Our trip was two weeks in July of 2007.  We went to Kenya and Tanzania.  The trip was organized by Mountain Travel Sobek (who we highly recommend).  The text below was written by Stacy (with parenthetical comments by David).

There are three ways to view the pictures from our trip.  This first is to read on for a description of our trip with links to pictures.  The second is to go to the animal page (this is a list of animals we saw with pictures of each).  The third is to go to the interactive map that shows where we were and has links to pictures of each of these places.  Each of these has different pictures, so if you are interested in seeing more pictures, just keep looking (I took 6400 pictures and this is just a sneaky way for me to put more pictures on the web page :-).

David and I left early Thursday morning on the 28th of June. We drove from Tucson to Phoenix and then flew PHX to EWR. There were severe thunderstorms in New York so this was a bit delayed. The next flight from EWR to LHR was even further delayed. We arrived in London around 1 PM the next day and this was too late to catch our flight to Kenya.

We flew British Airways (who we do NOT recommend) and this happened to be the same day that they found two bombs in London (and a bomb went off at Glasgow airport) so security was tight. After waiting in line A LOT we were re-booked on the next day's flight to Nairobi. We were put up in a hotel in London and fed so that was not too onerous.

At the hotel, I made several phone calls to arrange the fact that we would not be in Arusha on June 30th. With all the time differences calling California and Tanzania, it was tricky; but, we were told to meet someone at the airport and arrangements would be made. The next morning, we flew to Nairobi and arrived very late at night. There was a restaurant/bar open across the street from out hotel that we bought pastries for breakfast the next morning. Our checked baggage did not arrive and all stores were closed to buy underwear, T-shirts, shampoo, etc. We filed our claim for lost luggage on June 30, 2007.

The next morning at 6 AM we were picked up at our hotel and driven to the Kenya/Tanzania border (a town called Namanga). Here, we were handed off to another driver who drove us to Arusha and the airport there. At the airport, we were put on a tiny plane and flown west to the western part of Serengeti National Park, near Lake Victoria -- Grumeti Camp. (This was the current location of the Wildebeest migration.) On the drive from this airstrip to our "campsite" we had our first safari drive and saw plenty of animals. Here we caught up with our friends and the rest of the travel group (If you ever find yourself with Robert Marks Moshi, I recommend you celebrate.  He was an excellent guide.). We were in Serengeti National Park for 3 days and stayed in canvas luxury tents with toilets and showers. We had morning and afternoon game drives every day (among other things we saw some Baboons grooming, a crocodile walking, an Ostrich displaying, a stork flying, we walked across the river on a suspension bridge, an Elephant got VERY close and some Zebras were scratching their backs). One morning we went to visit a fishing community on Lake Victoria (where we saw a bird fishing).

(25% of the Serengeti burns each year.  If it does not do so naturally, then it is lit on fire.  The smoke made for some Fantastic sunsets and sunrises.)

From the western side of the Serengeti, we drove to the Ngorongoro Conservation area (Stopping at the Serengeti visitors center and came upon some lions on a kopje) and stayed in a lodge on the edge of the Ngorogoro Crater. It was higher elevation and much cooler here because it was overcast for much of the day. Stacy and David were extremely grateful to everyone who loaned us jackets and extra clothing (while in the crater, a lion walked right past us). Departing from here we visited Oldupai Gorge and a Maasai village on our trip to the Tarangire National Park. We stayed in Tarangire Treetops which was outside of the park and allowed us to go on walking tours and night drives. One afternoon, we went for a drive to meet up with another driver from Ranger Safari who had our delayed luggage. He had David's bag, but not Stacy's!

The drive from Tarangire to Amboseli National Park involved the Namanga border crossing in reverse. We stopped for lunch at a coffee plantation in Arusha. This time of day, the roads were much more crowded than the previous week. At Amboseli, it was too cloudy to see Mt. Kilimanjaro (but we did see two Wildebeest disagreeing, a LARGE group of Elephants crossing the road just by us and some primates were playing behind (and on top of) our room). From Amboseli, we flew to Nairobi, changed planes and continued on to Governor's Camp in Masai Mara. These were much larger planes than the tiny one we flew to Grumeti Airstrip.

(The water holes were drying up, which made for feeding frenzies for the birds.  We saw two Lions go hunting a Warthog, a Yellow Billed Stork flying, proof that it is a rough life being a Lion, a whole herd of Elephants come down to the river to drink and then cross, some Lions eating food killed by some Cheetah, a Vulture proving that one can be ugly and graceful at the same time and some Lions walking across the plain at dawn.)

While on game drives in all these parks, we saw all kinds of animals: impalas, lions, gazelles, elands, elephants, giraffes, hippopotami, cheetahs, zebras, wildebeests, crocodiles, a rhinoceros, and even a leopard. And, there were a lot of birds, some we do not remember the names for.

The journey home was uneventful. After a certified letter, several faxes, over a dozen e-mails and many hours of phone calls to British Airways, Stacy's bag was delivered to our home in Tucson on August 23, 2007. Nothing was missing and everything was in the same condition as before we left.

There are some QuickTime movies in with the pictures.  If you can not read the QuickTime files, then Get a Mac or go to the Apple QuickTime page.

When the QuickTime VR windows open, click in the window and while holding down the button, move the cursor around (have fun).