Kenya and Tanzania -- Oct 2012 -- Part I of III

We left from here to the Tanzania border crossing point. Photos are the border crossing area were prohibited, but it wasn't very photogenic anyhow. We saw some animals on the way out of the park (and some past the park entrance), but did not slow down, that I recall.

This photo (and the next two) were tqaken on the way to the border and/or after we entered Tanzania. Not sure exactly where most of these were taken.

This one, again, shows the unpaved "buffer" area beside the road (pavedd road not included in the photo), then the wooden kiosk-like structures (in that buffer space), then the more permanent structures (beyond some apparently-required setback distance).

Not a great photo, but I ended up with few photos of people using the hand carts, even though we saw many of them.

Here people have their wares for sale on blankets on the ground, rather than having a wooden kiosk. Also, this is an example of the buffer area being used for parking.

Since I had so many elephant photos, couldn't pass the chance to get a photo of the symbol of the other US political party. Saw several of these, but none in the parks (that I recall). Notice this guy seems to be used as a pack animal.

We stopped at an almost-noncommercial-tourist Maasai village in Tanzania. FIrst few photos are them doing a song and dance (dance done by men involves some vertical jumping).

Several of them had sandals made of cut-up truck tires.

The "plaster" walls of this house are made using cattle dung. Apparently, the soil in this particular area does not have characteristics that enable it to be used as mud bricks or even as this type of plaster.

The framing inside the walls is made from a mat of woven acacia tree branches. The shape of some of the horizontal branches within the wall is visible in the form of ridges in the surface of the outer walls.

The foreground objects are handmade trinkets they had for sale. The background is a circular "corral" made of what seemed to be piled-up thorny acacia branches. This is for them to put their livestock in at night. There was a similar (but larger) fence made of these branches around the entire village.

I wrote (above) the branches "seemed to be piled-up". I SUSPECT the branches were (at least) loosely woven together (and might be arranged so the thorns tended to point outward). I looked at them very closely (ever the engineer geek -- or is it geen engineer?), but, if there was any kind of pattern in how these brances were arranged, I couldn't see it.

First national park we were to visit in Tanzania was Mayanara. However, we arrived too late in the afernoon to visit it on this day. We passed by the park entrance (and fair-sized town near the park entrance), then came back to the park the next day.

I believe these guys were near the entrance to the park (when we passed by that entrance on this afternoon).

These might be Olive Baboons

For much of this day (after entering Tanzania) we had been driving thru the Great RIft Valley (the Maasai village had been in that valley and the park is also in that valley). This lodge, however, is on a ridge that forms the western wall of the valley.

This lodge was different than most (of those we stayed at) in that it was not in the national park. Instead it was on a ridge overlooking the great rift valley. It overlooked the park (and a lot of land not in the park).

The park seemed relatively small. This was probably because much of the park area is the lake itself -- or, at this time of year (end of dry season) the dry, or semi-dry, lake bed.

Several of these "lodge" photos were taken the next day. They have been grouped here to try to keep the "story" from jerking around.

That's me. The hat was given to us at the beginning of the tour. I believe only two of us (out of the 15 in the group) actually wore them.

Main building exterior. The conical "thatched" roofs were an architectural feature. They were supposed to suggest a native hut of some type (but clearly were nothing like the Massai house in an earlier photo).

Again, the conical roof features (the one on the left not thatched).

Interior of the main building. The white structure at left is a fireplace. The hanging light fixtures are large woven baskets. The light fixtures around the edge of the room (at the top of the veritcal walls) are gourds of some type. The underside of the conical roof is a woven basket-like material.

This is the lobby bar area.

Again, the lobby bar. Each of the light-fixture baskets and gourds was unique.

Another bar area. Open-air seating areas (but mostly covered by a roof) were common in many of the Serena lodges (except for the one at Ngorongoro Crater, where we went next, which was the highest altitude one, where cooler weather is more frequent, I imagine).

The dining areas were similar in most lodges. Part of the dining area for this lodge is visible in the background at the right hand side of this photo.

Pool, The view is down into the great rift valley. Facing this direction that is a town on the valley floor, not the park.

There was a water feature near the entrance of the main lodge building. It included some pond and small "waterfalls".

Another view of the water feature.

This was taken the next day from the national park down in the rift valley. It was taken with a zoom lens, looking up at the lodge. I'm guessing we were at least a mile from the lodge at the point this was taken.

Guest rooms were in small individual "huts". There were four guest "units" per hut. Two at ground level, and two upstairs. I did not think to try to find out what the roofs were made of. They look "thatched," but it's probably a more permanent material.

One of our Vantage people looking down at me from his balcony.

Mayanara Serena Lodge.

This was a ground floor room, which had a patio. The upstairs room had a balcony above this. There were four guest rooms in each guest cottage.

Mayanara Serena Lodge.

Mayanara Serena Lodge.

Closet is behind dark doors.

Mayanara Serena Lodge.

Mayanara Serena Lodge.

The white curtain hanging on the left hand side of this photo is mosquito netting, It hung from a track embedded in the ceiling and (when pulled out) encircled both single beds in the room. It is visible in some of the other photos of the room interior.

Mayanara Serena Lodge.

Coming back to the room, after dinner, a frog was waiting outside the door to greet me.

This photo is from the patio of my room, looking roughly southward along the edge of the valley an the ridge.

Several of the building associated with the hotel had these conical roofs, inspired by native huts (the Serena lodges generally did NOT have cookie-cutter architecture). What we are looking at on the left side of the photo are the swimming pool for the hotel and the roof of the poolside bar (wihich may have had a change room in it too).

This photo was taken at dusk, the day we arrived.

Viewpoint was similar to the previous photo, but taken the next day (during daytime, not at dusk).

Looking in the direction, much of what is visible on the valley floor is the park The light-colored area at left center is the largely-dry lake bed. Just below the center of the photo (on either side of the trunk of the tree in the center) you can see the distant cliffs forming part of the west wall of the great rift valley.

Zoom lens shot. Taken from near the guest room.

Shows dry lake bed (in park). Also some of the distant cliffs (thru the morning haze).

Zoom lens shot. Taken from near the guest room.

Semi-dry lake bed at top of photo (with some residual pools of water). This was taken before we actually went to the park. I'd thought the animals (the liffe "dots" between the lake bed at the top and the forest at the bottom) might be zebra, etc. However, after we visited the park later in the day, I came to believe this particular area was land outside the park, and the "dots" are mostly cattle.

The lake bed is in the park. The "open" (unforested) portion of the park is probably to the right of the field of view of this photo. The forest at bottom might be in the park, I'm not sure.

Again, these shots were really taken the next day. They are grouped with the "lodge" photos to try to keep (sort of) related things together.

This is an attempt to resolve those "dots". As indicated before, I now believe most of these are cattle.

Lake bed (some of it containing water) is at the top.