Serengeti scenery

The Serengeti is vast. 15,000 square kilometres of vastness.

It's name means the endless plain. For good reason.

 

But there are a few lumpy bits. Take this one for instance:

 

That looks like a nice place for lunch doesn't it? Except maybe for the leopard sitting on top.

We arrived in the Serengeti by plane. Not exactly a city hopper, but perfectly functional none-the-less.

 

As we descended to the air strip, we flew low over the Mara where we could already see a few hundred wildebeest crossing. 

On landing, we proceeded to do the same, but we took he easy route.

 

If only the wildebeest had figured that out.

We had aimed at arriving at the end of the dry season, but the rains had beaten us to it. Thus the migration had nearly passed. Left behind however were a rich variation of wildlife that we would spend much of the next four days watching and photographing. 

The resultant panoply of photos will take some time to whittle down, so I'll reserve a blog for each of the main characters. In the meantime, sit back and enjoy the view.

 

 

Here's the 'non-animal' photos of the Serengeti that I've sorted so far...

 

Next up, the Cheetah...

A giant hole in planet Earth

If grasping mentally the size of Africa is too difficult, think on this instead. Two to three million years ago, as the great Rift Valley splitting Africa was ponderously opening wider and wider, there were many active volcanoes. The greatest of these blew its top off, heaved ginormous amounts of larva and dust into the atmosphere, then gave up with an enormous sigh and 'schlumped' back down to earth, leaving a hole nearly twenty kilometres across, with a rim well over half a kilometre high.

It is still there. It is still enormous. But it is calm. Inactive. 

It is so phenomenal that surely any earthly name would be inadequate. Maybe this is why it is named after the noise a Massai cow-bell makes.

Ngorongoro.

So big they named it twice.

Thus we headed for this geographical monstrosity. It was on the bucket list, it had to be done. 

We reached the rim and, nearly an hour later, our very remote camp. It was dark. We had been advised to try this new camp as it promised great views over the crater's rim. 

Unfortunately, those who wrote the publicity prior to erecting the camp, new nothing about the local climate. The immense size and precipitous walls of the crater, although geographically stupendous, are also more than big enough to directly affect local weather patterns. Resulting in two constants. Wind and cloud.

It was evening which, near the equator as we were, is very dark. With no possibility of seeing the view, we gratefully ate our dinner.

Well, not so gratefully perhaps. The dinner was basically good fare, except that the chef appeared have a surfit of salt, and wished to share it liberally. A little too liberally for us. Thus, giving up on eating for the night, we fell exhausted into bed.

Try sleeping in a tent with a constant gale blowing.

Constant.

As in all the bleeding time.

Morning finally arrived and our guide awaited us. It was still dark. Good old Ian enjoyed dragging us out of bed at some unearthly hour. With good reason. 

There simply was no view. There was cloud, a.k.a. fog.

The roads down into the crater are few. One goes down only (no way of passing) one ascends only, and one other where both directions are possible. The sides are so steep that there are no giraffes in the crater as they cannot get down. Why they don't just take the roads I've no idea.

This photo shows the descent road, but was taken early evening when the cloud had lifted. Somewhat.

It wasn't long before we ducked under the clouds, and saw the crater as a whole. (Ahem, hole...).

From here, the crater looked empty. The perpective fooled us. Even an entire herd of elephants would be invisible at these distances.

On finally arriving at its bottom, the crater started to give up its wildlife to us.

We drank in our fill that day. Enough to give me well over a thousand photos. 

Ostriches aplenty, some dancing (yes, really) some simply regarding us with an air of derangement. Hippos sleeping, rolling and belching. Lions sleeping and occasionally deigning to move. Buffaloes with birds in both ears. Zebras, flamingoes, all manner of timorous beasties. Even Jackals and Hydes...

Click here for all the photos if you dare.

After a long and wonderful day, we returned for our salty evening meal and our windy night. The champagne came in very handy.

We had returned a little earlier than normal, to allow us to catch the view.

The next morning we were smuggled out in yet another pea-souper. A short trip to a local airport, (technically an air-strip) where we caught a small plane to take us to the Serengeti, the ultimate wildlife paradise.

Things just get better and better....

Into Africa

 

Africa is a truly huge and varied continent. We all know that it is enormous, but we are often fooled by the traditional maps of the world into thinking that other continents are as big. In truth, Africa is as big as all of Europe PLUS all of India PLUS all of the United States. 
That is big.
It is Africa's size and varied climate that has led to it being the cradle of evolution on land, most notably human evolution. That and the effects of tectonic plate movement.
Tectonic plate movement has ripped Africa appart, leaving the incredible Rift Valley as supreme evidence. This valley runs the entire length of Africa and smack in the middle of it is Tanzania.
In itself huge (four times the area of France) Tanzania hosts huge numbers of wildlife, varied in the extreme.
We were to spend 10 days there, heading first to the crazily huge volcanic crater on the edge of the Rift Valley called the Ngorongoro Crater, through the plains of the Serengeti, passing the Mara River, then finally traveling the entire width of the country to the extremely remote Mahale National Park on the banks of Lake Tanganyika.
Phew. What a trip. Way too large and varied a trip for one blog.
So I'll try starting at the beginning...

Getting to deepest darkest Africa is somewhat easier than it was a hundred years ago. A couple of years of travel has been squished into less than one day. We flew from Toulouse, via Amsterdam, straight into the heart of the continent near Kilimanjaro.

Slightly worryingly, there was no one there to meet us. 

In many African airports this would fill me with fear. Here in a small airport in the middle of everywhere, it was just a minor inconvenience. The locals were amazing and helped us organise a taxi to our overnight stop. The company organising our trip have since fallen over themselves to try to compensate us, including expensive champagne and bumping up the accommodation during our stay.
All forgiven, although I must admit to a few paranoid thoughts as an unknown taxi driver took us to a remote destination in the pitch black, over a road that should not have acquired the title 'road' but would have been better called 'off-road'.
Were we heading to to our certain doom? Had the hotel been better organised than our reception?
Thoughts of...

'Relax' said the night man
'We are programmed to receive
You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave!'

...ran through my head.

Instead, the accommodation sufficed...

 
However, there was only one bath... How we suffered...

We found ourselves in the Arusha Coffee Plantation Lodge

 

Thus refreshed after a night's sleep, we awoke to break fast and to meet our guide for the next few days, the incomparable Ian, a guide we had used on our previous trip to Tanzania.

Loading ourselves into his truck, we set off on our safari,

 

heading for the Ngorongoro Crater. 

Passing out of Arusha gave us chance to see the local colour

 

and the local transport system

 

As this was a few hours drive, we broke the trip with a stop at the Lake Manyara National Park to check out the local wildlife. 

Here's a link to the pictures I took there..

Tanzanian Safari - Day 1 (This link takes you to a photo album on the website Flickr. No membership required!)

Arriving late at the rim of the giant crater, we awaited the promised stunning views of the giant crater.

All will be described in the next exciting episode...

(Spoiler, the views were rubbish...)

Extreme Mountaineering

 

In an effort to penetrate ever further into the Pyrénées, we have taken to using ever more dangerous tactics. Our latest effort was to end in pain.
With us to witness my humiliation were friends Kim & Mike.
Our target, the Cirque de Garvarnie, deep in the French Pyrénées. After many hours of rugged travel, we arrived at base camp. Our trusty old camper van had made it in one piece. Well, three actually. Towed behind it was our secret weapon in attempting the giddy heights.
Our first attempt was by foot.

 

Some of us struggled...

 

Some of us triumphed...

- 

Whereas some just took it easy...

 

 

On our return, we took to our secret weapon, our scooter.

 

We followed signs of those who went before us...

 

We were not alone.

 

After a quick stop to check on the local marmots, disaster struck. On starting around a hairpin bend steeply downwards, my trusty scooter decided to conk out, casting both of us into the void.

Well, onto the ground with a couple of barrel rolls.
Thankfully we were both well protected. Except for one deeply personal area that the rear view mirror zeroed in on.
The susequent groin ache was a curt reminder of my fallibility. And incompetence.
We nevertheless saw the amazing sights. Here's one...

 

and here's another one...

 

The temperature had plummeted from the previous months 35 degrees to a chilling 1 degree. The resultant clouds hid our quarry until the final morning.

 

The chill did, however, cool my wounded ardour...

Next: Extreme Safari.... watch this space...

Sabotage!

In our personal lives, trust is all important. When that trust breaks down, everything else tumbles after it, making life miserable. I believe that trust is also important in business although not everyone agrees with me. I found running a business without trust nearly impossible.
I have learned the hard way what happens when trust is lost because of deception in both my personal and my business lives.
Just as I thought that I had left all this behind me by retiring, I find myself right in that murky world again.
What has brought on this bout of philosophising? Are there secret messages aimed at someone in my diatribe? If you read it backwards does it invoke the devil?
No.
Our swimming pool has been sabotaged.
Ok, I know, this is not the end of the world right? North Korea are not going to give up their nuclear weapons in sympathy right? Trump is not going to develop empathy and Catholics won't realise that condoms would have saved millions of lives in Africa just because of my pool, correct? (Sorry, off at a tangent there.)
All the same, this whole affair is a little bizarre and disconcerting.
So here is the story:
Our pool, the last building project at the farmhouse, was on course for completion in August.

On the 10th August the liner was finished and the water started to flow.

As the temperature rose, we took the plunge. Chilly but full of promise.

But, not full of water...

It did not take long to realise that the water level was going down. Rapidly.
Checking all around, we found a leak in a skimmer. Repaired. Water still disappeared at the same discomforting rate.
We finally discovered that the water was disappearing from one of the two drains. The partly separate basin where the pool cover was to live, was haemorrhaging its life-blood.
After much kerfuffle, the fault was localised to a pipe leading from that drain, and buried in over 1.5 meters of concrete.
Bums.
At this point, all work stopped for the tradition French summer break. We were left with a lame excuse for a pool. A damp squib. We lived in sweltering heat whilst being gently mocked by a disabled pool.
On their return, a camera was shoved down the drain, not to find a leaky joint as suspected, but to find holes punched through the pipes!
Concrete was cut and a hole big enough to be a baby swimming pool was made.

The pipe thus finally exposed showed to have four holes drilled through it at one meter intervals.
This could have been no accident. Someone had sabotaged our pool.
<Pause for melodramatic music>
Repairs have been made and tests are ongoing to uncover any further attempts of deliberate damage. All seems well.
So who did this and why? Was this a terrorist attack for which France is becoming infamous? Was it personal vendetta against us or the builders? Was it God trying to strike me down and missing?
Until we know, trust has been lost. Will we find further such acts possibly even more heinous?
We live in fear.
We are turning the newly dug hole into a bunker.

What's in a name?

Choosing names can be a mite tricky. What were we to call the farmhouse? It needed to have meaning, yet be pronounceable in French. Thus 'Le Farmhouse' just didn't work, whilst 'La Ferme' is a term of abuse.
Even worse, we decided that we needed names for each building.
The snooker room was first.

The obvious choice was 'Le Snook'. Easily pronounceable in seventeen languages, a 'snook' is an ancient French farming implement used for grimping mole droppings. Undeniably a useful thing to do, especially after an exhausting day flailing pastures, as farmers are wont to do.
The next to be named was the apartment.

As these are the guest rooms, it seemed logical to name it after an old English term for that little room in a pub that couples go to snuggle in. Smooching was also allowed.
The main house took more time to decide on. After proposing many different names such as 'the money pit', 'the retirement home', 'vet's end', 'the quarry' etc, we heard that the new owners of our old home in Caerphilly had turned our garden into a housing estate and done away with it's old name; Parc-y-lan. As it was also one of Papa's last wishes, this seemed like a no-brainer.

Parc-y-lan is Welsh for something like 'on the edge of the park'. It meant 'home' to us, and so it still does.
This left one final name. The old barn that we are renovating deserves it's own name. I bet you can't guess what we called it...

'Le Barn'.
Genius.

Unmasking Ironman

I have long suspected that my good friend Paul Bennett, a mild-mannered wizened professor of psychobabble, working deep in the dark and dusty catacombs of the almost Unseen University in deepest dusty South Wales (Swansea) was other than he seemed.
There had long been reports of his connection to the Ironman. He would often rush off around the world to swim, run, bike and rescue young maidens. This was no ordinary professor.
He and his long suffering wife Gill stayed with us last week. I watched for signs of his superpowers. They were well hidden. Allowing me to hammer him at snooker was clearly meant to misdirect me. His hobbling gait whilst using a walking stick; likewise. Their camouflage as local musicians was surprisingly good.

To be fair, he had not long undergone major surgery upon his knee, having had part of it replaced.
Would this stop him rescuing young maidens? I thought not.
He soon became restless of this charade, and zoomed off to the Pyrénées to take part in a local pushbike ride, a formidable 100 miles long ride going over 5 mountains. This would surely force him to show his true alter ego.
We followed cautiously at a safe distance (of about 6 hours) and hid ourselves upon a remote mountain.

To get there, we had passed through the clouds themselves, to gain a breathtaking view.
The first riders appeared...

...barely beating the clouds rising behind them. Would we recognise our quarry? Was this him?

Disguised as a mere human? I think not. Anyway, after manipulating his knee I found it decidedly in-bionic.
Time dragged on, the clouds crept upwards...

Hours passed. Still no sign of our superhero. Then I spotted an unusual bottom...

Surely that knee was artificial? Was this the Ironman himself?

As I approached him to finally unmask this saviour of young maidens, the clouds enveloped us...

I was undone.
After doing myself up, my phone started to vibrate. A small distant wizened voice escaped it wheezing "Help me, I cannot go on!"
We rushed to the bottom of the mountain to find Paul's bike slumped to one side, and Paul himself in an apparent state of extreme exhaustion. Another charade of course. I was now more sure than ever of the secret identity of Ironman.
But who was Paul Bennett?