So maybe if I start before the trip starts this blog can get moving along. Perhaps the better thing to do is to begin at the beginning instead of the end.
Here begins a trip that was supposed to happen five years ago or more. Instead we got hooked up to Earthwatch, mostly. First Samburu in Kenya working on plant base lines and Grevy Zebra. The former took place in Wamba, the latter in Lewa. We met the rare cheetah triplets who figured prominently in a PBS "Nature" show about cheetah orphan twins unsuccessfully brought there after being raised by humans. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/the-cheetah-orphans/introduction/22/
Then the Peruvian Amazon into the Picaya-Samiria Reserve and animal census work. This was followed by the Kenya black rhino project at Sweetwaters near Nanyuki. And finally the Meerkat project in the Khalahari Desert in the West Cape of South Africa. http://animal.discovery.com/fansites/meerkat/meerkat.html
But all of this was interspersed with some time in China and Greece. If one considers the true beginning of these travels we must go back to 2002 scary flights (post 9/11) to Prague, Vienna and Budapest--perhaps the most enjoyable trip ever. Perhaps that and the mountain gorilla trek in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest of Uganda, which was way to close to Congo and Rwanda, will find their way here too.
As it happens, the Uganda adventure preceded the Interahamwe (or LRA) massacre in 1999 of a game warden and six English speaking tourists in the exact same location about 100 days after we had been there. A great trip led by Mark Rosenthal, then curator of animals at Lincoln Park Zoo, forever marred by the insanity of those attacks. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4455866.stm
It is Galapagos now because there was fear that tourism would be severely restricted because of the multitudes and deterioration of the habitat there. Not to worry--we had the Great Recession of 2008. Tourism is back again in Ecuador.
After lengthy agonies about with whom we should go to Galapagos, we decided to play it safe, and expensively, with Lindblad/National Geographic. How could we go wrong? Surely this will not be repeated so it should be done correctly. Thusfar the entire process has been without pain. Very professional with accessible and knowledgeable folks at L/N. Check back to see if it all turns out as well as it started.
Here begins a trip that was supposed to happen five years ago or more. Instead we got hooked up to Earthwatch, mostly. First Samburu in Kenya working on plant base lines and Grevy Zebra. The former took place in Wamba, the latter in Lewa. We met the rare cheetah triplets who figured prominently in a PBS "Nature" show about cheetah orphan twins unsuccessfully brought there after being raised by humans. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/the-cheetah-orphans/introduction/22/
Then the Peruvian Amazon into the Picaya-Samiria Reserve and animal census work. This was followed by the Kenya black rhino project at Sweetwaters near Nanyuki. And finally the Meerkat project in the Khalahari Desert in the West Cape of South Africa. http://animal.discovery.com/fansites/meerkat/meerkat.html
But all of this was interspersed with some time in China and Greece. If one considers the true beginning of these travels we must go back to 2002 scary flights (post 9/11) to Prague, Vienna and Budapest--perhaps the most enjoyable trip ever. Perhaps that and the mountain gorilla trek in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest of Uganda, which was way to close to Congo and Rwanda, will find their way here too.
As it happens, the Uganda adventure preceded the Interahamwe (or LRA) massacre in 1999 of a game warden and six English speaking tourists in the exact same location about 100 days after we had been there. A great trip led by Mark Rosenthal, then curator of animals at Lincoln Park Zoo, forever marred by the insanity of those attacks. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4455866.stm
It is Galapagos now because there was fear that tourism would be severely restricted because of the multitudes and deterioration of the habitat there. Not to worry--we had the Great Recession of 2008. Tourism is back again in Ecuador.
After lengthy agonies about with whom we should go to Galapagos, we decided to play it safe, and expensively, with Lindblad/National Geographic. How could we go wrong? Surely this will not be repeated so it should be done correctly. Thusfar the entire process has been without pain. Very professional with accessible and knowledgeable folks at L/N. Check back to see if it all turns out as well as it started.
We travel from Chicago to Miami where we connect with Aeragol, L/N provided airline. After 4.5 hours from Miami to Guyaquil, a night with Conrad Hilton, and after breakfast we fly Aeragol agin to Baltra where we embark on the Endeavour. Leave a comment and I can send the intended itinerary because weather determines where you go and when.
What we do know is that we are in the midst of what is probably an El Nino--how appropriate for a December trip. This should mean warm water along with seasonally dry weather. This also means that there may be a paucity of marine life sightings because feeding must be done at lower, cooler depths. So, a trade off. The trade off may mean more land animals because of warmer temperatures. How complicated the environment, but then Senator Inhofe has it all figured out over by 'dere in OK.
Bulletin, December 2009: humans feeding birds may affect evolution. Like, duh.
As I take a breath here, it is amazing how many of these trips have had some notoriety attached to them. I met an MD in Zimbabwe 'round about 1990 who spoke about her volunteer efforts in Africa. Everywhere she had gone there seemed to have been civil strife and even revolutions following her stint (Mozambique for one). I joked that she was a menace, only to find that so much trouble seems to have followed my trips too, including Zimbabwe.
Nevertheless we trudge on. ...and so it goes.
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