Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

At last, I have finished editing the photos from my Tanzania safari (which accounts for nearly half of the photos from the whole trip), so I can get on with my trip report!  So far we have Arusha , Tarangire National Park , and South Serengeti Part 1 .  Today, we get some really special wildlife moments as we continue our drive through the Serengeti--out of the Ngorogoro Conservation Area and into Serengeti National Park. Misty dawn. Almost immediately we headed for a mother lion and three cubs, who were hard at work on a wildebeest she'd clearly killed just that morning. Just kittens having fun with their chew toy. The carcass was still steaming. Very young cubs--after a while, they headed for the milk bar. Eventually we left the poor lions in peace (to wander off and take a nap), and headed on. Not too far off we encountered a lone male lion, and then a trio of bat-eared foxes. Definitely one of the cuties, and not something we saw anywhere else. More giraffes! This pair of young

Last week we visited Tarangire National Park in Tanzania. This week, I'm making a start on our time in Ngorogoro Conservation Area, specifically the South Serengeti. It ought to be one post, also, but true confession time: this is as far as I've gotten in editing photos, so the next chunk will have to wait. This also means I get to post more photos :D The drive between the two parks/reserves was pretty long, and involved a change of plans. We broke the trip by spending the night in the Marera Valley Lodge, a short way outside the south entrance of the reserve. It was a beautiful hotel (also much higher and cooler!) and a gorgeous morning.  Petey Possum does like a bit of luxury. Sunrise from the balcony. We hit the road early, with the intention of going for a hike in Embakaai Caldera in the Ngorogoro reserve--the high part, where it would be cooler. However, something somewhere didn't happen, and we couldn't get our walking permit (I am pretty sure you have to have an

Continuing the saga of my mind-blowing trip to Africa. Given the hundreds of photos I took in Tarangire, and how amazing the animals there were, this might get long, even though we only spent about 30 hours in the park. At this point I'm totally fishing for sympathy for having to choose a couple dozen photos out of maybe 400 (after editing) from the park! We left Arusha first thing in the morning, piling happily into the Toyota Landcruiser (special safari version, and the successor to the traditional Land Rover) with all our luggage. Naturally, on the drive to the park (3 hours?) we got very excited about pretty much everything we saw. Our driver, Said, pointed out some herds of wildebeest and zebra, noting that at their foaling season they tend to migrate out of the park onto the Masai lands, where the Masai herders keep the predators away. He was correct when he told us we wouldn't see any in Tarangire NP (but we saw plenty more later on the Serengeti). Petey Possom, and our