Honeymoon Pt19 - Safari - The Serengeti & Lake Manyara

On our final day of safari, we had a quick drive through the Serengeti, not really seeing much except these Vultures...

We made our way to a much smaller park, Lake Manyara.  Our guide explained to us that we probably wouldn't see much there due to the drought, the lake was mostly dried up so the wildlife was scarce but they always include it in itineraries to try and conserve the park.  If no-one visits and the money dries up then the authorities might not preserve the area.  As it turned out we enjoyed our time there.  It is supposed to be a good place to see lots of bird life, which we did - along with LOADS of Baboons!

Sunbathing youngster

Cuddles from Mummy

Hornbill

We then made our way to our third and final safari lodge, stopping at the Oldupai Gorge on the way which was very interesting but sadly we have no pictures to share due to the camera incident.  We were meant to be staying at a different lodge but due to renovations it was shut and we had been booked into The Rift Valley Photographic Lodge (as we found out en route).  The sound of the place got me very excited thinking maybe they would have some kind of exhibition of photos up or an amazing viewing platform I would be able to take photos from.  It turned out to be the most disappointing place we stayed for many reasons.

Initially we were impressed.  Our room was lovely (our guide came to check it out with us as this was a new place to the company) and the Askari friendly.  After settling into our room we immediately made our way down to the main area to find a spot for me to try and get one last sunset picture across the valley.  After all our days on safari and a particularly dusty and sweaty day in the dried up Manyara, we both fancied a nice cool beer at the bar.  On seeing there was a swimming pool there I was very excited until we saw that it was empty (and therefore rather dangerous next to the bar and very deep!)  Unfortunately we were both extremely disappointed when receiving two very warm, expensive beers and a bowl of peanuts on the table (we're both allergic).  While waiting hungrily for dinner time, I busied myself taking photos in the best spot I could find, by a big stone oven protruding into the view of the valley from the bar.

The sunset wasn't amazing, it was a bit hazy but I got a few photos of the valley floor while we supped our warm beers.  (Apparently they only turn the electricity on after dark but our guide was surprised they weren't able to keep the drinks cool in the freezer during the day like most of these more out of the way places apparently do.)  I realise we sound extremely fussy and spoilt to be complaining about this in the middle of Africa, but when spending a small fortune on a luxury honeymoon and experiencing such amazing food and drinks everywhere else (including the even more isolated tented camps) it was a bit disappointing to find our last lodge lacking in simple pleasures.

Rift Valley Floor

Rift Valley & Masai

Rift Valley

After changing for dinner we made our way back to the main area of the lodge to be informed that it was a set menu of Leek & Potato soup followed by Roast Chicken and then Pancakes for dessert.  The soup and accompanying bread was lovely and we started tucking into our roast dinners before I suddenly started to feel a bit odd.  My lips and soft palate (back of the roof of my mouth) were feeling a bit tingly - much like when I am having an allergic reaction.  It had been a few years since this occurred as nowadays it's generally pretty easy to avoid peanuts.  Sadly it turned out that it wasn't roast chicken with gravy as we had thought, but roast chicken served with peanut sauce!!

It was entirely my own fault for not asking if they would be serving peanuts with the chicken (I had wrongly assumed I would be safe with a roast!) but the way the staff handled the situation was somewhat upsetting (and extremely annoying!)  Nik immediately asked if there were any nuts in the gravy - which they went and found out was in fact peanut sauce.  He then went off to our room to get an anti-histamine for me to take (luckily he hadn't really touched his sauce as his allergy is much more severe than mine).  When he returned I asked for another bottle of water to take my pill as I had already finished the one I had (we later found out they charged us for this which I thought was a bit much considering the circumstances) and they brought me a plain chicken dinner!  They seemed most distressed when I said I was no longer hungry and didn't want it!

We sat there for a few minutes waiting for the anti-histamine to take effect while my lips slowly began to resemble a recent collagen procedure (again no pics due to lost camera - seriously hope whoever found/stole it didn't see those pics!).  The staff repeatedly came over to ask if I was OK when all I really wanted was to be left alone.  I wasn't in distress and had told them I would be fine.  We heard them explaining what happened to the German boss when she walked through the restaurant and her only concern was whether I had mentioned my allergy before the food was served to me. We eventually decided we were safe to go back to our room as my lips seemed to have stopped swelling and I just wanted to go and lie down.  Again, they seemed very upset that we didn't want dessert!  It all turned out fine, Nik kept an eye on me for the next hour until my lips had gone back to normal.  It was all just a bit scary being out in the middle of nowhere with no immediate access to a hospital should it have all gone a bit further since I don't have an epi-pen due to my allergy being judged as not severe.  Luckily I have never had a reaction go so far as anaphylactic shock with problems breathing and hope I never will.

The next morning after waiting for more than the 5 minutes we had been informed it might take the hot water to get through to our shower while feeling rather guilty for wasting so much water during a drought, we gave up and had a quick cold wash before breakfast.  Breakfast was pleasant with fruit being served first (I kept mine for after as I prefer savoury first thing in the morning) followed by eggs with either sausage or bacon.  We much preferred the other hotels, camps and lodges where you could just go up and choose what you wanted rather than wasting some fruit I didn't want (as it was served on a plate to each of us).  We were quite glad to leave this lodge.

We made our way to the airport at Kilimanjaro to fly to Kenya, said goodbye to our amazing guide (Nik took a photo of myself and the guide before promptly loosing the camera!  This was the last time we remember having it - I suspect Nik either put it down at check in or placed it in his bag while being watched by the trolley boys who may have had an opportunity to pick pocket him or he may have even put it down when sorting out our liquids before going through security, whatever happened it was gone with all of the photos of us and the hotels from the last 4 days.  We had even just tried to download them all to the iPad which we had taken to store all of the photos but this had filled up already what with all of Nik's music already on there which we were unable to delete.  Luckily I still had all of the more 'professional' photos I had taken using my SLR.)

We had a thoroughly wonderful time in Tanzania and would definitely like to go back!  Nik was incredibly impressed with the safaris there compared to what he had experienced before in Kenya and we were thrilled to have seen so much!  

Honeymoon Pt18 - Safari - The Serengeti

On our afternoon off safari-ing we had a nice chilled out time at the hotel.  We enjoyed a yummy lunch in the bar (included instead of our packed lunch - oh I forgot to mention on safari each day we were given amazing lunch boxes by the hotels!) and while we were sat there enjoying some ice-cream a herd of elephants showed up at the watering hole next to the pool.  As in RIGHT NEXT TO the pool so about 20m away from us on the terrace!

I foolishly forgot to take my camera to lunch so this was taken on Nik's Ipad!

A Better view - Image Source

After watching the elephants until they wandered off again, we went exploring the hotel and settled in the (empty) library where we found a good wireless signal for our phones and we managed to Skype with my Mum & Dad in Saudi and then with Nik's parents back in England. We then sat there for a while reading and checking facebook (looking to see if any more wedding photos had gone up - so much fun!) before I went to ask if there was anywhere in the hotel I would be able to take pictures of the sunset.  I had noticed the night before that the sun seemed to set behind the big rocks by the walkway to the rooms and when trying to get down the end to get a good view we found only more rooms and big rocks blocking it.

I wasn't sure if we would be able to get to a suitable place due to the surrounding area being wild and open to the animals but I was told someone could take us somewhere with a view and told to return at the time I wanted to reception.  After collecting my camera bag and tripod, we went back to reception and were introduced to Frieda, the head of house-keeping who took us down to the end of the walkway filling us in on the hotel's story and some of the suites available.  When we reached the end, she took us into one of the villas and out onto the balcony.  A. Mazing!  The villa was huge and had it's own pool on the balcony, the master bedroom had another balcony higher up which she suggested might be the best place for me to take my photos and let us out there to set up - the view was fantastic.  The whole time we watched the sunset she was happy chatting with us and asked if we were on honeymoon (she got very excited when we said we were) and seemed to delight in telling us more about the hotel and her job there.

Sunset taken from the villa

African sunset

After the sun went down she asked if we wanted to see around the villa which we did (we are so nosey and love looking at interiors), there was a MASSIVE outdoor shower and a huge bed, double sinks and decadent decor.  She told us at that time of year it would cost $10,000 per night to stay there!  Crazy!  

As we walked back along the walkway she asked if we would like to see the presidential suite.  Hell yeh!!  This place had just been occupied the week before by the president himself and has it's own big pool, stunning views, huge rooms, including his own massage room and amazing bathrooms!  I even stood in his shower (again imagine a funny pic of me in the president's shower - lost with the camera sadly along with all our other photos of the cool rooms!)

Presidential Suite - Image Source

Frieda was a lovely guide and really seemed so proud of the hotel and loved telling us all about it and showing us round!  She asked to see our wedding pictures and met us in the reception area before dinner to see them and say goodbye.  She also asked for my email address but I've never heard from her since.  After dinner, we explored the rest of the hotel taking photos as it was so lovely and I knew I'd want to write about it later but again, these photos were lost so here are a few more I've found on-line so you can see how stunning the place was....

Stairs - Image Source

The stairs down from the reception to the bar and the walkway to the rooms was a big open space with a hole in the roof. 

Bar - Image Source

The bar was also really nicely decorated and modern.

Unfortunately while standing at the bar while Nik took some photos, I experienced more bad luck as I suddenly felt a sharp pain between my first two toes on my left foot.  Almost like a splinter suddenly punctured my skin.  I was wearing Nik's jeans and my flip flops and when I removed the flip flop I saw an ant between my toes and tried to brush it away but it was stuck fast!  I had to pick it off!  I have never been bitten by an ant before and was surprised by how much it hurt!  I then thought I felt another one a bit further up my leg around my knee so grabbed Nik and tried to explain as I dragged him as fast as I could down the walkway as I was brushing away at my leg to no avail!  I wanted to get the jeans off asap!!

When we got to our room I immediately stripped and started checking my leg and did find two more ants I had to remove (Nik stopped laughing then - he thought I was going mad 'til he saw them!) so we began checking the jeans for more as we didn't want them getting loose in the room to attack us again later!  In the end we found six more and they were a bugger to kill!  We had to crunch them with our key-card!  One particularly huge one managed to get on my hand and bite me before I got it off!  Such a horrid and creepy experience!  They must gave crawled up between the planks in the walkway by the bar where I was stood.  I still shudder when I think about it!

Honeymoon Pt17 - Safari - The Serengeti

So the next morning after a wonderfully restful night and yummy breakfast at Bilila Lodge, we headed out early for a half day on The Serengeti.  On route to the 'Hippo Pool' we spotted a tiny little deer called a Dik Dik - cutest thing ever!  It was about 50cm tall and had a long nose which was so cute when it wiggled it side to side!  Sadly it was on the wrong side of the road for the light early in the morning so the photos aren't great as they're back lit.

We then carried on to the Hippos where you can actually get out of the vehicle, despite Hippos being the most dangerous animals in Africa, and stand at the edge of the pool behind a fence.  Stench is not the word to describe their water hole.  You can see for yourself what they are wallowing in...

Hippo Pool

When we moved on from there, we spotted another group of lots of 4x4s meaning there must be something exciting to see!  As it turned out it was a pack of around 12 lions eating a kill but it was waaay over the other side of a ravine and this was the best photo I could get with the zoom lens (we couldn't really make them out without using the telephoto lens)...

You can see them just to the left of the tree trunks

We did however find a few lionesses a bit further along on our side of the ravine, lazing in the shade of a few trees...

By far the best part of my day was when we found the zebras drinking in a pool of water.  When we drove across the bridge, they all ran away but we stopped by the edge and our guide said they would go back in, which they did.  But the best bit was, they repeatedly got spooked by something and then return which gave me a great opportunity to try and get some pattern shots of them all grouped together and some action shots of them running out!  Unfortunately they are so quick so my composition isn't the best for the action shots (was zoomed in as well so difficult to judge what's happening) but I am still really pleased with them!

Zebras all running away as we approached

Brave leader heading back in

Getting spooked again

Lining up perfectly - thank you zebras!

Spooked again

And again!  (Love this one even though the ears are cut off and the nose is cut off on the right!)

Patterns

B&W Patterns

Turns out it was this wee croc that was spooking them but he never attacked

I could have stayed there all day but we moved on and spotted this family of elephants enjoying a drink...

Further along the road we found the last of our big 5!  Our guide had been trying to find us a leopard as Nik had never seen one despite having done a few safaris in Kenya before and it would complete the big 5 for us.  Not only did we find one, but two!  They were about 100m apart in two trees near the road.  Amazing! The 2nd one was more hidden and had they not been pointed out to me I never would have spotted either of them!

Looking very relaxed!

After this, we made our way back to the hotel to spend the afternoon relaxing ourselves.  

Honeymoon Pt16 - Safari - The Serengeti

We had the longest wait due to paperwork at the gate to Serengeti National Park, an hour and a half!  As a result, our guide was racing to get us to the hotel before dark.  He did still stop a couple of times for us as we saw a hippo walking around out of the water which is quite unusual and we saw some elephants in the lovely evening light.

Hippo roaring at our 4x4

Elephant textures

Hippos in the late evening light

We were then bumping along the track road at 60km/hour towards the hotel during sunset which turned out to be the best sunset so far with really pretty colours!  Rather than my usual sunset technique of tripod, filters and cable release I resorted to a fast shutter speed to see what I could get and ended up with one or two reasonable shots which came out with quite unusual dark silhouettes with the light just in the centre which I actually really like.

Full Speed Sunset

We stayed at Bilila Lodge Kempinski which was the best hotel/lodge so far!  Unfortunately I don't have any pictures (despite us taking LOADS of this amazing hotel) as my lovely new husband decided to test my love for him by losing the camera when we left Tanzania complete with the last 4 days of photos!  Gutted is not the word to describe how I felt!  Luckily it was the smaller, cheaper camera (although we did manage to recover that loss from the insurance) and not the SLR with all of the above photos on, but we lost all of the videos he'd been taking of the safari and the photos of us and the hotel and our most amazing room.

It was the first one we stayed in that had a bath, the bath was situated beside a huge window, outside the window was 'the wild'.

Please imagine the fun picture of me in the bath 

(fully dressed although that doesn't matter now) 

pointing to the giraffe and warthogs we could see outside!

This is what our bathroom was like (big window on right)
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While staying there (we had 2 nights there) we saw elephants, buffalo, warthogs, giraffes and baboons right outside our room.  The rooms were raised so we could stand on the balcony watching them wander past.  Amazing!  Our room was also extremely nice, modern and stylish with amazing black and white African prints on the wall which inspired our own display in the study.  Oh yeh and another 4 poster!  :)

Since we don't have our own photos which would obviously have been amazing - here are a few I have found around the web...

This could actually be our room, same layout and picture arrangement but different ceiling.
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Another room view (different ceiling and arrangement of pictures)
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It had a huge balcony looking out over the Serengeti and the balcony door was a massive sliding door which could open right across and could be left open with a mosquito barrier only so you could lie there all night listening to the animals if you wanted.

We went for a lovely buffet dinner (best buffet I've ever had!) which also had open windows over the pool area.

The restaurant is the top level lit up on the right
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Buffet area
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Dining area
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There was a selection of curries and curry accessories, all sorts of western style foods - pasta, pizza, cottage pie, pork loins, veg, salads, a huge array of sauces and condiments, desserts....etc.

We had a lovely evening and I was super excited to get back out on the plains again after our zoom through success!