As I write this letter, I am flying on a Delta airplane over the Atlantic Ocean from Amsterdam to JFK in New York, returning from my family vacation. For the past 2 weeks, we have been in Eastern Africa with Tauck World Discovery. I ave to tell you that it has been the trip of a lifetime!
I put together a complete daily log of the trip, with each day linked at the bottom of this letter. I am writing this letter to try and give you a very brief overview of our experience. Keep in mind that we did and saw so much during this tour that it is impossible to discuss it all in relatively short letter. We are in the process of going through the thousands of pictures that we took and are posting them on line. The first group are available at this link. We will send out a message when more are vailable on line.
While this was a tour, going on safari to Africa is far different than most others tours that we book, whether with Tauck or any other operator. For one thing, our group consisted of 24 travelers plus a tour director, but we always rode in safari vehicles of only 6 passengers at a time, with a guide/driver. Also, being on safari, you have to go with the flow. There is never a guarantee that you will see what you are hoping for. When you go to a museum on a tour of Europe, the guide knows which piece of art will be where. When on safari, you are at the mercy of the animals. You may end up staying out later than expected, in the hope of making additional sightings. As the guides said, the more open minded you are, the better the chances of seeing great wild life.
As it turned out, our tour director told us that we saw more than almost any group that he knows of that has done this trip. In fact, we saw so many animals and types of birds, I could not begin to name them all! This trip was to Tanzania and Kenya, and here are some of the highlights of the wild life that we saw:
-Literally thousands of wildebeest, warthogs, zebras and gazelle.
-Impalas, Topi and "dick dicks", which are miniature deer.
-Around 20-30 lions, including mothers with cubs not more than 10 feet from our vehicle. We saw one lion stalking a wildebeest, but was too slow make the kill. However, we did see a couple of lions eating carcasses (zebra and wildebeest) after uccessful kills.
-Hundreds of elephants....large, small, old and young. Again, they walked right in front of our truck! We saw elephants fight with each other, play in the river, and ush out their babies when a crocodile appeared.
-Hundreds of giraffe.
-We were within 10 feet of cheetahs and leopards.
-We saw many rhinos, including the very rare white southern rhino (we saw 2 of only 8 in the world!) By the way, they are called white rhinos because of the color of their mouth.
-We saw hundreds of hippos. In fact, the last resort that we stayed at, the Fairmont at Masa Mari, consisted of tents that looked out on a river. We had about 50 hippos right outside our tent.
Have to tell you that they are loud at night!
-We saw hundreds of baboons, chimps and monkeys. The chimps were at two of the properties we stayed at, and are not afraid to go after your food. We had to chase one out of one of our rooms! And one day the four of us were enjoying drinks out by the pool when I chimp ran onto our table and took the pineapple out of my daughter's finished drink, knocking over my wine in the process! In fact, this hotel has 2 full time employees whose job is merely to use a slingshot to shoot at the monkeys who are disturbing the guests by going after their food! One even stole my daughter's sunglasses and ran off with them...we eventually go them back.
In addition to all of the wildlife, we also had the opportunity to interact with the amazing African people. They could not have been more warm to us. What's more, this trip knocked down any pre-conceived notions that I had about their abilities. These are intelligent people who are building successful democracies. The knowledge of our guides was mind boggling. Just finding their way around the bush with no signs or GPS had us mesmerized! And their knowledge of the wildlife was incredible.
We had the opportunity to visit a local village of the Masai people, one of the many tribes in the area. These people live very simply...in small huts as shepherds. No
electricity or running water....the same way they have for years. But they have an amazing knowledge of the area, and many including most children are educated.
For all of the animals and wildlife, the moment my kids enjoyed the most was visiting a school. We went to a pre-school where the children literally welcomed us with open arms. We played and danced with them. They loved our gadgets....fiddling with our watches and cameras. And these kids were incredible....at 3-4 years old they were learning english in addition to Swahili. And I mean writing at this young age! They were also doing arithmetic at a level our kids don't learn until 2-3 years later. If you ask me, within a couple of generations these countries could become strong, modern industrial nations.
Although I could probably go on and on with all we experienced, I am going to conclude this letter. As mentioned above, you can check out my daily log for more details. I will tell you that this is a hectic trip. Just the travel is tough....it was about 25 hours going over and 30 hours coming home. The roads in Africa are mostly dirt, so you are constantly being bounced around in the vehicles. The facilities in many areas are primitive.....most of the many marked our territory at one point or another! (The women usually held it in, for obvious reasons...) But I will tell you, that there is no question it is the best trip that we ever took. In fact, unlike most tours I have been on, I would repeat it tomorrow if I had the opportunity. For our family, it was truly the experience of a lifetime.
If you are in our office, feel free to talk to Cathy or I about it. We would love to share our experiences. Also, I became very friendly with our Tour Director. If you have any particular questions, I could e-mail him for further information.
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