Archive for the ‘Travels – I Has Them’ Category

More Oakland Zoo figures. this time during the day.

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2023

Ness-Ness, her daughter and I returned to the Oakland Zoo to see the actual animals as well as the lit-up animals in their diurnal form. This was the entrance.

I saw many beasts but I’m only going to share a few. Starting with a bunch of ravens chillin’ on a net. Not part of the zoo at all. I got really excited about seeing them. Ness-Ness was like “…We’re at the zoo with many exotic creatures from all over the world and you’re psyched about… local birds?” The answer is yes. Ravens are awesome and I am not ashamed.

Nor-alive big ole flying grasshopper!

Alive jaguar sleeping mere feet from me! I wanted to touch. The glass was strong.

The queen ant and her massive egg-laying butt tunnel of love. It’s great during the day as well.

As is the centipede.

This bug is still confusing. The black part, that’s the face, right? And the two twiddly bits, that’s the butt? Those are fangs on the black flat face? I rarely don’t know which end is up (heh).

Jumping spider:

The flies with the corpse flower:

The (I think) cicadas scratching their 17-year-itch with an ant that clearly didn’t consent to being adjacent to this sexual act:

Back to live animals. If you read my recent Kenya and Tanzania posts I referenced birds I called “sentient mangoes.” There were some of them in a massive enclosure with other African fauna.

A Sacred Ibis! Love them. Black featherless heads and poofy white bodies? I am here for that. Also please note the antelope inĀ  the background. We’re going to get into him in a moment.

A Klipspringer is a wee African antelope that lives its life on its tippy-toes because it hops from rock to rock. I’ve never seen one in person so I was delighted when I was right next to one! So small. So precious.

The keeper was in the enclosure because the zoo would be closing in twenty minutes and the Klipspringer was hanging right next to her. I was envious.

Hyena. Very large. Larger than I had originally thought.

Some kind of monkey with an absurdly long tail.

Back to the sculptures. The porcupine:

The bearded dragon:

These were referred to as wolves. I do not get wolves from them. I get coyote, maybe. Perhaps they’re a rare type of wolf that I’m unfamiliar with.

Really well-designed snake:

And a traumatized frog.

If you’re near Oakland during the holiday season and you can get tickets I highly recommend checking this out. It’s awesome and different every year.

I left the house! (Last year! But let’s not judge!)

Tuesday, October 11th, 2022

For the last few years (ignoring the suckfest that was Covid) I would go to San Francisco to visit my friend Ness-Ness. She usually takes me around and introduces me to things that aren’t a television or a computer or my bedroom. It’s very good for my mental health and well-being. Last Christmas she took me to the Oakland Zoo for their Christmas lights, they call it “Glowfari.” I was delighted by how many light-up animals were represented, specifically ones that were of great interest to me. It’s not often you get flies circling a corpse flower at a children’s event.

First, Bug Tunnel! I think it’s the queen ant and her giant egg-laying rump. I would want to use it as a chuppah for my wedding because I’m a romantic.

There were praying mantises (mantiiiiii):

And a rhinoceros beetle:

And this Tim Burton fella:

And the aforementioned flies with a corpse flower:

Plus two insects, I think they’re cicadas, in flagrante delicto:

Some of the figures had moving parts. There was the jumping spider:

And a centipede which was creepy as hell but I can’t hold it against the sculpture, centipedes give me the heebie-jeebies all the time.

*shudders*

A gathering of gastropods. We’re clearly taking some artistic liberties with the shell colors, but that’s fine. I can’t imagine any scientists are picketing outside.

Boneyard with porcupine adjacent.

Bearded dragons.

Dancing cranes. I loved the way these were set up. Very ethereal.

Bamboo forest complete with pandas. Note the pandas are not in flagrante delicto, in keeping with their character. They are notorious for not banging it out when given the opportunity.

African hornbills, nice to see birds I know all too well showing up.

Monkeys designed with eyes that know too much. The only major complaint with these animals are the eyes. The eyes are the windows to the soul and a lot of these animals sold their soul to our Dark Lord Satan.

Here is a picture of Ness-Ness’ husband to give you a sense of scale. These figures are all really big.

The African plains were by far the most impressive of the tableaus. There were massive crocodiles with jaws that opened and closed:

A boar with the ultimate blasƩ expression:

And both kinds of baobabs. There are the ones found on the mainland and the ones only found in Madagascar.

Gorgeous flower tunnel with animal heads. I think that baboon has lascivious thoughts. He has intentions. #HelloLadies

And this moose is going to straight-up kill this other moose. We have entered into a soon-to-be violent moose interaction and I felt compelled to back away slowly.

It gave me this kind of energy:

We went back the next day during daylight hours and the next post with have those pictures.

 

East Africa, Part 21: Zanzibar.

Saturday, May 28th, 2022

Stone Town! But first, let’s look a fezzes. Fezzezzes. Many hates of the fez style. Zanzabar is Muslim so the men wear what is the appropriate headdress in this case.

You’ll also notice many of the women and girls wearing head coverings.

Here are two excellent examples of women wearing ankara material which I spoke about earlier.

On the road to Stone Town: Would you like some soccer balls? Men’s belts? The scalps of sea maidens guaranteed to bring curses into your home?

We drove through the area of Bububu. The name is thought to have come from the trains going by on the tracks but no one knows for sure.

Okay, Stone Town. Zanzibar’s capital city. Stone Town is knows for its large carved wooden doors. We did a walking tour to see as many doors as we could.

The first thing I noticed was how many buildings were falling down. The second thing I noticed was how many men were just… hanging out. Loitering. It may only be a woman thing, but men existing without clear purpose scares all of us. So I picked up on it quickly.

Here are some explanations of door designs: https://stickymangorice.com/2016/12/04/doors-of-zanzibar/

Electricity is reeeaaaaal concerning. I don’t know if the people there know how electricity works but I do, a little, and this cannot end well.

A tree I liked.

There’s no nice way to explain this next bit. Zanzibar was famous for trading three things: Spices, gemstones, and slaves. I thought the slave trade was solely through the left side of the continent to America but unbeknownst to me there was slave trade on the right side to India and Asia. I blame the U.S. educational system for my ignorance. In the center of Stone Town there was an enormous tree where the slaves were lashed and sold. When slavery was abolished an Anglican priest came and built a church where the tree was.

That’s where the tree was.

Apparently the columns were installed upside down. I can’t tell but I imagine some architects are ripping their hair out saying “How can you not see???”

I went deeper into the history of slavery on the island and it is horrendous. Like concentration-camp-level atrocious. There is a sculpture next to the church commemorating the slave trade. There’s also a museum worth visiting that was eye-opening. I recommend it.

I liked the way the Christianity and Islam live harmoniously together.

The locks and chains were to keep women in the house. Because, as you well know, if you let’em out, chaos.

All kinds of people came to Zanzibar to trade in gems, spices and slaves. You can see influences of all different cultures, mainly Arab and Indian. There’s a graveyard for the Sultan of Oman and his sons from the late 1800s.

And the remains of a fort.

Seriously, is everyone okay with the electricity system? No one is concerned?

The best takeaway image from the island was this impromptu picture. Men, sitting outside a store that sells tanzanites (a rare gem only found in Tanzania) eating fresh-caught and cooked prawns off a tray.

Thus endeth my trip to Africa. It had many awesome aspects, specifically the animal reserves. If you ever get a chance to go to Kenya and/or Tanzania and experience that, do it without delay. We will now return to our regularly schedule of random whatnot and charts. Thank you for your patience.

East Africa, Part 20: Zanzibar.

Tuesday, May 3rd, 2022

Spices! Zanzibar is known as the Spice Island, specifically for cloves but the climate is perfect and since Zanzibar was a hub for travelers from all over the globe, other types of spices were brought there and now there’s a ton. I took notes but it’s been a hot minute since I went to the spice farm in August so my information might be not quite accurate. I hold the right to be incorrect. Please research on your own time.

But first, please look at this attempt to hide some pipes in my hotel room.

Just leave the exposed pipe and box and paint it white! What is this giant wooden atrocity? I would have probably never noticed the pipe but I sure as hell noticed whatever this is.

The tiniest of friends in my room:

Look at this bird that was outside my room. He was fancy and multicolored.

And the weaverbirds that were guarding their weaver-nests. The red eyes made them look crazy.

Okay, onto spices and fruits grown in Zanzibar based on my notes and photos.

Jackfruit

– The largest tree-growing fruit. I think watermelon is the biggest fruit all around.

– Originally from India.

– It has kind of a decaying onion smell on the outside.

– The fruit grows wherever on the tree – branches, trunk, etc.Ā 

A picture I found online of the all-over-growing.

– The wood is resistant to termites and fungus and the charcoal keeps insects away.

– The fruit secretes a sticky glue similar to latex when cut into so the natives rub coconut oil on their hands before they eat it.

Durian

– Looks like it would be in the same fruit group as jackfruit but isnā€™t.

– Delicious custard-like fruit but it is forbidden in trains, flights, hotels because the smell is ROUGH. The general consensus is that it smells like sweaty socks and rotting vegetation. Most people can separate the taste experience (very good) from the smell experience (extremely bad). I found this quote on the Mashed.com and felt the need to share:

“Some think that durian also tastes terrible, comparing it to ‘the flesh of some animal in a state of putrefaction,’ but the majority of others are actually quite taken by its unique flavor, calling it ‘indescribable’ and likening it to ‘sweet almondine onion-sherry chocolate mousse with hints of garlic and farts.’ā€

Turmeric

– Itā€™s a rhizome. Very orange.Ā 

– If you cut your finger with a knife, you put the turmeric powder in the wound and it (supposedly) helps with the skin healing.

Cardamom

– From India and Indonesia.

– Grows on what vaguely resembles bamboo. The seeds lay on the ground.

– Part of the ginger family.

– You eat the seeds but you can use the pods to make infusions or put them in a pouch in your closet.

Nutmeg

– This was a shocker. It grows in what looks like a quince / pear. The nutmeg looks fine but itā€™s surrounded by a hot pink plastic string thing and thatā€™s mace. If you showed it to me without me seeing them pull it off a branch I would have called you a liar and a fraud because that does not look real.

– Originally from Indonesia.

– If you eat too much nutmeg you get high and sometimes you can hallucinate.

– As long as you donā€™t grind it, the nutmeg can keep its flavor for years in a tight container.

Mace

ā€œLacey membraneā€ is how itā€™s often referred to.

– Used for stomach and intestinal woes.

– Tastes like nutmeg but stronger.

– Mace spray is not related to the spice mace, but to the weapon mace. Thatā€™s unusual because pepper spray is based on the fruit pepper. I assumed it was the same, as I imagine most others would. We would all be wrong.

Lemongrass

– Interestingly, actually a grass because often the names and the named have nothing to do with each other, so thatā€™s a pleasant surprise.

– Often called citronella grass and the locals rub the oil on their skin to keep away bugs.

– Supposed to bring down fever.

– Related to ginger and in no way related to any citrus. Ginger uses the roots and if you look at lemongrassā€™ root youā€™ll see itā€™s similar.

– Two main kinds – one for eating and one for making perfumes.

Bay leaves

– Can suck it. I hate finding it in my food. Stupid piece of cardboard foliage in my stew.Ā 

Cinnamon

– Originally from Sri Lanka.

– Not sweet itself but enhances the taste of sweet.

– The whole tree is useful. Weā€™re all familiar with the bark but I learned that the root smells exactly like eucalyptus and since thereā€™s no eucalyptus on the island and Vicks Vaporub is expensive the locals cut some of the root off, put it in a bowl of hot water and then lean over it and breath it in. It helps with head colds and the like. That was the second most surprising thing I learned after the nutmeg-mace.

-Cinnamon tree berries can be used the same way as cloves, studded into oranges or hams or brewed in tea.

– Cinnamon leaves can be used to flavor curries and jerk marinades.

– Cinnamon oil will destroy mosquito larvae and is sometimes used as an antiseptic.

– Buuuut it may also destroy you because it has a chemical in it that might poison and kill you and is not recommended for pregnant women.

– The antiseptic and anti-mosquito quality of the oil is why itā€™s often found on ancient mummies.

Pepper

– White peppercorns are the young seed and black peppercorns are the mature seed. Theyā€™re the same plant, just picked at a different point in the life cycle. Green peppercorns are in there somewhere too.

– The locals use a tea from pepper leaves to help with the bleeding after a woman gives birth. It helps slow it down and eventually make it stop.

Lipstick plant

– From Central America.

– Looks like a flattened rambutan. Look up rambutans if you donā€™t know what Iā€™m talking about. A very otherworldly-looking fruit.

– Itā€™s opaque as opposed to turmeric or most other substances so the locals put patterns on their hands and faces and it shows up (because theyā€™re dark and dyes wouldnā€™t be visible).

– Itā€™s where we get the color annatto which we use to color food. Itā€™s what makes cheddar cheese orange, because itā€™s actually white.

Cloves

– From Indonesia.

– Itā€™s the dried unopened flower of a type of myrtle tree.

– Itā€™s the only spice controlled by the government. The Zanzibarians are allowed to sell all the other spices themselves. The rest, the government buys it off of them. If they sell it themselves, they can get fifteen years in prison.

– Clove oil is a numbing agent. Itā€™s used for tooth pain. I tried it, it feels like an extremely strong mint. The Moomins used it as a child and the second she smelled it she said ā€œDentist!ā€ and you could see the PTSD from her childhood dentistry in the Congo.

– In order to stop diarrhea the locals chew the leaves and it stops the runs in a few minutes.

Iodine tree

– You make a slice in the branch and the healing liquid seeps out. Itā€™s not dark yellow yet. You rub it on your wound vigorously and it makes a whitish foam (kinda feels like latex) and, as we know, helps prevent infection.

– Also has really pretty leaves.

Additional photos from the tour:

Banana plant. You can see how the flowers turn into the fruit.

A strangler fig in full effect.

This fruit tasted like lime but, like the jackfruit, it also grows wherever it wants on the tree.

Look how beautiful these flowers are.

In the background there you will notice a fruit. It’s called a bongo or a tree orange. It is not an orange. It is a rind filled with fruit and snot.

It was super-sour and the slimy texture took a minute to get used to but it was quite tasty.

As we went on the tour everything the guide showed us went into a banana leaf cup. I called it the Cup o’ Smells because it was all the fragrances. Like, all of them, ever.

Here is a more thorough description of the spice farm experience.

http://www.smallthingsinbignumbers.com/blog/the-spices-of-zanzibar

The next entry: Stone Town, a UNESCO site.

East Africa, Part 19: Zanzibar.

Saturday, April 30th, 2022

The day I went from the mainland of Africa to the island of Zanzibar is going to be brisk. You’ll see why. While heading off to the airport I saw a village. I liked the sky. I liked the village. I took a pic.

And then everything went all to hell, emotionally, for me. We got to the airport, no biggie. The flight is only an hour so I expected a small plane. What I got was a van with wings. The Moomins asked for a seat near the front and was told there were no seat numbers. There reason the flight was seat-number-free is because it was, like, three rows of seats, maybe 12 seats. It was at this moment I took a substantial amount of drugs.

Yep. When the pilot told about our flight, they just turned around and told us. And their windshield was tiny. All of this did not set me at ease. The sky was beautiful. Before I passed out from the aforementioned drugs I appreciated the clouds.

We got to the hotel where I fell asleep and did not rise until the next morning. End of Zanzibar day 1.

I woke up refreshed the next morning and was greeted by a friend! Look at friend!

The first thing we had to do was get our Covid tests so we could fly out a few days later. Get ready to experience the Zanzibar healthcare system.

First, we had to exchange money because the Covid testing place didn’t take money. What you did was go to the bank, pay the correct amount and the bank gave you a slip that said “I have paid the right amount.” You brought that slip to the Covid testing place. In the bank there was pictures of their main politicians. I like that their president is a woman. Slight aside: Zanzibar had a ton of Muslims relocate there because of the slave trade so the primary religion is Islam. Hence the president wearing a headscarf.

You can see little girls all over wearing large white headcoverings everywhere you went.

This is one of Zanzibar’s government agency buildings.

And here’s the island’s health department sign.

The waiting room was outside. I actually think that’s a better idea than putting everyone in a waiting room.

The Moomins, who grew up in The Belgian Congo, asked me to take a picture in front of the hospital. “It looks like the hospital from my town!” she said.

Ā 

After we gave the grumpy lady sitting at the table you see above our “we paid” slip of paper we sat on our plastic chairs and waited our turn. I liked having two companions while I was waiting: A chicken and a very small lizard on a tree.

We filled out paperwork, we handed our paperwork through the window, and eventually we went to a room where we were tested using the exact same protocol that they use in the states. So anyone who’s like “blah blah backwards unsafe blah blah!!”, it was the same. Same PPE, same way-too-long swab, same snappy-offy container for said swab, etc. The only difference is the companion chicken and lizard which I personally think is a step-up from the clinic I have on the corner of my street. There are no free-range sauntering beasts there.

I loved this sign on the side of the building.

Gecko on one of the hospital buildings.

After this exciting activity we returned to our beachside resort. The plants around our room where *chef’s kiss.* It was so gorgeous, like a feast for the eyes.

We shall finish this day with a picture of the women carrying baskets on their heads from hotel room to hotel room. I’ve seen it so many times and it’s always really cool.

Next entry: Spices. A lotta spices.

East Africa, Part 18: Tarangire.

Friday, January 21st, 2022

Lunch! We stopped at a rest stop with a group of monkeys. We had to make a concerted effort to keep the monkeys from grabbing our food.

Nip-nops in full effect.

Festive junk also on display.

Cute baby plotting shenanigans.

While no one was paying attention, an orange was stolen.

After spending most of my lunchtime growling and pretending to be big and threatening to protect my sandwich, we headed back out for more sightings. And get ready, because I accomplished the impossible. I took good photos of not one, but TWO lilac-breasted rollers.

Gaze. Gaze at those photos and rejoice.

There was a hammerkop bird hanging out on some bird-poop-covered rocks.

Then we saw a sausage tree with a lioness in it. Bonus: She had a tracking necklace on.

She was pretty far away so I used my extremely difficult technique of holding up the binoculars to my phone to get a picture.

These I did photoshop a bit because the original looks like this:

And old dark giraffe drinking in the position where they are most in danger.

An impala looking like it’s walking across water.

Birds looking through herbivore poop for snacks.

A family of elephants coming down to the riverbed to drink. Look at the baby! He’s at least 300 pounds but he looks so cute and wee.

Far away in the distance there was a tree with another long-crested eagle.

I got such an epic cramp in my arm squished down in my seat doing my binocular technique only to realize when editing that the FREAKIN’ CREST WAS BLOCKED BY A BRANCH. The No Crested Eagle. I included the original pics along with the photoshopped ones.

I helped that I saw a black-backed jackal shortly after. It soothed my aching arm to see him trotting by.

A Von der Deckenā€™s Hornbill.

Who went up into a tree to spend time with its mate.

Look at these red-and-yellow barbets. First of all, so pretty. So fashion. Secondly, they cock their heads to the ground to listen for grubs and bugs which looks cute as hell. It looks like they’re saying “Pardon?”

And now your doctor-recommended dik-dik of the day.

Big ole lizard. Real big. In the reeds by the river. Looked like it would be delicious grilled. Not ashamed to say it.

A pair of black-backed jackals doing whatever it is they do.

This is a great example of authentic East African clothing. A woman buys about four meters of a patterned wax resist fabric called ankara. She makes the majority of it into a skirt and with what remains she makes a headdress.

The variety of ankara fabric is amazing. I saw piles of it and never the same pattern twice. And a lot of the pieces are geometric, which I loved.

The schools are two small for all the kids so the older kids go in the morning and the younger kids go later in the day. Why that order? Well, hyenas are active in the early morning so the kids that are too big to be prey go earlier. Africa! Different to the US!

And finally, the sun setting with the Great Rift Valley. There are storks, there are guinea fowl, there are monkeys. It’s so awesome.

Coming up: The island of Zanzibar.

East Africa, Part 17: Tarangire.

Friday, January 7th, 2022

More Tarangire! This will be a very bird-centric post. We start with a profoundly crappy picture of a long-crested eagle. It is an extremely serious-looking bird and that intensity is ruined completely by its dinky mohawk. A fleepy-floopy mohawk which looks vaguely like this.

And I got some terrible backlit pictures of this eagle. Enjoy.

I made all the shots I took like this into a collage.

And here are some professional shots I found online. I made them into a collage as well.

Why did I take this picture? I must have had a reason. Was it the bird in the center? It’s a well-composed picture so I’m including it even though its original intent is gone.

Impala.

Dik-dik (smallest antelope in Africa) with an elephant (largest land mammal in the world) in the background.

Weaver bird weaving!

This picture has a bee-eater in the center. I zoomed in so you could see more betterer.

Its spouse came over with a moth in its mouth, swiped the moth back and forth against a branch to rip off its wings and ate it. That was pretty cool to see. Then they sat together.

Waterbuck! You can see the toilet ring pattern clearly here.

Is it truly one of my Africa posts if I don’t include an atrocious picture of a lilac-breasted roller? I could photoshop them to bump up the contrast and the color but I would deny my true garbage photography skills.

We stopped at a camp that had a lookout point of a river and we got to see an enormous group of buffalo making their way there to drink.

They had a good example of how slowly baobabs grow.

One of the people working at the camp said, “Would you like to see an owl?” I’ve had problems controlling myself when I see owls in the past so I tried not to dry-heave with excitement.

He walked me past the bungalows, I was taken to a tree and there he was. He was small and the lighting wasn’t great but I could see his tiny perfection.

Ā 

He was a wee little scops owl with wee little scops horns and he was sleeping and I seriously could have stood there all day and bask in his wee little preciousness but the same guy said, “We have bats too. Want to see them?” YES. YES I WOULD.

He took me to a different tree and way up were sleeping bat packets! Fruit bats!

We also saw a squirrel. I did not get terribly excited about that. No disrespect to squirrels, but after owls and bats everything seems banal.

Out of nowhere, ground hornbills showed up! The super-rare ground hornbills! They’re super-rare because they lay their eggs right on the ground (hence the name) and everyone trods on them. So I’m not empathetic to their plight because that’s just silliness, but it was still cool to see them a ways off.

We saw some monkeys sorting through poo for delicious treats like seeds.

Vultures eating a dead snack.

The red dirt on the tree is where elephants scratched themselves.

I haven’t even made it to lunch so in the next post, lunch and beyond.

East Africa, Part 16: Tarangire.

Sunday, January 2nd, 2022

Remember how sad I was when I had to say goodbye to my gecko bff who lived behind the mask? I started my day with a new friend!

I’ve found whenever you eat outside in Africa you will have several companions gunning for some of your meal. This breakfast was no different.

A termite mound! They are big. I had The Moomins stand next to it for scale.

I got so excited at seeing this stork with a red beak or something. Spoiler: It’s a mop resting against a branch.

We had to stop at the gate to Tarangire Reserve and I saw a lilac-breasted roller. I love them. Even if the picture looks like an actual pile of crap (as this one does) I will always post it.

There were a different kind of sentient mango bird, this time they had black heads.

Daily dik-dik! Today focusing on that back end with those fabulous spindly legs.

See this bird? Isn’t it a pleasant-looking bird? Well, it’s called a butcherbird and that’s because it impales its food on thorn bushes and barbed wire for later. So sweet!

“Tarangire” means “River of warthogs” but the national park is most well-known for its elephants. I was there for one major thing and that is the baobabs. I had only seen one or two baobabs by themselves and this place is covered with them. They are a fantastic tree. Each one grows differently from the next. You know how when you see a whole grove of oak trees of the same age, they all look similar? Baobabs do not.

Fun facts about baobabs:

– BIG. Real big. Biggest, actually. Not tallest, those are California Redwoods. But biggest.

– OLD. Real old. These were over 1,000 years old. Baobabs can live to be 3,000 years old.

– SLOW. Real slow. There’s a picture coming up that illustrates how slowly they grow and mature.

The bottom parts are all chewed up because elephants come by and rip off bark and rub on the trees. There is a myth that baobabs have a lot of water in their trunks but they actually die and their hollow hulls collect rainwater which people and animals can drink. But the baobab itself doesn’t retain water.

To get a sense of scale, please note the monkey on that branch off to the upper left.

I mentioned the strangling fig in a previous post. Here’s one in action. It’s dropping roots down to the ground and building a whole structure around the baobab. In 100 years it will have killed the baobab and assumed its shape.

My favorite baobab pic.

Baobabs are thought to disappear overnight but what actually happens is they die and dry out from the inside and then one day they collapse.

Even though Tarangire is known for its elephants we didn’t see a ton of them. We did see this one. Our guide Augustine said the one without a tail had it ripped off as a child by a lion because they’re the only ones strong enough to pull that off (no pun intended).

Pile of herbivore dung with a slender mongoose. The poop gets rifled through by everyone because there’s always undigested seeds and edible treats to be found.

A yellow-necked spurfowl.

A Von der Decken’s Hornbill. The males and females are differently colored. This is a male or a female. One or the other, I’m sure of that.

Gnus going for a dip.

And then we saw it. The Moomins grew up in Africa, she organized tours, went on tours constantly, but she never saw the other thing Tarangire is known for ā€“ lions in trees. Lions don’t normally climb trees, that a leopard trait. Here they do, but only female lions because the males are too heavy. And we saw one.

I must warn you, I was so blown away by this that I took a ton of photos and I couldn’t decide which ones I liked best so I’m posting a bunch of them. Plus a tree that a woodpecker did some serious work on.

A solitary lioness hanging out in a tree. Doesn’t look like much, but it’s highly unusual.

Final pic for today is a cloudy sky with a pond.

Coming up: More Tarangire.

East Africa, Part 15: Traveling to Lake Manyara.

Sunday, December 12th, 2021

On our last day at the Acacia Farm Lodge, The Moomins insisted on taking a picture with this massive palm.

And I thought this furry pine was neato.

This was our view from the breakfast balcony.

While we were eating I saw mangoes! Flying mangoes! With beaks! They’re actually called lovebirds but I like to imagine them as sentient tropical fruits.

I neglected to mention something I’ve never experienced before. While staying at the lodge there was a pervasive sound of a man speaking into a loudspeaker coming from the valley and when I asked someone what it was, he said it was a church revival. Not to be disrespectful but the preacher sounded like an infomercial spokesman, he had the exact pattern of speech. I kept waiting for him to say, “But wait, there’s more!”

We mostly drove all day and sometimes it was through towns. Here’s what some of the cabs look like.

Although some people still go old school. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

Let’s talk about the Maasai and their livestock, specifically the cows. It is their everything. I mentioned earlier that they drink the cows’ blood and milk for nutrition, they use the cows as currency, the little kids make cows out of clay as toys. Seriously, everything. One day we were driving down the road and we saw a group of men running past us. Not running, more like jogging with intent and in perfect synchronization, similar to soldiers running in bootcamp. Several of them were carrying machetes and others were holding beautifully-designed bows and arrows. Our driver Jacob (this is back when we were in Kenya with Jacob) asked one of the men where they were going and he said a man had stolen some cows and the group was going to get them back. I said, “Oooooh noooooo,” because even though I’m a middle-aged white lady from New York I know not to mess with the Maasai’s cows. I guarantee you they 100% killed the thief. And there were no police anywhere to be found which made sense. The cow situation was about to resolve itself, no need for them to get involved.

Here’s a picture of a Maasai man walking his livestock from one grazing area to another.

Market day! You can get anything you need on market day, from bananas to shoes.

Supplies get around Tanzania via truck and many of the trucks had copious designs relating to bible quotes or Jesus. I caught this one from the back:

And as we drove by I took a picture of the side.

Here are two other pictures I found on the internet.

In the early afternoon we arrived at our hotel, located next to Lake Manyara with a view of the Great Rift Valley. That’s the mountain range-looking thing in the back there. The Great Rift Valley is where two tectonic plates are smooshing together and pulling apart. I find the movements of the crust of the earth fascinating so I spent a good period of time staring at it.

The hotel had animals sauntering around, doing their thing, and it was up to you not to mess with them. I’m sure someone gets hurt every so often for being real stupid and walking up to a giraffe. The one animal you can get close to are the gnu because, as I have mentioned before, they are as thick as a living thing could be. I think you can eat them and still be considered a vegetarian because broccoli is smarter. Here are the gnu on the path to the pool.

In order to get to the pool you walk on that path and the gnu will anxiously run away. I’m like, “You have horns, guys. And hooves. There’s many of you. Why you fleein’?”

There was a warthog mere feet from me, eating vegetation and getting all tangled up in its tusks. Not a pretty eater, but charming.

I liked these puffs on what appears to be a fever tree.

The gnu (which look different than the last two types of gnu because, again, we’ve traveled many hours and it’s a whole different ecosystem) look like they have straight horns when they’re young.

The moment when I lost all respect for the gnu was during this afternoon. There were large puddles, really deep, like 4′ deep, but the mouth wasn’t more than three feet across. So they looked like regular puddles but they were a lie. Lying puddles. The gnu would regularly fall into them and then pop right out like corks. Two gnu friends were walking and one fell in, bopped right out and continued walking like nothing happened. His friend stopped in front of the puddle and… didn’t know what to do. He wanted to be reunited with his friend but he couldn’t figure out how. The concept of walking TWO STEPS IN EITHER DIRECTION flummoxed this poor fella so he decided his best course of action was to stand there and bleat helplessly. Eventually other gnu came up and he witnessed them walking around so he followed them but it’s entirely possible he could have stood there forever until he wasted away from sheer stupidity. It could happen.

After enjoying sitting in the outdoor lounge and watching the sun cross the sky we headed back to our bungalow, escorted by a group of impalas heading that way. Which is where we caught the monkeys.

If you look over to the left, that’s our front door. And that is a vervet monkey.

I call these three pics “Uhhh, yeah, we didn’t think you’d be back so soon.”

We waited patiently because getting bitten or scratched by a monkey would really put a damper on our fun times. As the sun started going down the impalas and monkeys drifted to wherever they spend the night and we got to enjoy the sunset in peace.

Next post: Tarangire, home of elephants, baobabs and lions that climb trees.

East Africa, Part 14: Ngorongoro Crater.

Tuesday, December 7th, 2021

You might think, “Jessica, after the little jackal bounced around trying to kill a vermin, how could you see anything that topped that?” I shall show you. But first, an amuse bouche of warthogs. This was a parent and the three kids.

You can’t see the third little warthog because as he came running over his parent bolted at him and bashed their forehead against his. They both stopped dead in their tracks. I don’t know what the little warthog was planning but his parent was having precisely none of it. It was startlingly aggro.

After about thirty tense seconds, the warthogs resolved their issue and everyone went back to munching grass. Another warthog joined them.

They saw us and there was a lot of wary staring. You can appreciate their white whiskers.

Here we go with the magic. There was a large watering hole with buffalo and a variety of birds.

While I like buffalo fine, I was excited to see the ibis. There was the glossy ibis and the sacred ibis. The dark black one is the glossy ibis and those are lovely. Here’s a pic I found online.

BUT I love the sacred ibis because ā€“ surprise! ā€“ it’s got a featherless head that looks like a skull.

In addition to the two types of ibis and the cowbirds which are the white ones there was a family of ducks paddling around.

It was an amazing array of animals. You can see the flamingoes in the background.

I was so entranced by this that I didn’t even notice the solitary hippo off to the right! Unexpected hippo!

Who yawned!

Like, are you serious with this? And then a hammerkop showed up! Like, directly down from the side of the vehicle. If I had dropped something out the window it would have bonked him on his hammer-shaped head.

Now was the time that I considered singing “Circle of Life.”

After absorbing this majestic scene for as long as we could we began our trip out of the crater. I had to take one more shot of the crater rim, this time with flamingoes.

Some Egyptian ducks. They always look a little insane because of the dark rim around their eyes and the bright orange/red irises.

Impala.

A small unit of waterbuck chillin’ under a tree.

A hammerkop on a branch.

A monkey doing whatever cheeky acts he’s decided on.

We headed up the side of the rim. This is partway up:

Up:

Up:

And the top.

We left the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and Augustine had to hand in a tag or pay a fee, I was not paying attention to that. What I was paying attention to was the troupe of baboons off near the exit. Didn’t like that. Then two of the big ones peeled off to try and steal from the cars. Definitely didn’t like that.

Okay, this is dumb. Tourists, what are you doing? Do you not see the teeth? They’re very pointy and visible. Some of the baboons have babies, you see them, right? You’re gonna get mauled and I’m going to be on the side of the baboons.

As we were driving out we passed the baboon troupe and watched them for a while (from the safety of our vehicle because we’re not stupid).

There was a little baby who was full of sassafras and the adults were very patient and accommodating.

The big male heard a sound in the shrubbery so he ran over and shrieked at whatever it was and it scared the crap out of the teenagers so they threw themselves over the side. I should not have laughed. I’m saying I shouldn’t have. I very much did though.

We returned to the room to find out Veronica had left us a sweet message.

But what she did in the room was above and beyond.

It’s abundantly clear the lodge does a lot of honeymoons. I especially liked that instead of an ampersand* there was a dollar sign. It’s close enough, I knew what the intent was.

I took the message on the coffee table and redesigned it as well as leaving some socks.

After I got back from dinner I saw this.

I could have stayed there forever, eating fresh vegetables and communicating with my beloved Veronica through leaves and petals but we had to leave the next day.

Next post: Lake Manyara.