Kenya & Zanzibar - Glorious Animals and Gorgeous Architecture

My choice for our next trip was Egypt, figuring that it was safe enough and cheap because more timid souls wouldn’t go at this time. Glenna’s choice was safari. I won last year, so this year it was her turn. After doing a ton of research, we picked Kenya. The company we chose to make the arrangements was Gamewatchers/Porini which was a great choice and one which I would recommend to anyone considering safari. Some people expressed surprise that we were willing to go to Africa. But Africa is huge, and Kenya in the east is very far from the unfortunate countries experiencing the Ebola outbreak in the west. Non-ebola Africa has been hit really hard by tourists staying away. Gamewatchers expressed its gratitude to us for coming many times and wanted us to get the word out that their part of the world is safe.

(Note: Most of the pictures in this post are Glenna's. If you see a particularly good picture, you can assume that it is hers! See more here.)

Kenya in the east and Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea far away in the West

Our trip from Atlanta to Kenya was grueling, 24 hours long on three flights. We arrived in Nairobi about 7:30 PM and were up very early for the flight to the first camp. The return was worse because after our day in Zanzibar we had flown back to Nairobi and a few hours later left at midnight for Atlanta and when arriving still had a 3½ hour drive to Columbia. So the beginning and end of the trip were just something to be endured, but the middle part was magic.

We visited Maasai Mara and Amboseli both in the south

The only place we heard about ivory

We stayed at a hotel in Nairobi that first night. The drive to Wilson Airport the next morning showed us a typical developing-world site: luxury hotel across the street from a crumbling stone wall. Swahili is the national language (each of the 42 tribes has its own language also), but English is the official language. All signs are in English, and the people speak it very well, learning it in school from age 5.

In Kenya the government has set aside a lot of land as reserves where the animals roam freely and are protected. Surrounding these lands but in the same ecosystem are grazing lands and private conservancies, the boundaries marked only by a small ditch. The land belongs primarily to the Maasai people who historically are pastoralists. They respect the land and creatures on it, their meat-eating confined to the domestic animals they raise (cows, sheep, goats, chickens). 

Maasai crossing river in Mara with his herd

The Gamewatchers/Porini philosophy is to protect the wildlife habitat in partnership with the Maasai community who lease their land to the conservancies. In exchange, Maasai men are employed by the camps and the needs of the village are taken care of (water, for example, a scarce commodity at certain times of the year).

We stayed at eco-friendly, completely solar, tented camps which can be taken down leaving no footprint. For us, this choice was so much better than some luxury hotel. To be sure, these tents were not your average pup tents one uses for a weekend in the mountains. They were spacious and equipped with a full bathroom with a bucket shower (when you want one, they pour the water from buckets into a tank above the shower).

Our room at Porini Amboseli

Our airy room at Porini Lion

Our very comfortable tent at Porini Amboseli

Each camp has a dining and socializing tent and a communications tent (we were constantly charging cameras, phones, and iPad). There are no fences, so there is always the possibility of animals wandering through, necessitating an escort when walking around at night. And, indeed, there were lots of animal sounds at night. In one of our camps it was hippos coming up from the river below to feed. At that camp a lioness had given birth between two tents the previous week.

Our 12-seater

Dining area at Porini Lion

Our first safari was to Amboseli where we stayed in the Selenkay Conservancy at Porini Amboseli Camp. We flew on a 12-seater from Nairobi to Amboseli. 

Green is the reserve; Selenkay is the far northern section

As we were descending we started to see animals very close to the tiny airstrip. Little did I know that outside the city, you always see animals. They are simply everywhere. I guess I didn’t expect that. So our first animal sighting was the homely wildebeests which was appropriate because I think we saw more of them than anything during the trip.

Our first animal siting--the wildebeest

Our guides at Amboseli, Julius and Jonah (their Western names, as opposed to their Maasai names) met us at the airstrip and gave us morning tea first thing. They brought out a portable table and covered it with a red and blue Maasai cloth (with purple, the Maasai colors). Every picnic we had followed this pattern, a nice touch. 
 

Julius and Jonah preparing our morning tea

Julius and Jonah by our 4x4 vehicle

Then we climbed into our 4x4 vehicle with our safari companions—Stacy Sweeney and her two boys, Ian 16 and Connor 11. We got to know them well and really enjoyed their company. One of the pleasures of traveling for me has always been meeting, in addition to locals, other travelers. I love exchanging travel stories and hearing about their lives back home.

The Sweeneys the next day at breakfast

We took all day to get to the conservancy, having lunch in a roofed porch high on Observation Hill (away from the animals). Amazing how good cold food can be.

Observation Hill from the plain below

Lake Kioko from Observation Hill 

On that trip around the park, through the land the Maasai have kept for their pastures, and through the conservancy to the camp, we were struck most by how brown it was. All the rivers in Amboseli were dry since the small rains had not yet begun; water was confined to one smallish lake, two swamps and manmade water holes. In 2008-09 they had a terrible drought resulting in a severe loss of vegetation so bad that 25% of the elephants died, 83% of the wildebeests, and only slightly less of the zebras and cape buffalo.

Typical brown landscape at Amboseli before the small rains

Our second safari was to the Olare Motorogi Conservancy outside Maasai Mara where we stayed at Porini Lion Camp.

Mara reserve in brown; Conservancy in pink

Can you see the vehicle off in the distance?

At the Selenkay Conservancy, Porini is the only lessee, so we were alone as we roamed around the land. At Mara, there are several conservancies and camps. So as we drove around we saw other vehicles. In particular, if we saw something interesting, our guides, William and Josephat, would get on the radio and alert others as they did for us also. There were only a few more vehicles that would come, so it didn’t inhibit our ability to see the animals or dull our enjoyment.

Glenna and me with Josephat and William

Our guides at both camps were incredibly knowledgeable both about the land of which they knew every inch and about the animals and their habits. The two drivers deserve special mention, maneuvering our vehicles down and up the steep, rutted banks of rivers and, in Mara, getting us through the water. Josephat actually apologized to us once because he hadn’t seen a smallish hole which the front tire went into but which he easily got us out of.

An example of the rocky patches we traversed

Into the river

In the Mara there are about 50 mammal species but more than 400 bird types. I asked William if he could recognize all the birds, and he said yes. They go to school for a couple of years in order to be guides, and it shows. They were also incredibly accommodating. We got a sundowner (see later) on our first night at Amboseli just because I said that Glenna loved sunsets. Then we got one the second night also, the scheduled one. When we got to Mara, William kept asking us what we wanted to see. I said lions. We didn’t see any the first evening, but he promised them the next day (and we saw them in abundance).

It was fascinating to hear the stories about the animal and plant life, in particular how one species takes advantage of something another has done. It can be something as simple as one animal hitching a ride on another or the interesting case of the elephant’s alimentary canal.

Little egret hitching a ride on the elephant

Elephants are tremendously destructive of plant life, pulling down trees willy-nilly (part of the reason there aren’t too many trees in Amboseli since elephants are there in abundance). They feed 18 hours a day on grass, leaves, shrubs, and trees but don’t digest their food very well. The enterprising monkeys and baboons pull the seeds out of the poop to sustain themselves. Another example is the eating of grass. The zebras eat the tops of the grasses; the wildebeest next feed on the remaining shorter grasses; and the gazelles go for the low-lying herbs. 

Zebra and wildebeest munching away

Grant's gazelle digging deep

Even death exhibits this quality of interconnectedness. The king of the animals is definitely the lion. A male lion’s only enemy is another male lion. They can thus feed on any animal the females can catch (yes, that’s right—the male’s only job is to guard his territory; the females do all the hunting and child rearing). The primary prey are wildebeest, zebra, impalas, warthogs, and cape buffalo. When they kill one, typically in the night (they’re only fast for a few seconds so they have to use stealth), the male and then the females and cubs eat their fill of the flesh. Next the hyenas come to get the remaining flesh and even bones (we heard the crunch). Last are the vultures and storks who hang around as the hyenas eat, sometimes in their impatience trying to get in but pushed away by the hyenas, and finally getting their chance when the hyenas leave. When everyone is finished, the only thing left is some bone; we saw these sprinkled around everywhere.

Vultures and stork just waiting

Hyenas crunching the bones in Amboseli feast

Graphic view of Mara breakfast

When the hyenas left, the vultures pounced immediately

One of many carcasses we saw

Glenna can't resist a spider web

Buds on Amboseli tree

The focus on our trip was always on the fauna which rather made us neglect to notice the flora. In Amboseli there just wasn’t much flora because of the dryness. There were vast stretches where the only plant life present was some scrub bushes and a little grass.  

A rare flower in Amboseli

The green of Maasai Mara

In Maasai Mara there were plenty of green grasses, shrubs, and trees. But they mostly just blended into the background. One exception is the beautiful acacia tree with its striking shape which was often all by itself. 

The lonely but stately acacia tree

Pretty water lilies in Mara

It is also easy to concentrate on the larger animals and discount the birds, for example. But we saw many beautiful birds, most of which I had never heard of.

Grey crowned crane

Black-chested snake eagle on
euphorbia candelabrum bush

Egyptian goose

Maasai ostrich

Marabou stork

Saddle-billed stork

Golden palm weaver

Tropical boubou

Secretary bird named because of its resemblance
to a government minister's dress

Superb starling

White-bellied go-away bird

Hadada ibis

Yellow-necked spur fowl

White-bellied bustard

Little bee-eater

Helmeted guinea fowl

Grey-headed kingfisher

Lilac-breasted roller

Southern ground hornbill

Malachite kingfisher

Yellow-billed stork

African jacana

Sacred ibis

We saw so many aspects of animal life. Oddly, the two things we didn’t experience were birth and death. We certainly saw the aftermath of death with the feeding frenzies. And we saw the scene shortly after birth. In one case the baby topi were about 20 minutes old, up and walking, with the mothers still licking them and the afterbirth hanging from the moms.

Topi baby nursing

Moms licking newborn topis

In another case we saw a baby topi stretching his legs but, according to the guides, in trouble, unable to get up. After a few minutes we left to see the Mara River but came back the same way and saw the baby sitting with the mother nervously watching all around. If the baby can’t get up quickly, he isn’t long for this world. The guides thought this baby may have made it.

Topi baby in trouble

In addition, we observed both leopards and lions coupling. According to our guides it is unusual to see a leopard let alone two coupling. The ritual we observed for the lion started with a stroll away from the others (the clue, the guides said, of what was probably coming), lying together in the grass, the female getting up and sitting elsewhere for awhile, then returning to the male who mounted her. In about 5 seconds it was over, the air punctuated with their mutual growls. The leopard coupling ended the same way.

Lion waiting for lioness to come back

The coupling

The roar at climax

We saw lots of babies. Why do we always ooh and aah over babies? I don’t know, but somehow we universally see them as cute—whether it’s a 200 pound baby elephant or the little warthogs, and of course, human babies. Among the cutest was a Thomson’s gazelle whose mother was running, so the baby had to get moving. He couldn’t run that fast, so he hopped—totally adorable.

Cheetah family waiting under a tree while mom looks for prey

Mama elephant protecting her
baby from us

Warthog family on the move

No doubt the most fun to observe was the group of lionesses and cubs; we watched them for a long time as they cavorted, rolled over one another, played tug of war with a stick, endured a little growl from one of the moms as well as got a lick, and fought for a place to nurse with the day’s nursing female. The females in a pride all come into estrous at the same time and have their babies together. That way they can share the nursing duties. 

Rolling around

Mom grooms as cubs nurse

Just letting the cub know that he overstepped

Tug of war with a stick

In general, I think we saw far fewer animals in Amboseli than we did in Maasai Mara. The dominant animal in Amboseli is the elephant. The ongoing Amboseli Elephant Research Project has used physical characteristics (like notches in the ear) to group the elephants into 50 families and has named them all. They mourn when one dies (or many as in 2008-09) and rejoice when a baby comes.

Heading for the waterhole

Some of the animals in the Mara have been named by the Maasai also. But most species are just too plentiful and far-ranging to think about distinguishing one from another. There are millions of wildebeest, cape buffalo, zebra, and Thomson’s and Grant’s gazelles. We saw plenty of other species also though in much smaller numbers.

What a big mouth you have, Ms Hippo!

Hippos in the river...

...and on land (more often at night)

Warthogs at an Amboseli waterhole

Scrub hare with his transparent ears

Getting at those high leaves

Hard for a Maasai giraffe to hide

Watchful bat-eared fox 

An eland, the largest African antelope

Elephant bathing

A Bohor reedbuck, also of the antelope family

The elegant impala, another of the African antelopes

A group of mongooses in the Mara 

A gerenuk which the Maasai call 'the little giraffe'

A watchful hyena

A lone jackal

The famous Serengeti (Maasai Mara is just the Kenyan part of the Tanzanian Serengeti ecosystem) wildebeest migration occurs in September and October when the wildebeest travel from the depleted plains of the Serengeti to the lusher grasses in the Mara.

But we saw two of what our guides called a mini migration. It was thrilling, our number one site for the trip. In both cases we saw them fording a shallow river to get to the grasslands on the other side. One gets impatient and decides it’s time to go, and the others follow blindly. The first night, after some had gone across, we saw one decide that the cliff was too steep, stop, turn around and go back up. The rest followed. One decided to try another spot, this time deciding that the far side was too steep, so he turned around and went back and the others followed. We saw this happen three or four times, and then the stampede stopped. The second day we saw wave after wave of wildebeest crossing at a good low spot with a few zebra and topi and one lone Thomson’s gazelle joining in.

Wildebeest trying to get up the steep slope 

Waves of wildebeest crossing the shallow stream

Lone topi trying to decide whether to join 

Some zebra who did take the plunge

                                  William said urgently, "Turn on the video!"

Hyena nursing alongside the road

Hyena a few feet from the road

One thing that surprised us was how close we could get to some of the animals. I think all the animals are conditioned to know that the vehicles aren’t going to harm them. At Amboseli we saw a female hyena lying a few feet from the road nursing her baby, keeping an eye on us to be sure but staying put. And at Maasai Mara we came across a hyena under a bush just a few feet from the road. We got quite close to the cape buffalo which the guides said is actually the most dangerous animal for humans because they kill for fun.

Cape buffalo not the least bit afraid of us

In Amboseli we stayed on the dirt roads (ruts in many cases—I can’t imagine driving around there in the wet season), but in Mara we went everywhere to get closeups of animals. The skittish ones like the wildebeest, gazelles, topi, dik dik, impala, and zebra would take off as our vehicle got close.

Typical Amboseli road sign

Skittish gerenuks

Thomson's gazelles fleeing from us

Hartebeests running away too

Dik Dik trying to decide

But the cats, who mostly hide near trees and bushes, either just stared at us or ignored us. We saw this behavior with the lions, cheetah, serval, and leopard (though we were across the river from them).

I just liked the
rolling around pictures

Is that an elegant cheetah pose or what?

The best picture we got of the elusive leopard

Another cat--the serval

And a lioness--the first one we saw

Many animal types munch along side one another without concern that the others are predators, primarily when all these animals are herbivores—and in many cases eat different plants also so they aren’t competing for food. We learned eventually that a clue to the location of a cat, carnivores all, is that the other animals are standing at attention rather than eating. 

Grant's and Thomson's gazelles--they could be
in a chorus line

Saddle-billed stork and cattle egret
in a stand-off with a cafe buffalo

Zebra, cape buffalo and wildebeest munching

We saw very few primates. In Amboseli we watched a family of vervet monkeys, and in Mara we saw a baboon, both quite close to us. 

A baby vervet monkey riding under his mother

 A cutey vervet on a rock

A baboon in Maasai Mara

We didn’t see many in the reptile family, but we did see the worst: the crocodile—from a distance, of course. They were lounging on the banks of rivers, in one case the Mara River which is the river where the iconic wildebeest river crossing happens.

Crocodiles lounging on the Mara banks 

Red-headed agana lizard on a rock

Glenna in a typical pose 
on the Mara banks

Another who wasn’t at all concerned with us was the black rhino. There are fewer than 50 black rhino in Mara, so seeing one is quite rare. Our companions there, Dennis and Gina King, had been there four days already when we got there, so they’d already seen a lot. Gina really wanted to see a rhino, so we spent a couple of hours hunting for one, going round and round in the area where the guides knew they might be found in the brush near a river. William said he hadn’t seen one in a long time. We were all thrilled when we finally came upon one, an old guy with a limp whom the guides said probably wouldn’t last long. We knew William and Josephat were thrilled also because they took pictures to show their families! 

Black rhino looking us in the eye 

An enormous animal

An enormous hamerkop nest in a tree

One of the freaks of nature, I think, is the termite mound. We saw them in Costa Rica and again in Kenya. It is astounding how large they can be. Fooling us was a hamerkop nest in a tree. No hamerkop though.

A termite mound on the Mara plain

To get the full experience the guides take you on drives at all times of the day—early morning sometimes into the early afternoon so that you have breakfast and maybe lunch out on the savannah, later afternoon, and night.

Our delicious late lunch after the rhino search

Glenna at breakfast in Amboseli

Maasai boys passing by our platform

Zebra we saw at breakfast--notice the really red
soil from Kilamanjaro

Elephants spotted in the red light at night

Many animals avoid the heat of the day, so it doesn’t pay to go out in mid-afternoon; you may only see the ubiquitous gazelles, topi, zebra, cape buffalo, and wildebeests which are always roaming.  On a night ride, you are likelier to see one of the cats roaming around looking for food. The guide shines a red light which doesn’t hurt the animals’ eyes; the effect is quite eerie. At Selenkay we saw a leopard several times that first night. 

One of the best safari traditions is the sundowner. This is a ride that starts around 5:00 (on the equator, Kenya has sunup and sundown at around 6:00 all year) and includes a stop at a spot where seeing the sun go down is possible. The guides ask you for your choice of drink before you leave. Mine was wine. Glenna discovered  Stoney Ginger Beer (and brought some back for JR). At Maasai Mara we rode out into an open area where Glenna captured a great shot of a giraffe eating leaves from a tree in silhouette. We had fun teasing Josephat when we discovered that he wasn’t yet married but had someone in mind. Our other guides were married and had kids. 

Glenna captured a pretty
sky in the Mara

Betty at our sundowner

Glenna caught a giraffe silhouetted against a gorgeous sunset

At Selenkay, Porini had built a special platform not far from the camp right next to a waterhole. Probably the platform came first and the waterhole second actually. The whole point is to be able to see animals while you are enjoying the evening and having your drink. The first night at Amboseli, an elephant, some zebra, some jackals and a warthog as well as a lone giraffe stopped by. 

Zebra drinking at the waterhole

Glenna on our sundowner platform

Pretty clouds through 
the tree branch

And this one I actually took

But the real bonus that night was our first unobstructed view of Mount Kilamanjaro. The largest free standing mountain in the world and the tallest in Africa, Kilamanjaro is about 40 miles south of Amboseli just over the border in Tanzania. The peak is almost always shrouded during the day time hours, so it was a glorious site when the clouds dissipated and it was visible in all its glory, especially pretty as the sun went down and night fell.

Kilamanjaro in blue...

...and pink

The second night was quite a show. We had been seeing elephants off and on both days, sometimes bulls alone and sometimes groups of females and their offspring. In fact, one of our first sites as we left the airstrip was a herd crossing the road right in front of us. What an introduction to Kenya!

Elephants crossing the road right in front of us

Little did we know that close-ups of animals would seem old hat in a short while. Back to the second night at the waterhole—we were treated to a group of eventually 15 male elephants. Denied the company of the females except when they are in estrous, they sometimes band together for company (though we did see one trailing behind the females and babies in that first siting). These males were drinking and playfully jostling one another. Two wandered away and started fighting. Julius told us that the brown-colored one was new to the area (not reddened yet by the local volcanic dirt which is a spill-off from Kilamanjaro) and needed to establish his position in the pack, choosing the largest bull to challenge. We watched them lock tusks and really go at it. The local bull won, and they eventually came back to the waterhole. But the brown one kept pestering the red one. Eventually the red one mounted the brown one. It was astounding to see this enormous animal able to lift his body that high. The pestering continued, and the mounting occurred again. I had read in our guidebook about the elephant penis. You can see for yourself in my picture. The guides said the elephants sometimes display this behavior because they can’t have the females. What a site!

The fight

The mounting

The aftermath

Everyone talks about seeing the Big Five while on safari. We did indeed see them—lion, leopard, cape buffalo, elephant, and rhino, so named because that’s what another day’s hunters wanted to bag. But we saw so much more—and many more interesting than a cape buffalo, say. After seeing so many animals, you start to classify them. Some are ugly and some are elegant. The rhino looks absolutely prehistoric. The old guy we saw had his full tusks (unusual—just google a rhino image and compare it to Glenna’s picture). Among the ugly ones are the wildebeest and the warthog (ugly in the eye of the beholder, of course). The wildebeest is perhaps saved by its beautiful fringe beard. And the warthogs do look cute when they are running, especially the babies.

The prehistoric-looking black rhino

The pretty mane of the wildebeest

The adorable running warthog babies

Warthog kneeling down to eat

They also eat in a very interesting way. The adults have to kneel and inch forward on their front legs because their necks are too short to bend down far enough to reach the grass.

In the elegant class are the giraffes and the gazelles. The giraffes have a wonderful, stately walk. They even look beautiful when they spread their front legs to lean down and get a drink, a position they take only guardedly as it makes them very vulnerable.

The elegant Maasai giraffe

The stately walk of the giraffe

At some point you just need a drink

The gazelles and topi hold themselves erect when they move also. All those in the antelope class have very sleek bodies with really skinny legs, necessary for speed to get away from those stealthy cats. The Thomson gazelles have such distinctive coloring, with  the black diagonal stripe on their sides.

Thomson's gazelles, my vote for the most elegant

The impala have a stripe on their back legs, making a stunning picture of the rears of a group.

I was mesmerized by the vertical stripes

We visited a Maasai village at Amboseli, the only time we saw any Maasai women and children other than a few herders from a distance.  The village has no running water and no electricity, and they actually make fire by rubbing sticks together which they demonstrated for us. It was ringed with a fence made of dense thorny bushes, to keep animals out, I suppose.

Two Maasai making fire

The fence of bushes

Typical Maasai house, low and dark

The houses were placed around the perimeter with an open space in the middle for the herds. The houses, made from sticks and cow dung, were tiny and dark, enough room for a bed for the man on one side and the woman on the other and a small fire hole in the middle. The children stay with the mother until about age 5 and then sleep somewhere else; it wasn’t clear where. The houses weren’t even tall enough for them to stand in.  When we asked the chief why, he said the women make the houses. We heard this notion more than once—the women do this and the men do that and neither knows how to do what the other does. The roles were definitely prescribed. One of the occupations of the women was making jewelry and other beaded items both for themselves and the tourist trade.

Making beaded jewelry which they wear in abundance
and sell to the visitors

We liked his makeshift toy

When we were ready to leave, all the women and children lined up so we could take pictures. They looked festive in their beautiful garb and their jewelry. Both men and women wear a loose-fitting shift and sandals. They always have their Maasai blanket or kikoy with them, sometimes worn almost like a coat, other times just thrown over the shoulder. It also holds babies. And they love to be decorated; even the men wear lots of beads and color.

Women and children saying goodbye

Carrying the baby in her kikoy

Glenna walked up to the children and started playing her usual game—puff out your cheeks and I will pop them. All kids love it, and these were no different. They were laughing and puffing their cheeks waiting for her to pop them.

The cheek game always engages kids

When the chief noticed, he hurried us away from the village. I had the distinct impression that he didn’t want this to happen. My guess is that he doesn’t want them to have too much contact with Westerners. He seemed a dour sort, so maybe he just didn’t want them to have fun. But I was amazed that our guides and the other camp employees, with all their exposure to us, still go back to their villages when they have time off. While in the camps, the Maasai eat the food prepared for the guests (they say the foods we eat are largely the same as theirs but prepared in a different way), but back home they eat as the others do. Josephat told us that in a drought, he survives on fermented goat’s milk and blood. I got the feeling that the Maasai are a very proud people, very determined and very disciplined. I give them great credit for holding on to their traditions and their lifestyle (including polygamy though it is decreasing for purely economic reasons). They do, however, have modern electronics!

Typical Stone Town street

The last part of the trip was very different from the first part. We had wanted to go to Lamu, a town on the coast noted for its beautiful doors and narrow streets. But there has been violence from Somali pirates in recent months, so Gamewatchers simply said they wouldn’t take us there. Instead we flew to Zanzibar, an island off the coast of Tanzania whose Stone Town is a World Heritage Site very similar to Lamu. Stone Town blends Moorish, Middle Eastern, Indian and African cultures. 

Indian-style wooden door

Detail on door

Islamic-style wooden door

What could be better for Glenna--
a pretty door and a bike

Blue door with lots of studs

Detail on door

Peaked green door

Turquoise wooden door

Islamic wooden door

We loved walking around on our own through the narrow streets, snapping pictures and visiting the small shops and markets (which we did in Nairobi also much to the chagrin of our guide who wanted to take us to a mall. Glenna’s comment: I don’t even go to malls in my own country!) 

Old shutters and doors

Items in the antique shop

Just lots of interesting shapes

Sun on bananas in the market

Dhow on the Indian Ocean

We also got to Kendwa Beach on the northwest coast, a place with white sands, aquamarine waters, and lots of interesting dhows, a boat carved out of a tree trunk with a sail attached that the fishermen use for their trade.

Glenna at Kendwa Beach

Betty at Kendwa Beach

Along the way we saw houses made of mud and straw with straw roofs, pony and ox carts, women carrying sticks on their heads, and a few bicycles, sites that we have seen many times in other developing world locations.

Ox-cart, bike and shop--lots of those

Typical thatched-roof house

Friday prayers outside--too hot inside, no doubt

Our time at the beach, we both agreed, was too short, but we wanted to explore Stone Town thoroughly also. The island is 98% Muslim (Beach day was a Friday so we saw Friday prayers at many mosques along the way, the unusual thing this time being that the men were outside.) though there are Hindu temples and Christian churches in Stone Town alongside the mosques. Glenna said that the native girls were in Muslim dress much sooner than in other parts of the world where we have seen them. As we wandered around the town to see the top sites, we saw several schools with very noisy young kids!

Hindu Shakti temple

St Joseph's Cathedral

Bokhara Mosque

Beit el-Ajaib, House of Wonders

Beit el-Sahel, former Sultan's 
residence

Another view of Beit el-Sahel

Forodhani Orphanage and a view of the ocean

The Old Fort

Detail of The Old Dispensary

The Old Dispensary, my favorite building

The huge Old Fig Tree, a favorite meeting place

Musicians playing before dinner

And this one was huge!

Flowers were unusual so I got this bush

When you are on your own, as we were in Zanzibar and it wasn’t practical to be on safari, part of the fun is finding little places that aren’t in any guidebook. In Stone Town we had our first lunch at a little shack on the ocean with seating outside. I had kingfisher which we both agreed was the single best food we had on the trip though the food at the camps was really good too. That evening we went to the famous Forodhani Gardens night market where a large number of tables are set up serving all kinds of meat and seafood (we had barracuda). We wondered what happens to all the food that is left over as it surely would be.

Making cane juice

So many skewers of meat and fish

In Stone Town we stayed in the Dhow Palace, a one time palace of some sheik now converted to a gorgeous hotel full of antiques and beautiful rugs. Our room had to be the sheik’s suite—on the top floor overlooking the town with two huge rooms and a gigantic bathroom. We’ve stayed in places like that in India and Morocco, and that’s always fun.

Our huge room

A peek into our shower

The upper hall

The lower hall

The pool from the upper hall

The view of the ocean from our room

During our last dinner on a trip, we always name our bests and worsts. We agreed on the top happening, the wildebeest migration; second, the frolicking lion cubs; and third, the rhino sighting. We agreed that the cutest animals were the Thomson’s gazelles. We also agreed that the sundowner evening with all the elephants was our favorite activity and the beach second. The Dhow Palace, of course, was our favorite place to stay. The beach was Glenna’s top site, and mine was the Old Dispensary in Stone Town. Glenna’s worst aspect of the trip was the heat in Zanzibar which we hadn’t been expecting after the beautiful weather in Kenya. Mine was the bug bites. By the end of the trip I probably had 50 or 60 bites all over me, and the only time I actually saw a mosquito was in the plane before we left Nairobi. I itched through the entire trip. But what’s an itch or two amid glorious animals and gorgeous architecture? A truly amazing, unforgettable trip.

Beautiful frangipani to end a beautiful trip