Reflections on Tanzania

Armed with new video editing software, I have been making video montages of our photos from our 2008 trip to Tanzania.  Each standalone video here is meant to be part of one long video not yet completed and too big to post online.  I did not annotate the videos so as not to clutter them; the penalty for this is they will go by quickly and not answer any of your questions.

I recommend clicking on the links to watch the videos on YouTube since this blog isn't formatted to support the hugeness of the HD videos.

Mt. Kilimanjaro - This was a seven day trip warranting a longer video.  There are two noticeable gaps in time - one is the six hours we spent hiking in pitch blackness to the summit, and most of the rest of that day as we were cruising down the mountain to get out.  I wrote about Kilimanjaro right after we climbed it, in which I probably sounded more exhausted and glad to be done than thrilled with the experience.  It's certainly a challenge to get to the top of the mountain, physically and mentally, but there is little like it.  I haven't climbed or even been on the side of a mountain since.


Lake Manyara - The first stop on our wildlife safari was also our first education in baboons, tsetse flies, and dusty dirt.


Serengeti - We spent the most time in Serengeti, which is a large area.  I learned so much about the animals and their habits from observing them and from our knowledgeable guide, Dennis, of Swala Safaris based in Arusha, Tanzania.  When I first got my Field Guide to African Wildlife, I didn't know how so many animals could live together, but I quickly learned how each preferred a particular habitat or foraging niche.  Impalas are most like deer, so you find them in woods, whereas gazelles are out in the wide open plains.


Ngorongoro Crater - In the bottom of an extinct volcano crater is a virtually encapsulated ecosystem including the endangered black rhino (we saw 5).  Lions there have dark manes, maybe a dynamic of an isolated population.  My favorite thing was the gathering of gray crowned cranes.  My least favorite thing was a black kite stealing a sandwich out of my hand.


Tarangire - We were pretty tired of bouncing around in the back of the Land Rover when we got to the last national park in our tour, but we enjoyed the baobab trees and continued finding new species of birds we hadn't recorded yet.




We also visited Olduvai Gorge and Zanzibar, which I didn't include in the videos because they only included a few photos and neither was really that thrilling.  Olduvai Gorge is mostly a visitor center in bad need of renovation and an outdoor bathroom with a trench urinal from which you can view the gorge while you take a whizz.  My only achievements on Zanzibar were reading The Bin Ladens by Steve Coll, getting angry at people trying to bilk me out of my money, and stupidly drinking a beverage with ice, which I paid for when I got home.