Reflections on Egypt--Concord Monitor article and online slide show

Before all the details faded, I wanted to get a piece written up on the first half of our trip to Egypt and Kenya. And thanks to a fairly light schedule over the past 3 weeks, I got it done!


To read it and look at the online slide show (more pix than I was able to put in my blog), just click on the the hyper-link text to read my article in today's Concord Monitor on our trip to Egypt.


Don't forget to read the side-bar "Related Content" at the end of the article--it talks about how to read behind the headlines and media hype and figure out if reported incidents are actually a threat to tourists.


And now...back to packing for our next adventure--a cruise in the Western Caribbean. We are hoping for calm seas, lots of sun, a very competent captain (hopefully not Italian) and the complete absence of weird viruses.

Out of Africa...more lions, silly hippos, Nairobi and Lufthansa First Class

Our last morning in the Mara was wonderful. We had had a good sleep with all the canvas rolled up, hoping to see some nearby action--perhaps a curious elephant or leopard. No luck with that, but before dawn we heard some roaring--distant at first and then louder and more vocal. Lions, calling to each other. Lots of them! The Offbeat Pride was back!

We knew we wouldn't have time for a game drive to seek them out, so relaxed with coffee and biscuits on our little veranda. The path from our tent to the main camp was nicely mowed...like all Offbeat Camps, Offbeat Mara is unfenced--as is the conservancy, the Maasai Mara National Reserve.  Wildlife is free to roam--though it is most often at night that this happens, and wildlife generally stays clear of the camps.

The main camp has a comfy lounge area for guests to mingle and have tea and cocktails.

Breakfast is usually served in the adjacent tent, but Miia had arranged something special for our last morning. 

The staff walked us down a steep path...


















To a lovely breakfast-for-two table set up by the river.

We said goodbye to Miia and Kimoni and Josh loaded our bags for the trip to the airport.Along the way we planned to stop at the hippo pool near the airport.

Josh did the driving, as usual, and Kimoni the did the spotting. As luck would have it, a male lion popped up out of the grass and Kimoni was right there.

We had time to investigate and as we drew closer, we could see there were two.

When these guys lie down in grass this high, they are just about invisible, even from a few feet away.

Josh pulled our vehicle around in front of them, and they walked right past us...close enough to smell and almost close enough to touch.

Here is a video as they move past us out into the grasslands.  

A little further investigation led us to a female lion feeding on a buffalo kill nearby. Josh said the female had actually brought down the buffalo, but the males eat first.  When they are done, the female eats.  

She gnawed on the bones for a good long while.

Then she lifted her head and paused almost like she was going to take a nap.

But then quite suddenly got up and headed for our vehicle.

I backed further into the vehicle so quickly I couldn't finish focusing...she was looking right at me!

But her belly was full and she took a sharp left by the vehicle door and headed out into the grass after the two males.
Vultures had been circling, and they now moved in, followed by hyenas--real circle of life stuff in the Maasai Mara.

One hyena has braved a fight with the vultures, while another one looks on from the distance.

This fellow runs off with a leg.

Here the hyenas are stacked up in an airport-landing-like pattern. They wait their chance to get a piece of the kill, but also are clearly keeping an eye out for any lions that may be around.

From this viewing we headed straight for hippo pool. It was a smallish pool, jam packed full of water lilies.  We got no dramatic yawns, but I did think this shot was funny.  Hippos are so extremely dangerous, but looked rather whimsical all draped in greenery.

But it was time to catch our SafariLink flight back to Nairobi. It turns out that there are several airstrips in the Maasai Mara, and the scheduled flights hop from one to another picking up and dropping off passengers. Our pilot was a friendly and very professional young man named Ben.

The airstrip used by Offbeat is also used by larger safari companies like Governor's Camp--which has its own planes and doesn't have to rely on scheduled air.

Next up, another Maasai Airstrip.

I got to sit right behind Ben and could watch as he navigated and made log entries.

We began by flying over the Mara, often seeing giraffes and elephants below us...or a safari vehicle like this one, bringing passengers to a camp in the bush.

And just a little over an hour later we were on approach to Nairobi, flying over swanky suburbs with big swimming pools and even bigger houses.

Our arrival in Nairobi went smoothly (except for a moment of angst about our left luggage at the transfer company's offices--but we were reunited with it fairly quickly.) Our driver took us through the city to our hotel The Fairview. The approach was interesting. Security is tight all around, but the hotel is across the street from the Israeli Embassy, so there were extra checkpoints.

I thought this sign was a hoot. Proceed through "friendly " checkpoint! In fact, the guy with machine did have a big smile on his face!

The hotel itself has lovely grounds...it is built around an old estate. The poolside dining is quite nice (the pool was freezing!) and the al fresco terrace was also very inviting.

The rooms are serviceable, though not luxurious in terms of amenities, bedding, toweling and such. Still, it was fine for the 8 hours we needed it.

We wound our back through Cairo to the The Fairmont Towers Heliopolis, again being met by our tour coordinator extraordinaire, Emad. With less than a full day until we caught our next flight (Frankfurt and onward to Boston), we weren't sure what to expect--but the Towers (the newer side of the Fairmont complex, the Heliopolis being the older side) absolutely blew us away.  This is a true 5 star property (complete with fun casino)--almost on a par with the Shangri La Singapore.  We were thrilled.

I can't end without showing the new Lufthansa First class configuration in their long-haul 747's, the plane we had on the Frankfurt-Boston leg.

There are just eight "seats" in the First Class cabin, which is the entire upper deck of the long-haul 747's. But each "seat" actually has two stations, one lounger-type chair with a flat-screen TV in front of it, and then a permanent actual bed, already made up for sleeping.  So no waiting while flight attendants make up your bed--no having to choose between a bed and a sitting arrangement.  Of course the bedding is very high end and comfortable, and you also get pajamas and an amenity kit packed with goodies. 

Not too hard to get comfy here!

Bud being a tourist--the copilot looking back at us from the cockpit.

We hope we'll get to do this again sometime in our lives!

And that's the end of the trip.  I'll be putting up separate pages with my favorite shots from each segment--Egypt and Africa--which will show on tabs at the top of the page here. If you would like to read from the beginning, go to the listing by date on the left-hand menu and start with January 1, 2012.

Till next time!

Maasai Mara Day 2--lions, a cheetah mom and baby...heaven!

We were (of course) looking for big cats at Offbeat Mara...leopards, cheetah, lions. we had heard there was an "Offbeat Pride" of about 13 lions that lived on the property, right in the sanctuary so viewing was not horribly rare. And the camp is set right along the river (we learned that leopards like river areas for the water and larger trees so they can stash their kills up high)...perfect leopard territory.

Here is a shot of our tent taken from the track coming into the camp. See what I mean about remote?  No paved parking lots, Disney-esque landscaping, electricity or running water.  The thick trees mean a river runs through it.

Alas, Miia, the camp manager, and Josh said that the Offbeat Pride had been gone (walkabout?) for a few days. Perhaps we wouldn't see them.

Our morning game drive started off with no Offbeat Pride, but soon we came upon a pack of spotted hyenas gnawing on an old elephant carcass. As much as I love dogs, hyenas kind of spook me.

Cute, huh?

We decided to head a bit further and look for lions in the National Reserve, even though we would be vying with lots of other vehicles for good viewing.  Luck was with us...we were the second vehicle to arrive at a sighting of two males, well-hidden and resting under shrubs and behind tall grass.

You can see how well they hide themselves. This fellow was quite calm....

...until another eight or nine vehicles arrived.

just two of the many!

He was outta there!

We headed back into the conservancy, which has limited access and were rewarded with a very demure common giraffe. Notice how the coloring is more muted than the reticulated giraffe, which has very white delineation between the patches.



I honestly can't say if this is male or female (outside my area of expertise and I couldn't see the "package"), but to me it looks like a "she" with a come-hither attitude!

Our biggest reward came soon after, when Kimoni spotted a cheetah lying on top of an old termite mound--they like to look for prey from a high spot and there aren't many in the Mara. It was way far away, and I was worried that she would bolt before we got there, but no.  There was only one other vehicle and she seemed very calm about us being there.

Best of all, she had a cub.  Normally there are two or three, so something must have happened to the others.

The cub was playing with the mom's tail and didn't seem to notice us.

We couldn't believe our luck!

This was so delightful...a true highlight of the entire trip!  But Kimoni and Josh were intent on one more attempt to spot a leopard, so we worked our way further into the conservancy to Leopard Gulch, a large rocky swail known to be a leopard favorite.

We found a red and blue lizard.

And some smallish animals called rock hyrax (rock for obvious reasons!).

These chubby fellows make good eating for all manner of carnivores.

But...no leopards! It appeared that our close-up and personal sighting back at Sosian was going to be the only leopard viewing of the trip.

The evening game viewing proved interesting with a sighting of several wildebeest, a leftover group from the big migration. The Maasai say they are animals made up of spare parts--the tail of a horse, the head of a lion, the horns of a buffalo...you get the idea.





Wildebeest and their annual 1.5 million strong migration are, of course, the main drama of the Serengeti and the Mara. We were there at the wrong time (which we knew), and missed the spectacle.  But Josh and Kimoni explained that the viewing can be less than an intimate experience with a natural phenomenon. It is hard to know the exact moment they will cross the rivers, and there will sometimes be 100-150 vehicles lined up for the viewing--often waiting for several hours.

We much preferred having Kimoni and Josh and all the animals to ourselves!

Heading back into camp, we came upon another herd of cape buffalo.  They have a symbiotic relationship with a bird called the oxpecker.  The oxpecker keeps the buffalo (and rhino) free from ticks and bugs, getting a ready-made buffet in the process. the female buffalo had no problem at all with the oxpecker hanging off her lip and cleaning her nose, inside and out.  Yuck.

Just before sunset we saw one of the many dik-diks, the smallest antelope--and it posed for a bit. They are normally extremely shy...and see how small?  Not even the height of the grass.



And another sunset in the bush.  We loved the openness of the Mara, and how so many animals just co-habitate.  Zebras, antelopes of all types, giraffes, elephants.

When we got back to camp, Miia had set a romantic table for two in front of the fire pit for us...another fabulous meal!

In the morning we would have to pack up for the trek home, so we lingered over dinner and enjoyed a few glasses of wine with Miia, who intrigued us with stories of a Tanzania-to-Cape Town road trip. Could that be next?