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Isalo National Park

Posted by Mark Sullivan on June 15, 2018
Posted in: Africa, Madagascar. Leave a Comment

There’s Jim on the edge of the canyon

Our primary destination in Southern Madagascar was Isalo National Park. We finally reached here after a week, including four good days of driving from Antananarivo. Here we witnessed what one comes to Madagascar for — beautiful scenery peppered with exotic flora and fauna that you just won’t see anywhere else in the world.

In the week we’ve been traveling South in Madagascar, we’ve passed through innumerable villages bursting with activity

On the right is Bio, our driver this past week. We don’t usually hire a driver over an extended period, but this worked out really well. Bio is a very good driver, is super pleasant and accommodating, and gave us a lot of confidence that nothing too crazy would happen as we explored these really remote areas. As we passed through the town of Ihosy he unexpectedly announced that his dad was passing through as well, so we stopped briefly to say hello!

Our lodge near Isalo was a lovely spot with dramatic boulders and horses at pasture

The landscape took a very different turn as we approached Isalo and reached a broad, warm plateau of scrub

We began our hike in the area where the plateau met the upper edges of deserty-looking canyons

Here is one of the unique — and poisonous — plants growing in the park here.

Speaking of poison, this sinister little fellow is a scorpion, and that white tip on the far right is the poisonous part

This is a closeup of some kind of indigenous caterpillar getting ready to build a cocoon and become a beautiful moth

I bet you can’t even distinguish the weird, long, stick-shaped insect hiding out in the center of this pic. Don’t know how our guide ever spotted him.

On the first day of hiking in Isalo National Park we found this stunning little oasis

Jim decides that water is just too tempting

Jim takes the plunge. I jumped in as well but only lasted about 60 seconds in this frigid water. But the northern Minnesotan stayed in plenty long enough for a good pic.

A native species of aloe with bright orange flowers

More weird insects

And surely you didn’t think we’d get through a hiking day without a lemur? Here we came across a new variety we haven’t seen. He might have been called a white lemur, but I wouldn’t swear by it.

Our first day of hiking was a long one, including a “picnic” lunch in the forest. We were not quite expecting the lavish spread they put on for us in a little clearing, with lemurs watching from all sides. This is just the salad we started with, and it had the most amazing dressing.Jim was very proud that little bottle of wine he’d snagged on the flight to Madagascar. It somehow felt appropriate to have wine on the hike in this former French colony.

And then they somehow whipped up these amazing zebu brochettes and a heaping plate of sautéed veggies

At lunch we were surrounded by ring-tailed lemurs, mostly chasing each other and running around in the trees. This guy checked us out pretty closely.

Here we are on the second hiking day, exploring the Canyon des Makis. At the bottom of narrow walls, 1,000 feet deep, is a little green paradise of rocks, flowing water, and lush exotic greenery.

Looking up through the deep canyon walls

There’s me making my way through the Canyon des Makis, followed by our guide

On the way out of the park we came across a very serious rum making operation

Maasai Mara

Posted by Mark Sullivan on June 6, 2018
Posted in: Kenya. 2 comments

A little bit of local entertainment with our sundowners. As the performers chant, the men take turns jumping as part of a competition to show the women who can jump the highest, and who is thus the most virile.

Giraffes are cool to look at. Here is one of my way too many photos of them.

Maasai Mara is the small piece of the Serengeti that is located in Kenya. So we continued our quest to see all the various big game animals and many of their smaller friends.

About that search for a leopard: We did indeed manage to find a leopard here — kind of, sort of. Our guide, Sophie, was tipped off by another guide about his whereabouts. He was up in a tree, but the first guide got his vehicle stuck in the mud trying to get close to that tree. Sophie miraculously spotted the leopard up in the tree from a huge distance and helped us all to locate him with our binoculars. He wasn’t much more than a blob in a tree with a wisp of a swinging tail below. No possible way to get a photo. So I now feel like I’ve seen about 4-1/2 of the big 5.

After nine days of safari drives, I’m pretty content with all the cool things we’ve seen. And pretty ready to not do any more long safari drives for a while.

From here it will be a short flight to Nairobi, where we’ll get to reconnect with Jim and even all have dinner together again. Then the Smiths will head back to their real lives in Washington, DC (Dan and Lorraine), New York City (Ruby), and Madison, Wisconsin (Angus). And Jim and I will head on to our next big adventure on the remote African island of Madagascar.

You might think the departure lounge for our flight from the Tanzania/Kenya border to Maasai Mara looks a lot like an open-air gazebo in the middle of nowhere

The view of the Serengeti from our lodge

These cute little guys are rock hyraxes, and they would be hanging out on the rocks next to our breakfast spot each morning. While they look somewhat like large rodents, their closest relative in the animal kingdom is actually the elephant.

Enjoying all the wildlife Maasai Mara has to offer. That’s an impala on the left and a water buck on the right.

A topi surveying the vast landscape

Seeing the lions in the wild here is sublime

Hippos spend their day mostly under water to avoid the sun. But since they can’t breathe down there they eventually come up for breath or to yawn or for a big snort.

Lorraine and Ruby watching the hippo fun

Another head pops up and checks us out

A topi shows off the dirt on his horns. The male topis actually stick their horns in the dirt to make them appear bigger and more attractive to the ladies.

The grey-crowned crane is actually the national bird of neighboring Uganda and appears on their flag. We saw lots of them here, usually in pairs. And that’s an elephant in the background, in case you missed it.

Warthogs don’t get a great rap, but we found them peppy and cute.

Local naturalist, Fred, gave us a tour of some of the fascinating plant and animal life taking place immediately around our lodge

Nobody messes with the crocodile

Our wonderful guide, Sophie, waits patiently for the road to clear

Ostriches relaxing. The female, on the left, is mostly brownish, while males have black feathers and reddish heads an legs. The males turn really bright red when they are ready to mate. Makes them look embarrassed.

There’s nothing like a good roar from a male lion to let you know who’s in charge out here

Black rhinos are few in number, somewhat isolated, and hard to get close to. We watched this guy with the binoculars for a long time before he moved a little closer and gave us a nice clear profile shot.

The highlight of our drives here is Maasai Mara was spotting a cheetah, high on a ridge, then watching him unexpectedly walk right toward us and put on a nice show

On our last day at this lodge they gave us a tour of their huge, beautiful garden, where a lunch bursting with fresh produce awaited us

The Serengeti

Posted by Mark Sullivan on June 3, 2018
Posted in: Tanzania. 2 comments

Easy to fall in love with the lions here

The Serengeti ecosystem is a 12,000-square-mile region in Tanzania (plus a small part in Kenya) that boasts 70 species of large mammals and 500 species of birds. It is especially known for its huge population of lions.

In our previous stop, at the Ngorongoro Crater, we had seen 4 of the “Big 5” game animals. I’m not a huge fan of these largely arbitrary tourist obsessions, but you can’t help but get a little caught up in it.

We had seen elephants nice and close up. We’d seen a couple rhinos, albeit from quite a distance (plus Jim and I had just seen white rhinos very close up in Zimbabwe). We saw plenty of Cape buffalo. And we did technically see a couple lions, though they were at a distance and were largely buried in grass. The fifth, who still eludes us, is the leopard. Those guys are largely nocturnal and do an awfully good job of hiding in the grass.

Our guide asked what we wanted to see, so we told him we needed a leopard, and that we really did need to get a better look at the lions. He assured us we’d see so many lions we’d get sick of them. And we did see a LOT of lions. At some points our car would be surrounded by them — lions of all sizes, old lions, baby lions, mother lions, adolescents. They would gather in big groups, playing, rolling around, cuddling, licking each other. Impossibly cute!

But still no leopard 🙁

There’s a reason they call him King of the Jungle

We’ve also really upped our game in the elephant area, coming across huge herds with dozens and dozens of elephants

These are the Cape buffalo. We often see them in very large herds too. They really like to stare at us.

Lots of giraffes to look at, too

Plenty of zebras

The landscape is really stunning, too

And I’m seeing it all with nice people — that’s me with Angus, Ruby, Dan, and Lorraine

Some hippos just barely peeking out

Amazing bird life here, too. These beauties are lilac-breasted rollers.

Lions chilling on the edge of the road

Giraffes sometimes look at us with curiosity

This is a secretary bird. They are cool looking birds that eat snakes. When they kill the snakes they jump up and down in some way that makes it look like they are typing, and hence the name.

Hyenas have kind of a bad reputation, but I find them quite cute. I think they need better marketing.

After the long game drives we relax in our sprawling four-bedroom house with a pool overlooking a vast stretch of the Serengeti. Our house was part of a spectacular lodge, called Singita Sasakwa, which was also home to Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi for two of our four nights.

Another lovely sunset

Here is an elephant showing the baby how to rip apart a tree with her trunk, stomp the branches apart with her feet, then chew up the good parts and spit out the stems

And did I mention the lions?