. We went on a 3 hour tour of the lake and I pretty much felt like an egg on frying pan in the open boat.We got pretty close to the Hippos in the boat and saw a few crocodiles pop their heads up.We met up with a fisherman and bought a few fish; later we tossed overboard to lure in the fish eagles who would swoop down to pick them up.I missed the shot, well I got one but the timing was a little late, I'll blame it on the new camera.Traditional balsa wood fishing boat. Piggyback! Baby riding mom.Muddy waters. Lots of mud and silt in this lake. This is Ken frying..
Monitor lizard
Fish Eagle These are the big fish the eagles would pick up from the water
HeronThe one that got away.Only had one chance and blew it.
CLICK ON THE OLD POSTS TAB AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE TO SEE THE FIRST FEW DAYS OF SAFARI.

Lake Nakuru 2

2006-11-21T21:04:00.000-08:00

Back again. Some award show on the t.v., so I guess I may as well be doing this.Here is the last batch from Lake Nakuru.This was a relatively short game drive but still packed a lot excitement into the 3 hours.

We had a frenchmen named Ben with us, he was off and running everytime the van door was open.Here he is sneaking in for National Geographic film shot.

Olive BaboonMariboo Stork

Lake Nakuru

2006-11-19T21:04:00.000-08:00

Time to get into day 3 of the trip, the second day of real photo shooting.We left Masai Mara around 9 a.m. and went on a beatiful drive through Kenyan Farm country to a lodge only 15 minutes from Lake Nakuru National Park.The roads were a bit better on this leg of trip, but still much more sketchu than anything we'd see in North America.We settled in at the lodge and got cleaned up ,then left for a game drive around 4:00 in the afternoon. Lake Nakuru is famous for it's Flamingos and Rhino.The weather wasn't great, mostly cloudy for the whole drive but we did have a few moments when it got a bit brighter.More shots from Nakuru will be posted over the next few days.Baby BuffaloGolden EagleImpala Vervet MonkeeRhinoBaby and Dad

Masai Mara 4

2006-11-13T20:24:00.000-08:00

This 4th installment of Masai Mara will be the last for this park.These last 4 posts encompass my first evening and following day on safari. I still have another 15 days to get through, I'll try and get a little pickier with the photos so you don't get bored! I'm trying to include at least one photo of each animal I saw in each park.Oh ya, and I like the big cats so you will have to endure more big cat photos. This place was amazing, wish I could have spent the sunset on safari here but most of the parks close pretty early.I think we ate about 1 kg of dust today, I can't believe how dusty it is, I think I will have to throw out the new D200 after this trip.Masai Mara is dusty but it only gets worse.

Vervet Monkee Corbett Monkee

Hippo trail from Mara River

Elan
Big Croc
Buffalo with Oxpecker

Masai Mara 3

2006-11-12T19:17:00.000-08:00

There are animals absolutly everywhere the eye can see!

Leopards are one of the harder animals to see. We were lucky enough to spot two of them sleeping in this tree.Our driver Joseph got us as close as he could then got stuck on a log.When he got out of the vehicle to un jam the log, one of the leopards got up thinking he was getting a snack, and I got this shot. Thanks Joseph!

Masai Mara 2

2006-11-12T12:01:00.000-08:00

Well here is the second batch of photos from the Masai Mara. We had the opportunity to visit a village and that's were the majority of these shots were taken. The women build the houses out of dung and mud and they last about 9 years.I could barely stay inside the hut for more than a few minutes because it was so thick with smoke.I guess it keeps the bugs away but can't be to good for the lungs! We traded a few items with a few of the tribesman, they are very persistent and aren't shy at all about asking for things.This one guy was so excited about the t-shirt I gave him, it had a Cheetah skull on the back so it was very fitting.Be back soon with more Masai Mara wildlife shots.

Masai Marra

2006-11-10T21:37:00.000-08:00

Aww the African massage! That's what they call a three hour drive on a Kenyan highway.Our first day of safari started with one of these and it certainly loosened us up for the rest of the trip. We were lucky enough to hook up with a great safari company BIG TIME SAFARI on our first day in Nairobi and they quickly got us on the bumpy road/shoulder/ditch that took us to the Masai Mara.The Masai Mara is at the northern end of the Serengeti Plain and is the location of the great Wildebeest migration that I'm sure you've all seen on the discovery channel.We camped here at a permanent tented site and did a game drive first thing in the morning.I'll post some shots of the Masai people tomorrow, but first I'll pop up just a few shots of the first group of animals we saw when entering the park.

Welcome

2006-11-10T21:14:00.000-08:00

Greeting friends. I've just been browsing through photos from the Africa trip tonight and I now realize that trying to post all the shots from each individual park I visited in one post would be way to much work for me.I guess my only option will be to slowly post shots from my trip and explain basically what is happening. I know some of you would like to see all the shots at once, but it ain't going to happen.Besides now you have something to do for the next month or two.That being said I encourage you to visit fequently to see the updates from my trip, or just come back in a month and browse the millions of different posts that i put up. Thanks for coming by.Please feal free to ask questions or leave comments if you are motivated to do so.