The Endless Plains

 The Serengeti, a Maasai word meaning 'the Endless Plains'.

Prepare yourself for the most unbelievable safari ever, with endlessly amazing wildlife and danger on every side. From heart-wrenching experiences to moments of rapture. See nature as never before!

Or

Just read this blog.

Introduction

I am now quite an old hand at safaris (other parts of me are rapidly following suit), but even I have been taken aback by the adventures that are soon to flow onto these pages.

This was to be a safari of two halves. In the first part of this crazy fortnight, we spend a week in the Eastern Serengeti, where the scenery is flat and fairly featureless (thus 'the endless plains'). There is, to counter that, endless hungry beasts.

An awful lot of hungry beasts.

In the second part we visit the Northern Serengeti, with a much more varied terrain and, above all, the notorious river Mara (aka the Bloody Mara). We timed our visit to be there to give us the greatest chance of seeing the two million plus wildebeest and zebra plunge headlong into the crocodile-infested waters of the Mara. Things did not turn out exactly as we had planned. ‘Things’ are like that.

As usual, contact with the outer world became difficult, with my phone declaring bankruptcy within an hour of landing. Annick found a way around this, delaying bankruptcy for a further few days.

In this short two week period we bore witness to an enormous range of animal activity. Animal activity sometimes impacted by the effects of human activity, with even the timing of the seasons being altered by man's hand.

I was not prepared for the shear volume of sightings. This was like no other safari I have done and I was totally ill-equipped for the number of photos I took. This lack of foresight led to a serious lack of photo storage space, overfilling my laptop, crashing my backup drive, and leaving me in floods of tears. All I have to do now is piece them all together and then edit them. 

All twenty four thousand of the bloody things...

........

Chapter One: Arrival

Saturday 14th Sept 

Our trip to the Serengeti started as usual by landing at Kilimanjaro airport via Amsterdam from Toulouse. The flights had been uneventful, lacking any hijacking, exploding engines, plummeting to earth screaming or unpleasant intestinal complications.

Ian, our friend and long-term guide, picked us up as usual and, as usual, we miraculously survived the journey to his home in Arusha (traffic regulation here is not only poorly enforced, it is widely ignored) where I was proven not to be a mastermind...

Here we stayed for two nights, recovering from jet lag. There is, after all, an enormous one-hour time difference between Tanzania and France.

Monday 15th Sept

To get to the Serengeti National Park we travelled by safari truck from Arusha via Lake Manyara and the Ngorongoro national parks.

Littering the roadside for many miles are upbeat fashionable boutiques such as these:

And here, at lake Manyara, once more we see the detrimental effects of us humans. 

This time due to the local tribal people whose effluent and other waste is clogging up the lake, causing it to flood everywhere with polluted muck. No longer a place to visit. Well done us.

The result of not caring for your environment.

We then took a one minute break at the rim of the Ngorongoro crater to photograph its magnificence. 

It is impossible to take in its vastness, so this photo will have to do, inadequate as it is.

Between the crater and Serengeti is a large park inhabited by Maasai relocated from the crater itself. This has not worked out well.

The area they were shoved into is now needed as a wildlife reserve, so attempts at being further relocated are ongoing.

These Maasai are all clothed in traditional wear, carry traditional spears, speak traditional Maa and Swahili, communicate with traditional portable phones.   😳

This tool of mass public suppression is everywhere.

Since being relocated, the Maasai population here has grown from 10,000 to 100,000. Most are still living here...

Despite travelling at speed along a track with more potholes than your average UK road, and having to avoid the slings and arrows of misfortune, we did spot the occasional signs of wildlife.

Arriving at the Serengeti mid-afternoon did not leave us much time to search out interesting animal life, thus we were expecting to see little.

We were, as usual, wrong.

After a little twitching, 

Rock Kestrel

Lappet-faced Vulture

and the occasional warthog or two…

we soon came across a pride of lions.

Then the boss arrived… 

A truly magnificent beast. 

But then the real boss arrived…

We, too, were soon to arrive at our destination (the Olmara Camp) when we came across this crazy sight: 

A cheetah with her four cubs!

All this within hours of arrival. This was shaping up to be a safari that uses the word amazing too much.

Next chapter arriving soon with a lot of cute and cuddly cheetah pix...Chapter 2

Not A Blog

This is not a blog. 

My final blog, written a few weeks ago, caused some serious upset, due to its sensitive nature. Seriously, weddings can be that divisive.

Instead, this is written purely as a diary, intended to nudge the memory of my future self. So those of you who are not called Phil, who are not doddery old gits with a white moustache that has crept weed-like over the rest of your face, do not have straggly hair coiffured in a way that Gollum would be proud of.... please ignore the verbiage to come...

...

Hi Phil! This is me, erm, you, err, writing to you from your past. I realise that technology has probably moved on a bit, and that this non-blog is being spoken to you directly into what's left of your brain bypassing your now over-abused ear-holes, but I'm writing this down using an ancient technology called a keyboard. You may remember gaining mastery over two-finger typing during a period of about fifty years. Well, they probably no longer exist for you as your memory will now be on a small chip implanted into your bottom. 

For you, it must be a bit like watching reality tv.

This time I'm going to tell you about a road trip you made way back in the year twenty twenty-five, (if man is still alive, if woman can survive)... This was back in the days when you could drive something bigger than that hover-chair you are slumped in now. It was a trip to visit your family and friends scattered over what you, in your time, will probably call the Russian Empire. I will include a few pictures to remind you of who people are.

That photo was not actually of a person, but of the campervan that you used to drive. Remember?

We (that is, you and your erstwhile carer) took three days to get to the UK, as we stopped at various places en route. For example, we took a break in the Loire Valley, both on the way 'up' and then later on the way 'down' (assuming you are holding the map up the right way inside your bottom). Here, for instance, is the Chateau de Chaumont...

We eventually arrived in Calais and slept there overnight to make sure that we had plenty of time the next morning to get lost and have panic attacks.

We then sped along to Bristol where the evening was spent with two of your sprogs and their respective peoploids. 

Yes! That's you on the left, remember? And those others? They pop round every now and again to help feed you.

Do you remember that the next day when we visited a stately home near Bristol?

...that showcased an amazing acrobatic act?

Of course, the usual adverts for hair spray interrupted the show...

Not all the audience was impressed...

A wise old woman, holder of a wizened staff, spoke wisely to the ingrates, wisely suggesting that perhaps a wise new actor was needed...

... so Will and Lisa wisely obliged.

We drove on into the depths of Wales where we met once more with your eldest sprog and his sproglette.

We also met with a host of your friends in Wales but stupidly forgot to take any photos. Yes, the beer was that good.

The following day you drove back to Dover, although 'parking' might have better described the voyage, spending several hours in endless traffic jams.

We spent the night in St Margaret's Bay, next to Dover, where we wined and dined in a local establishment,

with a few of the local lasses.

The next morning...

...we were awoken by a strange gelfling that Annick seemed overly fond of. His name was 'Nick'. His surname 'Robb'. There seemed to be a clue there...

And then, back on an over-crowded ferry to Calais,

and onwards to the outskirts of Paris to spend a couple of days with Annick's minuscule family...

Actually, that is just a small non-representative sample...

Thankfully, professional photographers were on hand to record the event.

Heading down the map, we once more visited the Loire valley, here in the guise of the Chateau de Villandry.

With gardens on a par with your very own, the one you get pushed around every now and then, when your servants can be bothered.

Back then, you even managed the steps...

And then you finally returned to your future care home...

Voyage to the Arctic; Day 8: One Day Like This.

And so to the final denouement, la raison d'être, the last bit (the bit after this bit). The event that we were here for in the first place. 

The wedding.

Ok, ok, ok. I know that for some of you the idea of a wedding pales in significance to that of the world of nature as it collides with photography. But lend me your ear...

It was this wedding that had dragged us two hermit-types far from our comfort zone, hurled us through too many time zones, and flung us into a continent in turmoil, into a huge human container ship, to meet so many people previously unknown, most of whom spoke a foreign language called American.

So how was it? 

The wedding? It was great, joyful, a shining light whilst all around is... ok, less of the hyperbole Phil. 

I enjoyed strutting around importantly, camera and flash in hand. The very many new family and friends that we have adopted had an amazing time, and the married couple, well, they had to spend a week in bed on returning home...

There rarely is one day like this.

Anyway. I took over 700 photos that day. Here are some of my favourites. I hope you like them too.

A profound thanks to all of Adam and Sonia's friends and family for accepting us limeys into their hearts. Thanks for all the organisation that went into this extravaganza. Thank you for one day like this. And thank you Elbow for lending me the music.

The party is over, but like all parties, a risk is borne. Stuffing over four thousand people into a single air-space human processing machine is bound to spread something around as well as love. This time it was influenza A. It seems that about half of our fifty+ strong group (mostly the menfolk) succumbed to the dreaded Grippe. Me too. That's why I've had the time to process all these photos rather than getting out there and battling my garden into a temporary retreat. 

So spending a week in bed post-wedding has maybe not all the romance in it that we had assumed?

And what of the cruise? Was it all that I expected it to be?

Yes.