It’s not often on a safari, or on a series of safaris, to witness lions killing a buffalo from the tense beginning to the gory end. It’s quite common to see lions near buffalo, or even stalking one, or to see them on a buffalo kill after the fact. But we got to see the action from start to finish and it was nothing short of an awesome display of power and determination on both sides.
Unfortunately the best camera we had was a Nikon Coolpix, point and shoot. The purpose of our trip was to test out a camp in the Loliondo area, an hour drive from the Serengeti border. Fifteen minutes after landing at the Seronera airstrip (central Serengeti), Peter, a senior Nature Discovery guide took us to an area where he thought he might find lions.
And find them he did! Below are a few of the photos of the action. It went on for over an hour – lions attacking a lone subadult buffalo, then the herd coming to the rescue, then the poor buffalo (must have been in shock) walking right back into the lions and then a half an hour struggle while the lions fought to keep it away from the herd and get it down on the ground.
We spend a lot of time helping agents choose the best route up Kilimanjaro for their clients. Thomas (General Manager of Nature Discovery) recently dispensed the following advise, which might also help others:
Who should choose to overnight in Crater Camp? Of course it’s very high in elevation (19,000’ / 5800m), so taking enough time is essential to be able to camp here. The overnight at crater camp does make for a challenging sleep, especially for 8 day treks where you sleep there on the 6th night. I try to avoid selling 8 day treks with Crater Camp these days, and it’s even more difficult on Western Breach Route ascents because this requires a 1am to 4am departure and this means spending even more time above 5,000 m (16,500’) and thus further increasing chances of developing severe altitude illness. It would be better to do it on the 7th or 8th night of the trek, thus making a 9 or 10 day trek. Alternately, if restricted to 8 days, camp in the crater on the 7th night and then descend the entire mountain on one day, but that is easier said than done (more on this below).
Who should ascend via the Western Breach?
It’s a 1,000 meter steep scramble from camp at 4,900 m (Arrow Glacier Camp) to the crater rim, is a true alpine-adventure style scrambling route (from 16,200’ to 18,900’). The entire group must be homogenous in experience in doing this sort of thing. Everyone in the group must have prior experience scrambling on steep slopes where there is danger of rockfall. The entire group must stay together to limit the small rockfall that normally happens when scrambling. This is NOT a route for people who have no experience off trail in steep terrain. Selling this route is extremely limiting in terms of who you can sell to…perhaps less then 10% of all potential Kilimanjaro trekkers will be well suited to climb the WB. You must qualify each and every person in detail on what climbs they’ve done, and with what frequency, and whether it was recent or in the distant past. A WB trekker is someone who is a regular mountaineer; someone who lives that lifestyle. I think unless you have a group of people who all know each other and regularly do these types of activities together, its not a good idea to offer the WB on a group trek.
Who should consider descending the mountain in one day? Descending the mountain in a day is something that fewer than 2% of our clients do. It’s over 13,000 feet of grueling descent. This is not for anyone who has any sort of knee, foot, hip or back problems. It’s limited to those to have done similar things before. Again, it’s something you definitely do not want to offer on a group trek. It must be a private, homogenously fit and experienced group that you plan this for.
We just had a group of 43 doctors from the UK climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. 39 reached the summit. 2 others made it to Gillman’s peak. Despite some heavy rain, the group had a great time. We split them into 4 smaller groups to facilitate logistics and it all went perfectly. It’s not always easy to handle such large numbers on the mountain, but we feel like we finally have it down to an art.
The group were climbing as a fund-raising initiative for the Teenage Cancer Trust Charity. According to trip participant Caroline Sales, “We are raising money to build 3 dedicated wards for teenagers in the Nottingham and Leicester Hospitals which will be an environment totally dedicated to their very specific needs and comforts, something that is badly needed. This amount of money will make a huge difference and put them well on their way in their fundraising efforts.”
To date the group has raised GBP 114,000 for the Teenage Cancer Trust Charity. Well done!! For more information visit the website http://www.teenagecancertrust.org/.
Here’s a photo and testimonial from Caroline:
“Thank you for the most amazing trip with the best bunch of guides and porters you could wish for…
The pictures are now doing the rounds and we are having a big get together at a local pub tomorrow evening to show all the pictures and videos taken and that will be a great evening and you and all of our guides etc will be very much in our thoughts. Our group had Honest, Nastoria, Edward and Laizer as our guides and they were absolutely fantastic. Please, please pass on our huge thanks to them all for their expert advice and encouragement that managed to get us all to the top and this was solely due to their magnificent help. The food was absolutely top class (better than the Lodge!!) and Good Luck a delight as our waiter.
I can’t thank you enough for the experience, something I know that will stay with me forever.”
Caroline Sales
Department of Trauma and Orthopaedics, NHS
UK
Tarangire National Park is only a one and a half hour drive from Arusha so we did a weekend trip there with the family. The dry spell was broken a couple of weeks ago and overnight the park has gone bright green. Recent rains filled the Tarangire Sand River so it was brimming. Elephants are what the park is best known and we weren’t disappointed. We saw hundreds on the two short game drives. Unfortunately I only had a point and shoot camera which really isn’t ideal for wildlife shots. Still, here are some of the sightings we had, don’t mind the blurry edges.
We watched these two male giraffe fighting for over half an hour and there was no sign of giving up when we moved on. They swing their heads at each others’ bodies with loud smacking noises. It’s not something I’ve ever seen before.
We also encountered some lions. Here’s a sleepy lioness with a collar! She’s part of a research project being carried out in Tarangire. The male struck a beautiful pose, but unfortunately, my point and shoot zoom lens wasn’t quite up to the task. Anyway, it was pretty magnificent and you get the idea.
We stayed at Tarangire Safari Lodge, which has one of the best views anywhere in Tanzania, even on a rainy morning.
This is a brand new section of our website. If you’d like to post photos and a blurb about your Kilimanjaro or Safari or Trekking experience, contact us and we’ll happily arrange it.
Also keep an eye out for news and updates posted by Nature Discovery staff as we explore new places, visit new accommodations, and revisit places we already know and love.
I am passionate about climbing and about volcanoes, so I met my match when I first climbed Oldonyo Lengai in 1999. Lengai towers above Lake Natron near Tanzania’s border with Kenya in the bottom of the Great Rift Valley. “Engai’ is the Maasai God, and the mountain literally is translated in Kimaa (the language of the Maasai) as ‘The Mountain of God’. Climbing this stratovalcano is a pretty serious alpine-style scramble…over 2,000 meters of ascent at an unrelenting steep and slippery 45 degrees. It’s the world’s only natrocarbonatite volcano, spewing ‘cool’ lava (which is about 650 degrees celsius, compared to normal (red) lava which is about 1100 to 1200 degrees C). Lengai’s lava appears black and oily, and flows like water. It’s been discovered that it flows ‘quicker’ than water and has the lowest viscosity of any earthly liquid. It’s bizarre stuff, and once it cools and is exposed to water (rain), it turns white. Then if that wasn’t enough, every 40 odd years it violently explodes huge ash clouds and projectile ‘bombs’ (sort of like it’s ‘clearing its nose’). The last such eruptions occurred from Aug’07 to Mar’08, spilling huge amounts of ash all around the mountain. During that time I climbed Lengai about seven or eight times on various routes, partly because of my keen interest but also to collect ash samples for one of Lengai’s leading vulcanologists. During one of my escapades in December of 2007, while sleeping (tentatively) at the edge of the inactive south crater, the mountain had a major eruption. I was sleeping with my boots on in preparation of a quick descent, but instead was treated to a truly awesome display of nature. The ground shook as ash spewed from the crater a few hundred meters away. The ash cloud was generating its own electrical charge, which it would discharge with incredible coloured lightning and crashing thunder. I had never felt so small and insignificant! The crater left behind once these violent eruptions ended in April 2008 was massive; about 400 meters in diameter and 200 meters deep. Experts say it should take 20-30 years for this crater to fill up again with natrocarbonatite lava and the process repeats. Until then we can only gape down from the crater rim below to see the hissing gas vents and cool black lava flowing over the crater floor.
