An Africa odyssey

drron · Sunday at 2:56 PM

Those porters really can earn their money. We saw the GORILLAS IN Bwindi. Mrsdrron wanted us to call off the trip as she was in a moon boot. got in touch with the hotel and they replied that they had a Sedan Chair so sh would be able to see the gorillas. There though the start point for the gorillas was just across the road from our accommodation. The sedan chair was an airline seat connected to 2 large poles. We had 12 porters. They carried Mrsdrron 4 at a time. Mrsdrron was convinced she would hold everyone up. We started and her porters ran to the place where a new lot of 4 took over. The rest of our group couldn't keep up with her. They got a much bigger tip than suggested.

JohnM · Sunday at 4:27 PM

Next morning driving through spic ’n span Kigali to KGL at about 0630h.

Strange how the flight path got picked up near the Rwanda/Kenya border.

Back to the Four Points at NBO to chill for the rest of the day and overnight before our flight to Mt Kilimanjaro airport (JRO) in Tanzania the next afternoon.

On a warm afternoon, a swim in the rooftop pool was in order, followed by a beer or two and dinner in the roof top bar/resto.

JohnM · Sunday at 4:30 PM

Our bird NBO-JRO went tech before take-off, so we were delayed by over two hours. Not good timing, as were hit the deck in JRO just as two or three big birds from Europe lobbed in. Immigration was a zoo and just incredibly slow processing each person. For a country that is such a huge tourism destination, it puzzles me. The simply don’t make it easy getting a visa or entering the country.

We then had an hour drive to our hotel near Arusha. Fortunately, the next day was free, so we could chill before setting off on our Serengeti safari.

African sausage tree and coffee. The hotel site was once a coffee plantation.

JohnM · Sunday at 6:46 PM

Then safari time. First stop, Ngorongoro Crater for two nights.

Our lodge was perched on the rim of the crater.

JohnM · 2026-09-28T19:28:48+1000

Next morning we awoke to heavy fog around the crater rim. It’s obviously a usual occurrence as there was Spanish moss on many of the trees. Today was to be our full-day outing down into the crater. As we went down, it became apparent that the fog formed only around the crater rim. Or, probably more accurately, the general cloud layer was at allow enough altitude to cover the crater rim.

There is a one-way road down and another back up.

It wasn’t weaver bird nesting time, so the nests were falling into disrepair.

And on the crater floor, 600m (2000ft) below the rim. The crater floor is about 1800m (6000ft) above sea level, so no surprise that the rim is often in the clouds. The crater is about 20km across and covers about 260sq km. It’s the world’s largest inactive, intact and unfilled volcanic caldera, so it is not a crater at all. It formed about 2.5m years ago when a volcano collapsed inward.

JohnM · 2026-09-28T19:43:17+1000

Wildebeest, zebras and bustard. Crested cranes.

The lion appears to have left some scraps for the vultures.

The cloud began to lift about mid-morning.

JohnM · 2026-09-28T22:26:52+1000

Picnic lunch stop.

Someone has their eye on the warthogs. But no luck. The warthogs quite literally high-tailed it.

The lions re-grouped and moved towards the lake, impervious to the throng of vehicles. A lone antelope grazing on a spit of land in the lake got the fright of its life and bolted for the open plain.