June 2018

  Hi Everyone Still no internet. Am sitting around a camp fire at the “Island of the Baobabs” writing my daily blog. How did I get here and where is this? All in due time. How did my day start? Of course the day started at 6:15 when we all met. Both Alan and myself heard George the local elephant all night long. He walks by our hut and takes his bathroom run on the path to our hut. Alan saw him shaking a palm tree near our hut. The reason why an elephant shakes the palm is that elephants love the palm nuts that grow on the top of the palm. They shake the palm to have the nuts fall to the ground and then they eat them. Elephants have very poor digestive systems and you find their poop all over the place. We all boarded two open air vehicles and when we drove just outside the Camp area and our driver and guide spotted a lioness. The lioness was slowly moving and looking for some prey. Maybe a wilder beast or springbok. Both vehicles followed the lioness hoping that we would see her go after a prey. Lioness’s do the hunting for the family. The lion does about nothing but sleep, breed and lay under a tree all day. Nice life for the king of the jungle. We needed to get to a meerkat family by 7:30 since the guides believed that they would come out of their den between 7:30 and 7:45. We observed the lioness until we were forced to leave for the meerkats. The guides had no doubt that she would have probably wandered into our Camp if we had not come along. Imagine getting up and seeing a lioness walking around your hut? We arrived at the new meerkat den at around 7:30 and set up to wait. The guides told us that this was a family of thirteen meerkats. At about 7:40 they started to pop out and warm themselves. Each one emerged and there were two new babies. One of the meerkats was assigned to be the babysitter for the two new offspring since they were too young to go out and find food. The alpha female assigns that role to one of the other family members. That meerkat stays close to the den with the two babies and waits for the others to return. If the babysitter sees some trouble he or she then takes the babies back into the den. We clicked away, but had to leave early to have breakfast and start the next part of our adventure. Arrived back at the Camp at around 9 AM and had breakfast. Breakfast is any style of eggs with meats and very tasty corn biscuits. I then took a shower and packed my few clothes for two days of camping. We had brought day bags with us to pack a few pieces of clothing to camp out. The day bags and our camera gear were all loaded into another vehicle for transport to the Island of the Baobabs. We then boarded our vehicles for a short ride to pick up our quad cycles. They were all lined up and ready to go. Each of us were given a cycle. They are made by Yamaha and have 350 cc engines. Easy to ride. We were given instructions and then off we went. The only problem is you control the gas via your right thumb. I have carpel tunnel in my right hand and sensed a problem later on. We were told to stay in the same order and follow each other. It was off for a seventy five mile ride over the Kalahari Salt Pan or Makigadigadi. I had a great time on the quad cycle. Once we got out to Salt Pan, we really opened them up to about seventy km or 45 miles per hour. I felt exhilarated and refreshed. We were in the middle of no where and going to some place I had never even heard of. The quads created some dust and we were wearing towels over our heads like Lawrence of Arabia style. The sun was very intense, but it was not extremely hot. We stopped for lunch in the middle of no where. The lunch was quite good. We made our way over this flat type of topography sand could see what looked like water in the distance. Of course, those were mirages. At 69 I was driving a quad cycle over the Makigadigadi Salt Pan. What an experience. Sometimes the drive was through curves and around and through tall grasses that looked like dune grass. When we had to go over rocks we had to slow down and the rocks created quite a bumpy ride. After four hours, we finally arrived at “Island of the Baobabs”. Baobabs are weird looking trees that have huge trunks and some of them are over one thousand years old. They are only found in a few places in Africa. We will be sleeping in sleeping bags tonight. We were first greeted by our staff and offered drinks. It felt so good to get off the quad after four hours. The location has lots of acacia bushes and rocks on the ground. The problem with acacia bushes is that they have these long thorns and it is easy to brush into one and get scraped up. At 5 PM we set up our cameras and tripods to take pictures of the Milky Way over a huge baobab tree. Difficult and intricate photography. I got some great shots. We were then served dinner. The chicken was very good and the soup was great. Soup is always served with dinner. It was then onto setting up our cameras to take star burst photography or time lapse photography. You put your camera on a tripod with a new battery and blank memory card. The camera then is programmed to take images every

  Hi Everyone Some of you might think I do not write my blogs until I return home when there is no internet. The way I do it is a write my blog every night on either my iPad or laptop. In that way I remember details that I might forget. Don’t forget I am 69 and the memory does not work the way it used to. When I feel comfortable with publishing onto my website, I then copy and paste the day onto my website, do a final read and maybe insertion or edit and off it goes into the wild blue yonder. When I got into bed last night, I found a hot water bag waiting for me under the blankets. Wore all my clothes, but eventually it got too hot and I took the hot water bag out and peeled off some layers. Imagine sleeping in the Kalahari Desert with a hot water bag. I can tell you that the climate is very strange here this time of year. We are over 3000 feet up, so the nights are cool and after the sun rises it gets quite warm, but there is no humidity. The sun is very strong and you do not feel it’s intensity as you travel around. You are advised to still drink lots of water and always wear a sun treated large hat that also protects the back of your neck. I purchased one for this trip from REI and sun protected clothes are a necessity. We were woken up at 6 AM by one of the helpers who brought coffee for me and Alan had tea. We dressed quickly and met everyone for our trip to visit the Meerkats. The meerkats we were to visit are a family of fourteen and spend their nights in their dens and then crawl out after sunrise to warm themselves and then go hunting for food. Our local guide, Bones, gave us a great narrative on the family structure of meerkats. There is one alpha male and one alpha female. The alpha female is the one who normally gives birth to offsprings and the others help raise them. Meerkats live eight years. We eventually arrived at their den, after sunrise, and just waited around for the first one to appear. The way you normally take pictures of meerkats is that you get down on your stomach and lower yourself to their height. I was the first one to do so. I wanted them to come out and get to know me. The first one appeared. When they come out they turn their heads almost three hundred and sixty degrees looking for any predators such as foxes, eagles and small mammals. Eventually the whole family came out, including the young, to warm themselves. By that time most of us were lying on our stomachs waiting for them to do something and clicking away. They then started to move away from their den and forage for food. They dig for insects and scorpions. They started to crawl all over us. They started with our bodies and worked their way over our heads and cameras. I was taking pictures with a new camera I had purchased around six months ago, but never had the time to use and learn it. The first day or two of all photography workshops consist of a learning curve. You have to get to know your location and how your equipment needs to work in that location. My pictures always get better as the days go on. Eventually a meerkat jumped up on me and scanned the area. I finally had my wish. A live meerkat on me in the Kalahari. Some of the other photographers took pictures and I will be sending them. At about 10 AM we decided to head back for some breakfast. We drove and stopped to take some amazing pictures of the local wildlife. Zebras and wilder beasts were the main subjects. They were so beautiful in this environment. By this time I had gotten used to my new camera and took some great pictures of these beauties. This camera is a specialty camera that is primarily used for fast action photography and is the perfect camera for Africa. We arrived back at Camp Kalahari to a woman who handed us some warm wet towels to refresh ourselves. It is so dusty here. You have to shoot with two cameras and two lenses. I would not risk taking a lens off in this environment. As it is, I constantly clean my lens and cameras in the field and when I return. Breakfast and hot coffee was so good. The coffee is from Central Africa and you can taste the richness. We then had downtime until 3 PM. What do you do during downtime? You take a shower, rest, maybe a nap, download your pictures and recharge all your equipment. We all met at 2:30 for afternoon tea and coffee. This is a ritual in these Camps. A nice break from the day. At 3 PM, a group of San people came to the Camp. There were men, women and children dressed in their normal traditional clothing. Their skimpy clothing consisted of hides with some ornaments. We all introduced ourselves. Only one of the men spoke English. They then took us for a walk and spoke to us about all the grasses and plants they eat and use for other purposes. A woman stopped at a spade of long grass and started to dig. She eventually dug up a huge tuber or sort of potato. She handed the tuber to one of the men and he shaved off some of it and ate it. He then handed it back to her and she reburied it to grow some more. These people live off the land. They are not farmers, but do hunt. They showed us a tree that they make poison from and then put the poison on arrows

  Hi Everyone Am staying at a  bush camp, so no internet until we get to Victoria Falls. Can I live without the internet? Most of us can’t. i decided to wait until I return home to publish my daily blogs. You will get one per day until the trip has been completed. Any comments or thoughts are always appreciated. How did the day start? Let’s first go back to mid day yesterday after I wrote my first blog. Went to sleep. We were meeting in the lobby of our hotel in J-Burg for dinner at 5:45.Woke up at 5 and rushed to take a shower and shave. Met everyone and we all walked to a restaurant named “Tribes”. Served all local food and I had a ball. Ordered the African Game Combo plate. Had Kudu, Impala, Ostrich and Warthog. A real feast and made just the way I liked it. We all had some great laughs and I made a toast that I hoped that we will all still be friends after two weeks of being together. We walked back to our rooms at about 9 PM. I immediately fell asleep and woke up at around 2 AM to check the Yankee game that started at 1 AM my time. Fell back to sleep and was awoken by my trusted iPhone at 6:30 AM. Got some deep relaxing sleep. By the way, my beloved Yankees won. I am scheduled to board an Air Botswana plane at 10:30 AM for my flight to Maun. Had breakfast and then got the shuttle to the airport. Found a fellow photographer in the group waiting on line. Alan is British and lives and works in Nigeria. He has extensively travelled in Africa. We went through security and had a good cup of coffee. It was then onto the gate and our flight. We boarded a shuttle bus to the plane. What kind of plane was it? A 45 passenger two engine prop. It seems that the airplanes are getting smaller as I venture deeper into Africa. I sat next to a stewardess. She is a citizen of Botswana and asked me why I am traveling to Botswana? I told her that I am still looking to find the beauty of Africa. She assured me I would in Botswana. I took the window seat. I normally sit in an aisle seat, but wanted to see the terrain. I can tell you the terrain was very interesting and different. After two and one half hours we landed in Maun. The immigration and customs was very archaic. There was one person checking your passports at immigration and she was sitting in a wooden booth. Customs was another woman who really did not care what was in your luggage. When I walked out I met Andy and Will. Will is the other professional photographer who is helping Andy with the group. Will has extensive experience in Africa. I met him on the Antartica trip and was attracted to his knowledge of photography and friendly nature. Will is British and an interesting person who has traveled to many countries. We waited for about two hours for the entire group to arrive. There are four men and four women in the group. When everyone arrived we went through security again to the departure room. We were then lead to another plane. This plane was even smaller and was a one engine prop that held all ten of us plus the pilot. I sat next to the pilot. Will told me that many aspiring pilots come to Botswana to be bush pilots and hone their skills. The flight was forty five minutes. As the plane got closer to the Kalahari , the terrain was turning into more desert. 84% of Botswana is located in the Kalahari Desert and the population is two million. There were sporadic watering holes and we started to notice wildlife around the watering holes. The plane started to descend. We were never too far from the ground anyway. We were always below the clouds. We passed by a large single elephant and some zebra. We then landed on a dirt runway. The plane pulled up to two open air safari vehicles. Two drivers were waiting for us. Our luggage was loaded onto the vehicles and we all boarded. Our Camp was about a fifteen minute ride over a bumpy road. We finally arrived at Camp Kalahari. As we walked into the Camp, a large elephant with tusks greeted us. The servants told us that this elephant stays around the Camp and they have named him “George”. How amazing this was. I was awestruck by the size and beauty of this animal. Andy told us two drop our bags off in our tents and that we were going to shoot the sunset. As we walked to our hut or tent, we saw some fresh elephant droppings on the walkway. My roommate is Alan. We are sharing a tent. We have our own bathroom and shower. All electricity and hot water is solar. The hut or tent is almost open air and very comfortable. It was then onto shooting sunset. The guides told us that there are lots of watering holes in the Kalahari for this time of year. They had about double the normal rainfall. We watched the sunset over a large watering hole with the bright red colors reflecting over the water. The guides had set up a temporary bar and we we all had drinks and talked about photography and the serine quietness of this place. It was then back to Camp Kalahari for dinner. We had a fish called King Klip. This fish is from Namibia. Very tasty, soft and light. It was now time to board the open air vehicles for some night photography. We were going looking for Aardvarks. Aardvarks are nocturnal. You may think that we are in a desert, but it is quite cold at night. The driver had

Hi Everyone It seems like we just talked. We did. I got home from Cambodia and China on May 30 and am in Johannesburg now. The Cambodia/China trip was very strenuous and a still feel it in my system. Have just gotten over jet lag and am back for some more.  What am I doing in South Africa and why? I have some unfinished business in Africa. I have previously been to South Africa twice before. Around five to six years ago, I visited South Africa first with my wife Olivia and then as an extension to one of my Cambodia trips. On both those trips I felt that I had not experienced the beauty and charm of the real Africa the way I wanted to experience Africa. I have always felt that I needed to go back and see if I could find that beauty that I was looking for. When I decided to go on this trip, I knew that it started only twelve days after I arrived home from Cambodia/China, but the itinerary is so unique that I decided to go. Got on a 11 AM flight yesterday from JFK to Johannesburg nonstop. After nearly sixteen hours of flying, we finally arrived at 8 AM on Tuesday. Africa is six hours ahead of NY. Got our luggage and went outside for the shuttle to the hotel. The cold and brisk air hit me. I forgot it is winter here. Almost everyone was wearing a winter coat. We are spending just one night in J-Burg (Short for Johannesburg) and then it is onto the adventure. Tomorrow or Wednesday morning we fly on Air Botswana to Maun Botswana. Don’t tell me no one has heard of Maun? We then go through immigration and customs and board our bush plane for our flight to Camp Kalahari. I had to pack very light since the bush plane cannot carry large and heavy luggage. Furthermore, our laundry will be done daily so there is not a need for much clothing. Also, I needed to bring sun protected clothes since the sun is very intense. My doctor has also given me malaria pills and vaccinations for this part of the world. Of course, Camp Kalahari is located in the Kalahari Desert. Why go there? Its a desert. Meerkats live there. I have always wanted to take pictures of meerkats. You get up early and lay in the grass near their dens and then start as they emerge to sun themselves and go off for their daily hunt for food. Meerkats are very inquisitive animals and have no fear of humans. Image them crawling all over me as I shoot away in the morning sun of the Kalahari? We will also be spending time with the San bush people. They are the local inhabitants and we will watch them go about their daily routines. The chief’s name is Cobra and I look forward towards meeting him. We spend two nights at Camp Kalahari and then its off to the “Island of the Lost Baobabs”. We each get a quad bike to travel over the salt pans called the “Makgadikadi”. We then set up camp at the “Island of the Lost Baobabs” for two nights. Our game plan is to leave most of our clothing at Camp Kalahari and take day bags and a few items of clothing. We will be sleeping in sleeping bags. Want to know where the toilets are? Use your imagination. My kind of place. Andys game plan is to take pictures all night of the Milky Way, shooting stars, star bursting and the baobabs as a background. During the daytime we will rest. Then its back to Camp Kalahari to rest, cleanup and take some more pictures of the local wildlife for two more days. It is then onto the Okavango Delta for five days of intense wildlife photography. We fly on our bush plane to Sable Alley and the Moremi Game Reserve. This game reserve is in northern Botswana and is one of the largest in the world. The wildlife literally come to you. We are talking elephants, buffalo, alligators, antelope, rhinos, hippos, lion, leopard, wild dog, birds and any other inhabitants. Our own zoo but without the cages and bars. We will be taking lots of boat rides and truck excursions all over the reserve. Andy has already given me some pointers on taking good wildlife photography and what to look for. For all of you photographers, I have brought my Sony A9, that can take up to twenty frames a second. This location should be something. Getting up every morning at 5:30 AM and following the wildlife from morning until dusk. Its now onto Victoria Falls on the Zimbabwe side. We will be spending two nights there relaxing, swimming and taking pictures from a helicopter over the falls. I have also reserved a microlight flight one morning. Now onto Zimbabwe and the Hwange National Park. We will be staying at a camp named “Little Makalolo”. This camp is known for its wildlife and privacy. We will be doing drives early in the morning and the wildlife is known to be very special here. I know I have left out many details but will follow up on them as we go along. On the internet, I may or may not have internet service at all locations. The only internet service I am sure of is at Victoria Falls. If you do not hear from me don’t worry. I will still write my daily blog and publish them later. As for my China photos. They are almost ready and I will publish them when I return from this trip. Hope I find the real beauty of Africa on this journey. I think I will. Love Larry