365saturdays.org

Grand Conclusions

Russ — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 11:05:37 +0000

What are the main themes to share, after traveling for a year around the world and visiting 32 countries? The most obvious point is that travel is one of life’s most important and pleasurable activities. This year we experienced and shared amazing sights, delicious tastes, new stories, the growth and broadening of our perspectives in a dozen dimensions. Life lasts longer while you travel - every day creates as many memories as several normal days. There is much to celebrate about the world. So, get out there! We feel lucky to have had this chance. I appreciate the myriad factors that aligned in our lives for this year-long window of time to open, for us to be able to afford the trip, for the kids to be able and ready. We received massive assistance and help from what must have been thousands of people on this journey, chief among them Sam McClure and the guides who brought us through each day. The 365 Saturdays project met its goals and lived up to its name. We circled the globe. We created deep family memories and drew closer together. The kids learned intensely; we hope their year of rapid personal growth will help them to lead better lives. We learned to be organized and to manage with relatively few material possessions. We met some of our fears and conquered them. We experienced and enjoyed cultures that had seemed closed or mysterious to us, gaining first-hand impressions on every continent. We came away with the confidence that we could be anywhere in the world and still get along OK. If you ask Carter and Katherine what they took away from this year, they mention a few of the same themes. Being thankful for what they have. Ambition to work hard in school and to do something good in the world. The meaning of friendship and community. The importance of helping others. Appreciating life and the moment, because tomorrow you may be elsewhere. Sticking together as a family. Love for nature and concern for waste and pollution. Being open to new ideas across cultures and religions. Taking pleasure in words and numbers. The enjoyment of learning new skills. Above all, greater maturity and self-confidence. Gina was exactly in her element and could keep traveling forever. She writes so enjoyably about her experiences and has conquered her fear of flying. Let’s collectively hope that her many cooking lessons in exotic lands will bear fruit. During my personal journey, I washed away all of the stresses of E Ink and came back to a center point that is completely recharged. Midway through I began wanting to start a new venture or project, but restrained because the proper focus was the journey itself, not looking ahead. Those energies were poured into Road School and the blog and simply staying in the moment with senses fully outstretched. But it is clear that I am eager to start something new, even many new things. The combination of daily travel and time to read and reflect helped us take a greater interest in world affairs and how everyone is getting along. Some of the causes that now seem important are: (1) stabilizing the population growth of the world; (2) supporting women’s rights, education and economic equality; (3) helping people fight corruption in their governments; (4) avoiding severe income inequality here in the United States; and (5) helping America prosper as other nations grow rapidly and compete with us. Traveling abroad taught us about our own country as well. The rest of the world both loves and hates America. Many resent our wealth and seeming arrogance, our military presence, our cowboy ways, our wasteful use of fossil fuels, junk food and toxic finance. And yet, most people in the world are quite happy to meet Americans. Freedom is a big, positive value. Hollywood is popular around the globe. Americans are optimists. America is tolerant and multi-cultural which opens a potential bridge to all nations. Perhaps the highest compliment of America in the eyes of people in most other nations is that our country works. The phone, electricity and roads function as advertised. Snow and garbage are removed on schedule. You can get a high school diploma without the principal demanding a bribe. You can start a business rapidly. You can criticize the government openly. The mail is delivered. Disruptive labor actions are rare. Education is free. The police are positive members of the community and you can get a fair trial. The press is independent and keeps the politicians clean (relative to other countries). Election votes are counted honestly and politicians peacefully relinquish their office when they are voted out. The air is clean and the water drinkable. The list of countries with similar virtues is short, and they are all smaller, more homogenous populations easier to align. We must remember that a smoothly functioning country of 300 million free people is a great achievement and cannot be taken for granted. Here, more than in most countries, you are free to pursue your life in nearly any reasonable way and to convert your dreams into reality. So the final conclusion is this one: with full love, respect and admiration for the world outside our borders, it sure feels good to be an American at home.

So You Want to Tour the World

Russ — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 17:55:57 +0000

Great choice! You are in for the adventure of a lifetime. Let us share some lessons to make it easier: Planning 365 Days, What You Really, Really Need in Your Suitcase, Packing for Men, Health on the Road, Packing - the Technology. You can also look back HERE to see a detailed retrospective of the road schooling we did for Grades 4 and 7. Feel free to contact us with any thoughts or questions and have an amazing journey!

Where is Piggy in the USA?

Katherine — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 09:06:47 +0000

Piggy came HOME!

Paris Again

Katherine — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 09:06:45 +0000

Camryn (my age), Maggie (6), Jill (Mom) and Chris (Dad) Woods made our last days in Paris awesome. The parents chatted about endless super boring stuff while the kids played tons of games. The Woods were spending their summer in London and took a two hour train to meet us. We both stayed on the island in the 4^th district near Notre Dame. Chris could only stay two days before he had to go back to work so we crammed in as much as possible. The first day we ate breakfast at Ladurée then walked through the Tuilleries garden and jumped on trampolines. We saw the outside of Notre Dame and showed off our knowledge we got from an earlier Notre Dame tour we had last time. We didn’t go in because the line was far too long. Dinner was early and after that the kids played at our apartment. We then had a much needed sleep.

Next we climbed the Eiffel Tower. It was freezing but we made it up the 704 stairs. After having pizza and hot dogs at the top we made our way down and rode a carousel. Afterwards we had Maggie’s first cotton candy. We then made our way to the Louvre and saw Venus de Milo, Winged Victory, and Mona Lisa. On our way home we stopped on the bridge to see if the Eiffel tower would light up like it used to. It didn’t though because it was summer and the sky was too light. A tourist boat was floating by and we waved to it. Everyone waved back and a few girls screamed their greeting. A lady was doing a funny wave and Camryn did the same back. She then did a little dance and Camryn mirrored her. They passed under the bridge and we ran across to the other side just in time to catch them coming out. Everyone was laughing and it was one of my favorite experiences in Paris. Dinner was crepes, cold cuts, a baguette, and some fruit.

Chris left early the next morning. Then we got to have another lesson with Blandine, our tutor. We got to learn some new phrases and recap what we had forgotten.

I was so happy to see Blandine she is a really great teacher. She is super patient and extremely nice and she has amazing lesson ideas that are fun. For instance she had a contest and she would hold up signs with different numbers and we would see who could say it the fastest in French. Sadly Carter won! Then we went to the Opera house. Dad played tour guide and we had lunch at an Italian restaurant much to my mom’s annoyance. We then split up and saw Harry Potter 7 part 2! That means we have seen Harry Potter 4, 5, 6, 7 part 1, and 7 part 2 all in Paris! The movie ended at 9:00 and we trudged home extremely tired.

We spent the only sunny day which was the last one in Luxembourg gardens. We spent the day playing on the playground and went on the carousel. Next we went shopping for back to school clothes and got some really awesome stuff. We had an extreme packing morning and we are actually on the plane which taking off right now. Natick, here we come!

On the Beach

Russ — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 14:47:33 +0000

After finishing up the African mainland, the 365 trip around the world was nearly complete. It was a bit tedious to get out of Nairobi because the airport staff were on a "slowdown" strike and the lines stretched for hours. Happily we left plenty of time and the flight over is a quick one. We had reserved a long break at the end for rest and recovery in the Seychelles, off the coast of Kenya. But we shortened the stay when we realized our friends the Woods would be in London for the summer. The flight back to Boston was already scheduled to stop at Charles de Gaulle and it would be simple to meet them there. How poetic to end the 365 trip in Paris! Still the final plan called for six full days of "doing nothing" in the Seychelles at a sumptuously appointed Four Seasons resort. The staff at the hotel delivered service excellence in all respects, highlighted by numerous thoughtful touches. It was space to catch our breath, reflect on the journey, sort African photos, and write blogs. There were also a few days of pure mindless books, TV, movies, Facebook, listening to the waves, visiting the gorgeous spa, fooling around with a volleyball and health equipment, and dipping in the pool. The whole family warmed to the task, except for Gina who was impatient and ready to go touring again within 48 hours of arrival. Stuck on the beach is her idea of jailtime! She spent the last few days poking around with a cooking class and a trip to the market and is greatly relieved to be headed to Paris tomorrow.

Where is Piggy in the Seychelles?

Katherine — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 08:53:40 +0000

After such a long trip, Piggy is relaxing on which island in the Seychelles? Hint: it's the biggest one Send your guess by email to katherine@365saturdays.org

African Safari Highlights

Russ — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 14:53:02 +0000

Safari is the most special form of travel we encountered. It brings you to the edge: remote location, special field equipment, expert guidance, real personal risk, high daily cost. In return you are guaranteed a once-in-a-lifetime experience. You escape from civilization and travel back to see nature the way it was centuries ago, before mankind overran the planet. We traveled to three countries and visited two safari camps in each, covering a wide variety of terrain. Our family trekked into the wilderness about 40 times – typically in motorized jeeps but also by boat, horse, and foot – mostly at sunrise and at sunset with a siesta at mid-day. We knew there would be small planes to move between camps; we did not realize that the planes have to land and take off in short hops to reach the interim camps as well. Safari air travel is much like taking a local train. We had more than 25 flights in tiny planes, including six flights on one day when we went from the remote Serengeti to remote Northern Kenya. On the ground there were tedious times as well: violent bouncing in jeeps, shivering before dawn and after dusk, washing laundry in sinks, hoarding battery power, beating off flying insects such as the armored heavy fighter known as the tse tse fly, and picking off ticks one day in Kenya. But the payoff is there. These locations are teeming with life. We saw so many different animals and plants that we had to carry books just to check them off. (The easiest was seeing 15,000 wildebeest on migration – CHECK!) We saw the Big Five (lion, leopard, rhino, buffalo, elephant) and even the Little Five (babies of each). There were hundreds more species to see and to hear about. And we made time to find evidence of prehistoric man and to learn about local tribes along the way. Each sighting was accompanied by camera clicks – well over 10,000 of those across 21 safari days. Overwhelming to sort! What stands out across all of that is not a list of animals or the high number of photos. The best times came when we stopped for a while and quietly watched animal behavior unfold. Here are the highlights:

South Africa – Capetown - Petting a soft furry cheetah and a wet blubbery seal - African penguins waddling along the beach and crouching over chicks

Botswana – the Kalahari desert - Driving up as close as we dared to a glorious male black-maned lion… then a chill in the groin as we realized there was a female lion hidden even closer behind us. She eventually walked away, rippling with muscle. - Springbok jumping high in the air for joy as they ran - Seeing Oryx turn en masse to stare at threats as if they had freaky telepathy - A female cheetah who chased antelope across a plain - A male cheetah crouched low in the grass, drooling, followed by a chase - Two male giraffes fighting each other - winding up again and again to swing their horned heads at each other like two knights with morning stars - Watching ostriches dance for mating - Meeting bushmen who knew good English and could explain bush lore in volumes of detail - Finding lion prints in the camp that had not been there the night before

Botswana – the Okavango Delta - The mock-charge of a startled mother elephant (angry violent head shakes and ear flapping) - Our first glimpse of the vibrant lilac-chested roller, especially the joyous turquoise wings in flight - A hammerkop bird rinsing a poisonous frog repeatedly to remove the slime and then Yum! - Boating deep into the wetlands to discover the tiny jewel-like malachite Kingfisher, clinging to a reed - A fascinating nature walk with Allen to learn about poops, prints, insects and plants - Warthogs crouching on forelimbs to reach tiny tender roots – later to run squealing, tails high - A hyena nursing its own cub while pushing away a cub from another mother - A baby leopard joyfully greeting and jumping all over its mother after she returned at day’s end

Tanzania – NgoroNgoro Crater - Zebras scratching on the ground - A vervet monkey seeing his own reflection - Two Grant’s gazelles head-butting furiously and repeatedly, until one of them was pushed – just a few inches at a time – right across the road in front of us and finally out of view into the trees on the other side - Seeing 3.6 million year old footprints with a big toe midway between monkey and human - Visiting a Maasai village and hearing their songs and watching their jumping

Tanzania – the Serengeti - Sleeping in a tent and hearing lion calls, baboon shouts, zebra barks, and leopard coughs outside at night - Seeing the annual Northern migration where wildebeest march in single file lines stretching out of sight across vast grasslands - Watching 50 vultures fight each other to jointly devour a wildebeest carcass and learning about their layered flight patterns that form a search pyramid over vast regions - Seeing a troop of 20-odd baboons intelligently form a circle to trap a baby Thompson gazelle and then send in several fast baboons to run it down and kill it - Hearing zebras bark and watching them "hug"

Kenya – Lewa - Healthy young lion clubs at play - Riding a horse to within a few feet of giraffes and seeing a newborn giraffe just 2 weeks old (followed by glorious hot breakfast in the field and a camel ride home) - The lawnmower action of a white rhino as it grazes - Gina saw another ostrich dance and mate – this time the Somali ostrich - Dik-diks scampering cutely like furry rabbits - Holding prehistoric stone basalt tools, 1.5 million years old, and finding your hand really fits

Kenya – Sarara - Staying at a small safari camp that was alone on a million acres of land - Sleeping under the stars on an ancient dry riverbed with only a mosquito net for cover - Tracking leopards at night by ear and spotlight - Walking in the semi-desert sands with a Samburu elder and learning to fish for scorpions and baboon spiders and to cut our own toothbrushes from trees - At camp: petting a baby kudu, playing with a smart spring spaniel, listening to hyrax and fruit bats explore our open air house while we stayed in bed at night, seeing elephants drink at the waterhole, watching squadrons of hornbills fly about - Seeing the outrageously glorious outfits, decorative scars and piercings of the unspoilt Samburu tribe at the Singing Wells, a local village and a regional market - Learning about their highly developed belief systems and culture that enable survival in the harsh Kenyan desert - Watching a goat held and swiftly slaughtered on the grounds of the Samburu market, with a bowl under the neck to catch the warm blood for a beverage

Kenya – Elephant Manor and Giraffe House - Giraffe Manor where rare Rothschild giraffes put their heads into the windows. Feeding them by hand and feeling their rough tongue on our hands and faces. - The kids and Gina watched baby elephants put to sleep under blankets for the night – they suck their trunk tips like a thumb!

Giraffe Manor

Gina — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 13:37:02 +0000

Imagine an ivy-clad turn-of-the –century colonial manor house surrounded by acres of unspoiled land. Inside, you can take tea in the drawing room by the fire or settle in for a lovely breakfast beside the windows overlooking the grounds. Next, imagine a 17’ tall giraffe strolls up and sticks his head inside the breakfast room, effectively asking “where’s mine?” You are at the Giraffe Manor in Nairobi, Kenya. From the moment Sam suggested this property I knew it was going to be one of the best all year; the combination of old world charm and my favorite animal up close were unbeatable. After checking in, we were led to the second floor and shown our rooms. They were beautifully appointed with canopied four poster beds and period fireplaces. We giggled when we were taught how to operate the windows: near the opening mechanism was a pretty silver bucket filled with giraffe snacks (little pellets made of grass and salt). We were told to keep an eye out for long-necked visitors. If they came to call, we were encouraged to indulge them with as many treats as we liked. The buckets would be constantly replenished. We had seen many, many giraffe while on safari but had never been able to get very close. We learned that there are three distinct types: the Masai (the most common), the reticulated (rare), and the Rothschild (with a total population of only 700, highly endangered). The best way to tell them apart is by their markings. The Masai giraffe is the one we see in zoos at home, the reticulated is darker with a more striking and clearly delineated geometric pattern, and the Rothschild has a creamy undercoat with no markings at all below the knee. All are very timid animals and usually freeze then run at the sound of an engine. However, the eight Rothschild giraffe at the Manor are not shy at all. The first adoptee, Daisy, had been orphaned and hand-reared by the original owners. Consequently, she thought nothing of coming up to the house and nudging her nose inside for a loving stroke or a tasty treat. The others who were brought or born there later simply followed her lead and now all come in regular and close contact with the staff and guests.

And I do mean close. I was a little dubious as Giles, one of the managers, encouraged us all to “kiss” the giraffe. He explained that we simply had to place a longish pellet between our lips and then tilt our heads up and wait for the smooch. Well, I loved the idea in theory but was a little squeamish at the idea of giraffe drool. Plus, I hardly knew this giraffe. In the end, though, we all went for it. I must confess that a giraffe looks really, really big when its huge head is looming over you. And its eyelashes are incredibly Iong! I squeezed my eyes shut at the last minute and waited for the slobbery aftermath. To my surprise and delight, the kiss was on the dry side. A giraffe tongue is blue/black and very long. It also feels a little scratchy, like fine sandpaper. I would definitely kiss a giraffe again. I wouldn’t get close to the other resident, though. A troupe of the fattest wart hogs we had ever seen ran in and out of the giraffe’s legs hoping to steal any dropped pellets. They might be cute in a scruffy sort of way but they can really hurt you so we kept a respectful distance. On our last day, the kids and I made a pilgrimage to the nearby Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage. There, we saw 14 teeny tiny baby elephants that had all lost their mothers to poaching or disease. The orphans are looked after for two years here, after which they are transferred to dedicated release centers in the large conservancies where they stay for another eight years before they are successfully re-introduced to the wild.

We could not believe how very small they were and how incredibly human they seemed. They trotted in from the field in parade formation, racing to their beds where they knew their keepers waited with full bottles. We watched as they guzzled gallons of milk, making happy slurping noises all the while. Their keepers then talked to them, stroking and scratching them, as they prepared mattresses and blankets for their naps. We fell in love with a little 9 month old named Naipoki, who had actually been rescued by our Sarara Camp hosts Jeremy and Katie! When Naipoki had finished her bottles, she nudged her keeper’s arm until he finally relented and let her suck on his fingers, just like a human pacifier. He then urged her onto her mattress, where she lay down and he covered her up. We watched wide-eyed as she tucked the tip of her trunk into her mouth and began to suck on it. Slowly she closed her eyes and fell asleep. I wondered if elephants could dream and, if so, what Naipoki dreamed about. I dreamed of coming back.

Poops and Prints

Russ — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 04:51:13 +0000

One of the coolest parts of safari is learning how to track animals. Our first few safaris we just sat back and watched the guide search, sometimes for hours. After a while though, we realized we were missing a lot of action and we started asking tons of questions. For those who like puzzles, tracking is one of the most challenging and interesting parts of safari. It all comes down to this: how do you find a rare animal in miles of open wilderness?

One of the best ways to learn more about tracking is to walk on the ground with the guides. We got to do this with Allen in the Okavango Delta and several times with Mark at Sarara. Both had grown up in the exact area where they were now guiding and shared a treasury of knowledge.

The first step is context - knowing the terrain and the habits of the animals. Their location can change by time of day. For example: Lions and leopards are nocturnal, but cheetah are day hunters. In the daytime, lions nap under a tree or in the grasses so go to an open area. Cheetah like wide open plains with tall grasses where they can hide, and they often sit at the treeline scoping out the action. So drive along the treeline. Leopards prefer lightly wooded areas along ravines where there are tall dense trees available for hiding and pouncing. So you need a ravine. And while they hunt at night, they can sometimes be seen in dusk walking in the open, when they go for a drink of water before the hunt. Other species have their various habits as well. Once you have gotten to the right terrain at the right time of day, it is tempting to just drive around, but you can improve the odds by watching the ground for tracks.

Elephants leave massive prints; the front foot is round and the back oval, so you can tell its direction by which overlays which, or by finding the indent of the toe.

Hyenas have prints the same size as the big cats, but dogs like hyenas and jackals only have 2 lobes at the rear of the paw and they always have clawmarks. Big cats have 3 lobes at the rear of the paw; the cheetahs claws do not retract so they are the only cat with clawmarks. Above, two cats and one hyena print... can you tell? The lion is in middle, leopard on the right and hyena on the left.

Antelope have two toes coming to a point; giraffes have a bigger print two toes semi-rounded.

Baboons have a tiny humanesque footprint and an impression that looks like the knuckles of a hand. Porcupines have tiny pawprints overlaid by straight lines where their quills drag. One helpful factor – the dirt roads frequented by safari jeeps are covered by soft sand and are popular jogging paths for the animals. If the track is recent, you can tell when a creature has crossed the road and where they left. The recency of the print can be determined by its depth (the wind levels all) and by whether other prints lie on top. Now the gross part – many times the clue you see is not the print, which is after all only a faint monochrome impression in the dirt. Rather, the clue is a pile of scat or dung, or as many professional safari guides choose to call it, poo. These two are distinctive. The elephant poo is the standout of the bunch, each poo a good 3 inches across and stacked in large piles. (While the elephant eats tons of vegetable matter, it only digests a fraction of the food content and thus its poo is a food source for other species. Some plants, such as acacia, produce seed in hard pods that would not even sprout unless the casing is partially digested and weakened by the elephant, thus ensuring the seed starts life surrounded by a healthy portion of fresh manure. Warthogs nose through the elephant poo looking for seeds). Elephants only have one stomach and so the vegetable fibers are quite visible in the poo. By comparison antelope are ruminants, meaning they have 4 stomachs and chew their cud. Their poo is therefore a solid consistent mass and if you break it apart, which you can do safely as they do not harbor the kind of dangerous bacteria that a meat-eater can harbor in its poo, you will see very fine chopped pieces of vegetable. The antelopes leave a pellet-like poo. They vary in size along with the size of the antelope.

Impala leave bits of pellet strewn everywhere, but they have a special trick. If they want to mark their territory, they can hold the pellets in and squish a bunch of them into a mass, which then deposit stacked up like stones in a cairn.

The dik dik is the smallest antelope and has even smaller pellets. The dik dik lays its poo in a midden – which means they also poop on the same spot of ground, thus also marking their territory. Fascinatingly, just after leaving a fresh pile of pellets, the dik dik scratches a line through it showing the direction it will go next. If its mate or offspring or other dik dik sees the scratch in the fresh poo, it can follow. If a dik dik sees that the poo is old, then it knows the first dik dik never returned alive! In that case, the dik dik runs in another direction. In this manner the species co-operates to avoid unsafe regions. (The defect to this strategy is that a predator who sees a midden need only wait for the dik dik to return. To account for this, the dik dik are extremely careful when approaching the midden and have to wait a long time to check before they can finally use the bathroom. This may explain why they are so twitchy when you see them). Herbivore poo is brown and full of fibers and generally fades into dust. It lasts longer in the desert though, because the animals must retain every drop of water. Even for the same species, the pooh is smaller and harder – even rocklike in the case of the giraffe.

Poo of carnivores is black because it contains blood and older carnivore poo gets a fuzzy mold. You can see the hair of an impala kill in the picture of leopard poo above. And yet one more color – the hyena poo can be bright white! That is because hyenas have powerful jaws and can eat bones – and are one of the few animals that can digest those bones and poop them out normally. This plays a role in the ecosystem for animals who cannot otherwise find calcium sources. For example, in the Okavango Delta tortoises get the calcium for their shells by eating the hyena poop. A corollary to dung would be other strong scents – an excited giraffe leaves a wide-area musk that is difficult to ignore! Now that you have learned about poops and prints, go back and look at the picture at the very top. Can you figure out what they are? We saw this mix of prints at the Serengeti near the airport and Cornelius helped us identify them. The answers are at the bottom of the post. OK, you are in the right territory in the right time and you confirm that an animal is within a few minutes driving distance, because you can see its recent print or poo. A sighting is imminent, but not definite. You have used your brain, tracking eyes and nose. Now it is time to use your ears. The deep heavy breathing of a lion – huuu huuu hua hua hua – is distinctive and is one way they mark territory. It can be heard up to 5km away. Hyena laughs and howls slide up and down the scale eerily like a trombone. If you hear a lion roar and then hyena howls then something interesting is up. A leopard cough – like the rasp of a saw – is one sound you do NOT want to hear – it means they are right next to you! There are many prey creatures out there who sound an alarm when they notice a predator. Baboons yell, zebras bark (really!), impalas cough. Even bird bystanders can help. Several species are known for squawking loudly to alert nearby animal life when they see a predator. We watched our guides in Sarara use bird cries to find a leopard stalking through dense brush in the dark of night, by listening carefully. Now you are close. You still have to find the creature, usually camouflaged and hiding somewhere in dense bush or tall grass! There is no alternative finally to patience and careful observation. Sometimes only a tail or paw is visible. Sometimes the animal pokes a head up out of the grass.

Your patience will be greatly extended though if you can find likely prey in the vicinity who are also looking nervously around. A group of antelope are nervous if they have stopped eating and waving their tails against the flies, and are instead huddled together staring at the nearby brush. Oryx will magically stare right at a predator, which is like a spotlight for safaris. If you are in the right place, at the right time, with corroborating prints or poo, and you can interpret the animal alarms in the ambient sounds and see nervous prey, it is time to turn off the jeep. Wait and see. P.S. Answer for the fresh tracks near Serengetti airport: Mirabou stork, jackal, hippo; scat of Impala; tire treads

Staying at Sarara

Gina — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 14:54:13 +0000

The last stop on our safari journey was Sarara, a gorgeous lodge tucked away in the heart of the Matthews Range north of Mount Kenya. We had six full nights here, plenty of time to view the abundant wildlife and to learn about the Samburu people to whom these lands belong. The camp is the only establishment within almost one million acres; to say it is remote is an understatement. We were warmly welcomed by our hosts Katie and Jeremy, and their dog Saiwa, and then led to our home-away-from home. It was a beautiful cottage set apart from the lodge and other guest tents. It took me a few moments to register that it had absolutely no walls; it was completely open to the great outdoors and all that lives there. I tried to seem nonchalant as I casually enquired if anything ever made its way inside. “Nothing much beyond the occasional rock hyrax and fruit bat,” apologized our hosts. They sounded genuinely sorry that nothing larger or more interesting could be promised. However, they rapidly assured us that we had a very good chance of spotting dik diks (the tiniest species of antelope), elephants, and the occasional African buffalo on the front lawn. The front lawn was close enough, thank you very much. So, I should not have been surprised when three nights later Russ woke me with a start: “Do you hear that?” he whispered. I sure did. It sounded as if someone—or something—were ripping up great swaths of grass and then chomping in my ear. I swear I could distinctly hear each and every grind of tooth upon blade, but then again, I’ve always had a super-sensitive ear when it comes to rude mouth noises. “What do you think it is?” I asked, sitting up and squinting into the ink-black night. “It’s eating grass; that means it’s an herbivore, right?” He wasn’t sure what it was but decided to find a light switch to investigate further. He made his way out from under the mosquito net canopy and stumbled into the bathroom. By the time he flipped the switch, the noise—and the creature that made it—were gone. We decided it must have been a buffalo. The tracks we saw the next morning confirmed our hunch.

Yet those tracks were nothing compared to the ones we saw just two days later. Mark, our fantastic guide, came excitedly toward the house: “Did you see? Did you see?” We had no idea what he was talking about. It was barely 7:00 am and we had not had our first cup of coffee yet. As I poured the mugs, he expounded: “The leopard came right through the house, look!” I nearly dropped the pot. “What did you just say?” “The leopard prints, look, they are very clear. They come right up the path, turn here into the house, where it must have crossed, and then they pick up again here outside the kids’ room.” At his last words I darted into the kids’ room to be sure they were still indeed there and intact. They were. “Seriously?!” we asked. “It just came right in?!” I was incredulous and slightly indignant. Mark just smiled. “The leopard will never, never, ever bother a human unless it is provoked. You were not in danger.” “Well, that’s a relief,” I said as I gave him a wobbly smile. As if that close encounter with the natural world were not enough, Jeremy and Katie encouraged us to camp out one night. “I’m not much of a camper,” I confessed. No problem, they assured us, every detail would be taken care of; all we needed was a sense of adventure. Ooooh—kaaaaay, we said. We’d give it a try. What was the worst that could happen? We tried not to answer that question as we left for the Great Outdoors. We drove for about an hour, spotting elephant, giraffe, antelope, and dik diks all along the way. Then Mark proposed we get out and walk the last little stretch. Justin, the park ranger assigned to us, was armed and would escort us and it wasn’t really very far to the camp site. Mind you, it was now dusk—the precise time when predators emerge and everything else goes into hiding. All of my senses were tingling as we hopped out of the Rover and began to stroll down the middle of the empty riverbed. Just two nights earlier we had seen a leopard walking this precise path. Were we crazy?

I thought so until we rounded the bend and I could make out a blazing fire and half a dozen figures. Camp had been set up and it was stunning. Robert was there to greet us with his huge signature smile and a glass of wine. We investigated our “rooms” for the night: three transparent pup tents stood on tarpaulins with side tables and little wash basins on campaign stands. This was so cool---you could actually see through the tent, which meant that the constellations were never going to look better. We pulled our chairs close to the fire and began to chat with Mark and Robert while we waited for dinner. Mark, the older of the two, was an Elder while Robert held the position of Warrior. For the Samburu, these social roles hold clear and crucial meaning: the elders are older and wiser and help to guide and govern the village, the warriors’ sole job is to protect it. Both men are extremely knowledgeable, fluent in English, and kind, kind, kind to our family. We asked them, “So, are there any special traditions around birth and death for the Samburu?” And that single question led to more than an hour of conversation and more learning than we could ever have dreamt: there we were sitting around the fire, shadows of the flames flickering over our faces, as Mark drew images in the sand with a stick—illustrating his explanations of the traditions of his ancestors precisely the way his ancestors always had. We learned about sacred rituals and age-old beliefs, and then ate a fabulous dinner. We fell asleep under the stars listening to the sounds of hyena and monkey howling. I made a mental note to thank Jeremy and Katie profusely for one of the most magical evenings of all our 365.