Results tagged “Africa” from Intelligent Travel Blog

The November issue of National Geographic magazine features a remarkable image of chimpanzees at a rescue center in Cameroon watching the burial of one of their own. Since it was published, the photo and story have gone viral, turning up on websites, in newspapers and on TV shows around the world. National Geographic writer Jeremy Berlin interviewed the photographer, Monica Szczupider, who was working as a volunteer at the rescue center when she took this photo, and who submitted the picture to National Geographic's Your Shot:

On September 23, 2008, Dorothy, a female chimpanzee in her late 40s, died of congestive heart failure. A maternal and beloved figure, Dorothy spent eight years at Cameroon's Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center, which houses and rehabilitates chimps victimized by habitat loss and the illegal African bushmeat trade.

After a hunter killed her mother, Dorothy was sold as a "mascot" to an amusement park in Cameroon. For the next 25 years, she was tethered to the ground by a chain around her neck, taunted, teased, and taught to drink beer and smoke cigarettes for sport. In May 2000, Dorothy--obese from poor diet and lack of exercise--was rescued and relocated along with ten other primates. As her health improved, her deep kindness surfaced. She mothered an orphaned chimp named Bouboule and became a close friend to many others, including Jacky, the group's alpha male, and Nama, another amusement-park refugee...

For more of the story, go to NGM Blog Central here.

Photo by Monica Szczupider, National Geographic magazine

High school student Kyle Bullington traveled to Kenya this summer, where he lived and worked in the Nairobi neighborhood of Kibera, the largest slum in Africa, on a unique volunteer project.

Residents of Kibera watch a video created by the Carolina for Kibera team

This summer, high school student Kyle Bullington arrived in Kibera with a unique goal: To enable the youth in the community of one of the world's biggest slums to share their perspectives on life there through short video clips. "Most people around the world are blind to the sufferings of approximately a million people in this community," Kyle wrote in a piece for the Huffington Post. "I felt that the best means to depict the story of Kibera would be through video." Kyle worked to develop the video project with the group Carolina For Kibera, an NGO that works on public health and community development issues in the region. Noting that "the only footage that ever makes it out of Kibera is that which is taken by foreigners," Kyle arranged for Pure Digital and Apple to donate equipment for the project, and brought 10 Flip video cameras and two 24-inch iMacs to the slum. We asked him to give us an update on how the community is recording their stories.

Shortly after arriving in Kibera, I created a YouTube channel for the organization and began recording my story in the slum. I then trained a group of four locals involved in the organization to film and edit video. I posted eight YouTube videos during my two-week stay and then handed the channel over to my trained team to begin making their own posts. 

Since returning home, I have seen the group I trained continue to improve on their moviemaking abilities. They have been making monthly posts about different aspects of life in Kibera. They recently did a video with the Carolina For Kibera founder about morning life in Kibera. I hope that these videos will continue to gain exposure and enable Kiberans to create global awareness about slum life.

Check out one of the videos after the jump.

Only a few weeks remain in National Geographic magazine's International Photo Contest, so we asked our friends across the courtyard to share some of the favorite images that they've received so far. One of the standouts was this surly lemur, taken by Sandrine Vuillermoz in Madagascar. After attempting several pictures, Vuillermoz says the lemur began posing like a model, then turned and stuck out his tongue. "He tried to send me the message, it's ok, now you can go, you've had your scoop!" Vuillermoz writes in his caption.

For more images, visit the weekly galleries on National Geographic Magazine's site. The International Photo Contest ends October 31st, so submit your favorite images in the People, Places, and Nature categories now.

Photo: Sandrine Vuillermoz

National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence Dereck and Beverly Joubert, who have worked on conservation efforts in Africa for over 25 years, appeared on the Today Show this morning to announce the launch of the Big Cats Initiative, a campaign to rally public support for protecting lions, leopards, and other large feline species in the wild. "In 50 years," said Beverly, "we've gone from 450,000 lions down to 20,000. That is drastic, so we have to take action."

To learn more about the effort, and how you can help, visit National Geographic's Blog Wild. And read more about the Joubert's efforts with the Maasailand Preservation Trust here. Donate to the Big Cats Initiative here. 

Senior editor Norie Quintos has been blogging about her recent family trip to Kenya. Her previous posts in this series include on traveling with teens, taking care of paperwork, staying healthy, and packing.

From Laikipia, we flew by prop plane (via Nairobi) to the Masai Mara, the fecund savanna immortalized by many a nature documentary. The area supports some of the greatest concentrations of wildlife, including the so-called Big Five (elephant, rhino, Cape buffalo, lion, leopard). Visitors can't help but have high expectations. Lodges are numerous and run the gamut from basic to luxe. We stayed at the recently overhauled tent suites at the Fairmont Mara Safari Club: lavishly adorned in Africana and boasting typical four-star-hotel accoutrements as bathrobe, slippers, hair dryer, sewing kit, etc. With several wheelchair-accessible rooms, a host of modern conveniences, a highly trained staff, and a prime location overlooking a hippo-filled river, it is one of a few lodges on the Mara suitable for families with very young children and guests with mobility issues. 

One problem with the celeb-status of the Mara is that it is in danger of being loved to extinction. The masses of grass-feeding animals attract predators that feed on them, which in turn lures hordes of tourists, many desirous of the type of close encounters seen on Animal Planet and BBC wildlife programs. Drivers and guides feel the pressure to deliver on unrealistic expectations, putting unsustainable forces on the fragile ecosystem. While off-road driving is not permitted within the Masai Mara reserve, many areas just outside are deeply rutted and pocked. In some cases, the old tracks have become impassable and parallel ones begun.

Friend of Intelligent Travel, Molly Feltner, shares this story of sitting face-to-face with a silverback in Congo as one of the first tourists to visit Virunga National Park since tourism reopened in May.

For the first time in nearly two years--following the massacre of seven endangered mountain gorillas and months of occupation by rebel forces--Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo is welcoming back tourists for gorilla trekking.

Up until a few months ago, Virunga National Park sat in the eye of a perfect storm of man-made calamities. Rebel fighting, refugee crises, unchecked poaching, and a forest-killing charcoal trade all took their toll and prevented visitors, and even park rangers, from seeing Virunga's most treasured assets: about 200 of world's last remaining 700 mountain gorillas. This past January, however, the main rebel leader was captured and his forces demobilized, allowing rangers to regain control of the area where the gorillas live and take the steps necessary to bring security and tourism back.

Maybe I'm brave or perhaps a fool, but I made up my mind months ago to be one of the very first tourists to go gorilla trekking in Congo once tourism opened. On three previous visits, I'd come to love this hauntingly beautiful but desperate country and wanted a good excuse to go back. So when Emmanuel de Merode, the Chief Warden of Virunga National Park, declared gorilla tourism open on May 7, I called my Congolese guide friend Kennedy Nari to make it happen. I'd seen gorillas before in Rwanda, but trekking in Congo felt like uncharted territory. After a 4:30 am wakeup call in Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, my guide and I faced a 20-mile drive on a bone-rattling road that disintegrated from potholed tarmac to a freshly dug mud track where tree stumps and boulders had yet to be removed. We got stuck three times and at one point nearly caused a mini avalanche when we were forced to drive up a steep slope of broken lava rocks.

Senior editor Norie Quintos, just back from an African safari with her teenage sons, filed this report. Previous blogs in this series include taking care of paperwork, staying healthy, and packing.

Norie's teenage sons swim in the Ewaso N'giro River

Teenagers act as if they've seen it all, and in many ways they have--most have been subjected to a 24-hour, hundred-channel television loop; they have viewed every viral YouTube video that titillates, shocks, saddens, tickles, or pulls heartstrings; they've done everything from fly jets to race cars to shoot bad guys in hyper-real videogames; they've seen the wonders of nature in HD-clarity on Planet Earth DVDs.

And yet. Real life trumps virtual reality every single time. And our recent trip to Kenya blew them away like no Playstation, Xbox, Blu-Ray, Imax, surround sound, or new-tech substitute-reality invention ever could. Turns out the travel experience just can't be pixelated.

The trick to traveling with teens is to go beyond the visual and engage all their senses. (I worked with my outfitter, Micato Safaris, to plan such an itinerary.) Thus in the scrubland of Kenya's Laikipia Plateau, Sabuk Lodge was such a hit. Run by Kenyan Verity Williams (that Africans can be white was one preconception busted for the kids), the eight-room ecolodge offers every fun activity and more listed in the popular The Dangerous Book for Boys; in fact the book, as well as its counterpart volume for girls, is displayed prominently on the coffee table.

There's fishing with a stick, string, and bread-dough bait in the Ewaso N'giro River; jumping off boulders into same river; playing outdoor table-tennis with a red-robed Samburu; looking for game on foot and on camel; learning to read scat and animal tracks; and listening to Verity's fireside bush tales (she worked on movie sets, including Out of Africa and The Ghost and the Darkness). Who knows what more we could have done had we stayed for more than a night? While it's hard to say no to all the activity, the languorous lure of the lodge is strong, with its uniquely handcrafted local furniture, open-sided suites overlooking the river, hearty meals served family-style, and quiet library nook.

The world is a blur this month for the swift competitors racing in the Tour de France, and most of them have been pedaling faster than ever since with the introduction of ever-lighter carbon bikes each year. But for biking enthusiasts who crave such top-notch speed and durability, a whole new eco- and budget-friendly option will be soon available through an innovative partnership between non-profit Zambikes and elite bike builder Craig Calfee: the bamboo bike.

The story of the bamboo bike began right in the States -- Santa Cruz, to be exact -- where Calfee designed a bamboo bike for a publicity project. His audiences loved the artsy-crafty look, and requests and rave reviews soon started rolling in. Thus began a small, brand new production line.

Then Calfee remembered a trip he took in Africa, when he noticed a lot of bamboo, a shortage of bikes, and even fewer jobs. Wouldn't it be great, he thought, if developing countries could use one of the few natural resources they do have to create state-of-the-art bikes that everyone could enjoy and use? This became the inspiration for his Bamboosero project, which first took form in Ghana, where Calfee introduced the bike design to the local people and helped them set up the supply chain.

Traveler and Photo District News are currently hosting our annual World in Focus Photo Contest, and this year we're letting readers preview the submissions and vote on their favorites. We just put a new batch of images up on our website, and here's one of our favorite picks:

This image, "Serengeti Sunset," shot in Tanzania, was taken by Joshua Chaiton, and we think the giraffe silhouette is pretty spectacular. Think your photos stand up? Enter now to win prizes, trips, and other gear, and check out our weekly galleries to see more outstanding images. 

[World in Focus]

Want to know more about something in the magazine? Have a burning travel question that needs an answer? Just Ask IT! Today's question comes from a reader wanting to replicate our columnist's African safari -- on horseback.

Q: I read the article "Africa From the Saddle" by Boyd Matson, in the July/August issue of Traveler. How do I learn more about this trip?  -- Ramona

A: Micato Safaris arranged the trip for me. They are one of the best for custom Africa trips or package tours in east and southern Africa. Their main U.S. office is in New York City, and the couple who started the company and are still very active in the operation live in Kenya. Their son, Dan Pinto, is the main guy in New York who can arrange for the trips. Happy travels! -- Boyd Matson

Want more Africa advice? Check out our Africa Travel Planner for more resources on arranging your own safari.

Photo: Demetrio Carrasco/Jon Arnold Images Ltd/Alamy

It's less than a week until senior editor Norie Quintos's trip to Kenya with her teen sons. In this posting, the third in a series of blogs on her trip, she covers vaccinations/medicines. Find the first and second posts here.

The glossy catalogs filled with pages of majestic elephants, lions in mid-roar, or huggable baby cheetahs rarely, if ever, mention the vaccinations or medications you'll need for an African safari. The catalogs' job is to romance and seduce, and not until you have fallen hard for Africa do you receive the get-down-to-business, no-more-cute-animal-photos information packet with "optional, recommended" travel health precautions against the scary tropical diseases you could catch.

The list of vaccinations is daunting, and includes Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, Meningitis, Typhoid, Rabies, and Yellow Fever. The vaccines are also eye-poppingly expensive and not generally covered by insurance. The good news is you may not need every single one; it depends on your specific itinerary, your length of stay, your planned activities, and your health. To suss this out, you'll need the help of an experienced travel clinician. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website details recommended vaccines and links to an external clearinghouse of travel clinics.

Steve Nash - 'The Player' from meathawk on Vimeo.

My football-fanatic fiancé (that's European football, mind you) tipped me off to a great charity event happening this afternoon in New York City's Chinatown. The second annual "Showdown in Chinatown," which is coordinated by the Phoenix Suns' Steve Nash, pits international pro soccer players against an assorted group of NBA all-stars, all in the name of raising money for Football-for-Good, Nash's charity. Football-for-Good helps bring team sports to war-ravaged countries in Africa, and aims to "develop world-class youth football (soccer) academies that are sustainable, community-centered social businesses in regions that have been ravaged by war." They're working to support "human rights and child protection, and a committed global advocate for African players, families and their communities."

This year, in addition to Nash himself (who famously plays soccer in NYC during the off-season to stay in shape), star athletes expected to attend include Claudio Reyna, Thierry Henry, Tony Parker, Javier Zanetti, Raja Bell, Adrian Mutu, Chris Bosh, Ivan Cordoba, Grant Hill, and Giovanni van Brockhurst. And there's a rumor that Yao Ming may swing by. Check out the video that Nash put together to "recruit" the players, it's a whirlwind of travel, and must have been a blast to shoot.

Kickoff starts at 6 p.m. today in Chinatown's Sarah D. Roosevelt Park and it's free to watch. But I can't help but think it's already packed, so maybe you can sit on Yao Ming's shoulders.

Video: Football-for-Good

Molly Feltner is traveling through Africa, and got the chance to experience a model sustainable hotel in Rwanda.

In my travels to various destinations in the developing world, I've often been disappointed by how some upscale resorts and hotels go out of their way to separate their businesses and guests from the local population. So I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge, located in a farming community right outside Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda.

Set on the slopes of the volcano Sabyinyo, this luxury lodge caters to well-heeled tourists coming to track the park's mountain gorillas and it supports some of the neediest members of the surrounding community. It's managed by Governors' Camp, which operates several high-end lodges and safari camps in East Africa, but is owned by SACOLA, an association of about 18,000 local Rwandans that is sponsored by the International Gorilla Conservation Programme, African Wildlife Foundation, and USAID.

When guests stay at the lodge, $50 per person per night goes to SACOLA. Since the lodge opened in 2007, SACOLA has earned enough to build more than 1,200 houses for survivors of the Rwandan genocide and other needy families, and fund sustainable agriculture projects as well. Sabyinyo also employs locals--90 percent of the staff members are Rwandan--and most of the food and all of the flowers used on the property are grown by community members.

It's less than a month to senior editor Norie Quintos's trip to Kenya (her third) with her teenage sons (their first). Here's how she's been prepping. This is the second in a series of blogs on the trip. Click here to see the first.

Kenya currently remains under a U.S. State Department travel warning due to "threats of terrorism and the high rate of violent crime." (Many on-the-ground experts say this designation is unfair, undeserved, and politically motivated, but that's another story). I consulted the travel intelligence folks at iJet, who said that if I avoided the northwestern border areas, as all safari itineraries do, and practiced basic personal precautions, there was no reason to stay away. As with any trip to a developing country, or any trip really, I wanted a tour operator that would be able to respond effectively should the unexpected and unlikely happen. There are many established safari companies that fit the bill. The one I selected--New York-based Micato Safaris--maintains deep ties to Kenya; its Kenyan founders still reside in Nairobi. The company also uses the services of a group of aircraft-supported physicians if medical treatment is necessary.

Molly Feltner is traveling through Africa, and shares how one group found a sustainable solution to help the impoverished residents who live alongside Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park.

In Rwanda, conservationists have discovered that you can't protect species like mountain gorillas without also looking after the people who live around their habitat. And in the area around the gorillas' home, Volcanoes National Park, where there are nearly 600 people per square kilometer, the potential for human-wildlife conflict is particularly great. I learned about challenges and some of the possible solutions from former Volcanoes National Park Tourism Warden, Edwin Sabuhoro, whom I met while traveling in Rwanda. As it turns out, cultural tourism is a big part of the answer.

In 2004, Sabuhoro rescued a baby mountain gorilla from poachers who had killed several adult gorillas and where attempting to sell the baby on the black market. The baby survived but the two young poachers received life sentences in prison for their crime. After their conviction, Sabuhoro visited with the poachers' parents to find out why they did it. One of the boy's father said "If you were starving and couldn't feed your family, wouldn't you do something desperate to survive?"

Sabuhoro did further investigation into the lives of the nearly 500,000 poverty-stricken people who live around the park and found that the residents suffered as a result of their proximity to it--animals like Cape buffalo and elephants ate their crops and trampled their dwellings, and access to fresh water, firewood, and other resources was limited because it was illegal to harvest them from the park. The locals resented the park, and saw little reason to conserve it, so wildlife poaching and illegal harvesting of trees and other plants was rife.

Friend of IT Molly Feltner is traveling through Africa, and just came face-to-face with mountain gorillas in Rwanda.

I've witnessed cheetahs hunting gazelle in the Serengeti, spent hours watching monkeys play in the Amazon, and swam with wild dolphins off the coast of Brazil, but no wildlife experience I've had can compare to coming face-to-face with a 500-pound silverback mountain gorilla, an animal that shares about 98% of my DNA. I met Kurira, the leader of Susa group, a 38-member gorilla family, while trekking in Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda, and found him to be a rather hospitable fellow. He didn't mind me or the seven other members of my gorilla trekking party wandering among his charges--he's been visited every day by tourists for years. After giving my group a good look over from a sunny patch of vegetation about 20 feet away, he stretched out on his back, arms folded behind his head, and let a baby crawl up on his big belly. The two played together for nearly 20 minutes.

Other gorillas gathered around us as we stood still. A big black-back male made a nest of leaves and settled in for a nap to my right. On my left a mother plucked and peeled wild celery, her twins playing nearby. After an hour, our guide signaled it was time to go--tourists only get one hour with the gorillas to limit the apes' exposure to human germs. It was a short time but the chance to see such rare creatures (there are only about 700 in the world) in so intimate a setting was well worth the $500 price tag and the effort of trekking up the volcano to find them.

When Teri Weefur learned that she would be returning to her native Liberia (after leaving in 1990 when war broke out), she jumped at the opportunity to blog about the country for IT. Here, she shares some of her favorite experiences from her time in Monrovia.

About Liberia

As a Digital Media employee at National Geographic, I have always been somewhat disappointed in the coverage of Liberia as a travel destination, and understandably so: the 14-year civil war ended in 2003, and Liberians only just elected Africa's first female president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, in 2006. Today, Liberia is on the road to recovery, and the people of Liberia are determined to restore her to a nation thriving with export, agriculture, commerce, and tourism. Rich in natural resources like iron ore, rubber, timber, diamonds and gold, coffee and cocoa, Liberia teems with more than 2,000 species of flora and fauna, including the pygmy hippo, unique to Liberia, and boasts numerous waterways and beautiful rain forest vistas. One of West Africa's most pristine rain forests is the Sapo National Park, a natural wonder for ecotourists.  

I'd been hearing stories about Liberia's big comeback, and now I would be seeing firsthand the redevelopment of a country marred by death and destruction for so many years. Armed with my brand new Fuji Film s8100fd camera, and the directives of friends and family to "take lots of pictures!" I was prepared for my monumental return home.

Crunched for time, as my obligation was volunteering with the first conference in Liberia since 1979, the International Colloquium on Women's Empowerment, Leadership Development, International Peace and Security, I gave up trying to find a way out of the city to see the most amazing parts of Liberia. Some of the country's most beautiful sites, like Cape Mount, Blue Lake, Buchanan, and Cape Palmas, where the tented beach resort Nana's Lodge is located, were out of my reach on this trip. But what I can provide is an introduction to the country, if nothing more than to encourage you to explore for yourself.

Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency book series has been hugely popular since it was first published in 2003. To date there are some ten books in the series, which follows private detective Mma Ramotswe, as well as an HBO series, now airing in the U.S. on Sundays at 8 p.m.

Now the Botswana Tourism Board is turning to Smith's series to give folks a chance to win a trip for two to Botswana. Now through April 19, check out mynumberonelady.com and submit a 300-word essay on your "no. 1 lady," be it your mom, sister, aunt, friend, etc. (just make sure you like the person enough to go on an 8-day safari with). Female entrants who can't think of a better "no 1. lady" can even nominate themselves. After you submit your essay, read the others and vote for your favorite. Reader votes don't determine the winners, but they do play a hand in the final voting (see official contest rules for more details).

Rainer Jenss and his family are currently on an around-the-world journey, and they're blogging about their experiences for us at Intelligent Travel. Keep up with the Jensses by bookmarking their posts, and follow the boys' Global Bros blog at National Geographic Kids.

One of the benefits of having traveled throughout Africa for the last two months is that it has kept us in an information void for some extended stretches at time (Carol fondly refers to this as being in our little bubble). We did manage to watch Barack Obama being sworn in just a couple hours after we toured a township in South Africa, and I was able to retrieve sporadic e-mails in the bush from friends and family raving about how lucky we were to be on this trip while filling us in on the happenings from back home.  And it seems like every correspondence we've received has made some sort of reference to the lousy economy and how ominous the mood is in the U.S. I'm quick to reply that the places we've been to are feeling it too, proving that there's truth to the saying that when America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold.

From what we've experienced, I can attest that one sector deeply affected by the global financial crisis has been the travel industry. This was evident from all the empty hotel rooms and sparse crowds we'd seen in recent weeks. Although it's true that countries like South Africa, Kenya, and especially Zimbabwe have been impacted by social unrest and political instability, the economic slowdown has clearly compounded the fact that traffic is down as much as 60% in some places.  

One country that didn't seem as affected was Egypt. If they've lost business as a result of people cutting back on vacation spending, it was hard to notice. The same seems true for Jordan, which found us in full planes and sold-out hotels for our excursion to Petra. Maybe not as many Americans are there as formerly, but the usual mix of German, French and Japanese tourists appeared well represented. We also heard plenty of Indian, Russian and Chinese accents, and from what we can gather, travelers from these emerging countries might be compensating for any drop off from our part of the world.

World-renowned primatologist and environmentalist Jane Goodall turns 75 today. Dr. Goodall is best known for her long-term observation of the chimps in Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. She established her first camp there in 1960 under the patronage of prominent paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey. As a long-time National Geographic Society grantee and explorer-in-residence, Goodall was awarded the NGS Hubbard Medal for her work studying and defending the natural world.

Her patient observations of Gombe's chimps--David Greybeard and Flo among many others--enabled her to correct a slew of misunderstandings about chimps prevalent at that time. She discovered chimp were omnivores, not vegetarians, as previously thought. She observed them using tools in the form of twigs and blades of grass inserted into termite mounds to fish the bite-sized critters out; prior to this discovery, tool use was considered a trait limited to human beings. She also brought to light chimps' complex and at times violent social relations. Many of her discoveries forced the scientific community as well as general public the world over to rethink humans' relationship, genetically and ethically, with the natural world.

Rainer Jenss and his family are currently on an around-the-world journey, and they're blogging about their experiences for us at Intelligent Travel. Keep up with the Jensses by bookmarking their posts, and follow the boys' Global Bros blog at National Geographic Kids.

If you want to know the three most important factors that will likely determine the quality of your experience on an African safari, here they are:

1.    Skilled guides/trackers
2.    Location & time of year
3.    LUCK!

After spending almost two consecutive months touring the southern half of the continent, I actually feel pretty qualified on the subject.  And if you don't want to take my word for it, my wife and sons would be more than happy to offer their insights on African wildlife viewing, having now become quite knowledgeable in their own right.

We landed in Nairobi having notched about 30 game drives in our belts in the six weeks leading up to our arrival. Back when we finalized our plans for this trip, there was some legitimate concern that maybe we were overdoing it with all the back-to-back safaris and that fatigue might become an issue, particularly with the kids. No problem! As it turned out, we were probably even more jazzed about our upcoming final week in the bush then we were when this whole whirlwind began back in South Africa. Sure, a little R&R after two weeks of camping in Tanzania might have been nice, but we were booked on a Micato Safari, considered to be one of the finest tour operators and safari outfitters in the world, so there would be no downtime. Lucky us, indeed!

What also made this week so potentially exciting was the fact that we'd already spotted almost every possible mammal, bird, and reptile one could reasonably expect to find in this part of the world, so everything from here would be gravy. For us, all the natural beauty and drama we had already seen only increased our appetites and we were hungry for more, especially for the one thing that remained elusive: a kill. We watched cheetahs as they stalked gazelle in Tanzania, saw lions chasing zebra in Botswana, and tracked down wild dogs hunting impala in South Africa, but seeing a predator actually take down its prey had remained unseen. This was the challenge we presented to our guide shortly after he picked us up from the airport, an invitation he gladly accepted.

Rainer Jenss and his family are currently on an around-the-world journey, and they're blogging about their experiences for us at Intelligent Travel. Keep up with the Jensses by bookmarking their posts, and follow the boys' Global Bros blog at National Geographic Kids.

Talk to anyone who's been on a safari, and you're sure to get a detailed commentary on their amazing animal sightings and hear vivid stories behind the hundreds of photos and hours of video they shot. If you have followed my recent postings (note: the peregrine falcon is the world fastest animal), I intentionally tried to stay away from too much narrative about the specific animals we've seen on our safaris and avoided drawing comparisons between our experiences in the different countries visited. That might change with this report, however, now that we've successfully completed the two-week camping portion of our two-month circuit around southern and eastern Africa.   

To put this in some context, our first game drives were in South Africa's Sabi Sabi ultra-deluxe private game reserve, where we were spoiled in the lap of luxury. From there, we went to three different 'semi-luxury' Kwando Camps in Botswana, staying in cabins with running water, solar power and plush beds. Although we were well protected, the grunting sounds of resident hippos and nearby roaring lions could be heard throughout the night, reminding us that we were now firmly in the wild. In Tanzania, our accommodations were definitely more in line with what most people envision a camping safari to be, with little protecting us from the wildlife of the African bush at night other than the lining of our tents.

We planned this latter portion of our trip with another family of four from Long Island who we go camping with every summer. When they found out we were breaking this tradition to go on an around-the-world trip, we figured this was the perfect opportunity to take our outdoor adventures to the next level, and booked a mobile safari in Tanzania.  We chose this spot because it was where the massive wildebeest migration would be this time of year and a mobile safari would be our best bet to find it.

We rendezvoused with our friends near the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro, where we met our guides/drivers Raymond and Onesmo from Wild Frontiers. They explained that our itinerary would take us to Tarangire National Park, Lake Manyara, Lake Eyasi, the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti over the course of the next twelve days, and we were raring to go.

If there's been an added benefit to home schooling the kids during this trip, it's that Carol and I have had the chance to learn right along with them. I haven't personally watched "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader," but it sounds like a pretty clever premise for a game show to me, especially after looking over the materials Tyler is expected to master as a twelve year old. I can admit that this stuff isn't exactly at the forefront of my memory, particularly sixth-grade math, so after plodding through the core curriculum of their academic studies, we were all excited to get to the more hands-on lessons that this trip was meant to provide in the first place. Nowhere would this opportunity present itself quite as appropriately as in our visit to Namibia.

When it comes to a general understanding of cheetahs, I can proudly say that I had the basics pretty much down.  Over the past few years, I've had the pleasure of working with the Cheetah Conservation Fund, an organization I learned of through my job at National Geographic. Before being introduced to its founder, Dr. Laurie Marker, I was ignorant to the fact that cheetahs were even on the endangered species list. Three years later, I now found myself in Namibia, at the base of the Waterberg Plateau in the Waterberg Conservancy near Otjiwarongo, the cheetah capital of the world and home of the CCF Research and Educational Center. And because this country has more of these majestic cats than any other in the world (about 3,000, or 20% of their total estimated population), it's only fitting that the world's leading efforts to save and understand them be located here.

We arrived to a warm welcome from the center's director, Bruce Brewer, who together with Dr. Marker, helped launch the CCF program in 1990. Even though Laurie was back in the States during our visit, it didn't detract at all from the incredible time we would have here over the next three days. We had barely put our suitcases down when Bruce announced to the boys that we'd just made it in time to feed their three resident cubs--"Cubby Time" as we grew to call it. In hindsight, I was grateful that we'd seen cheetahs in the wild before our arrival, because it made this experience all the more profound. It's hard to truly describe the sensation of what it's like to be this up-close and personal with one of the wildest creatures on earth, but I couldn't help being overcome with emotion. Not only are they incredibly majestic animals--and particularly cute when they're young--there's an almost ethereal feeling you get when you can actually touch them.

Rainer Jenss and his family are currently on an around-the-world journey, and they're blogging about their experiences for us at Intelligent Travel. Keep up with the Jensses by bookmarking their posts, and follow the boys' Global Bros blog at National Geographic Kids. This is the second of a three-part blog post. You can catch the first installment here.

Almost two weeks after saying our farewells to the Coates and Lorenz families in Zimbabwe, we found ourselves on the eve of joining up with some more friends from back home who had children around our sons' ages. We had just arrived in Tanzania after having completely immersed ourselves in African wildlife during our visits to Botswana and Namibia, so at this point, the boys were getting quite proficient in their knowledge of the bush and understanding of the animals found in it. Because this had become the center of their universes over the last few weeks, I was curious to see how they would carry on with their friends who were coming from a world of homework, organized sports and American Idol.   

It's certainly not difficult to get caught up with all the amazing wildlife found in southern and eastern Africa. For Tyler and Stefan, the bush became their classroom, the guides and trackers their teachers. And just like going to school, their days started early - 5 a.m. to be exact! Granted, all they had to do was get themselves out of bed and into a jeep, but still, it would be a full day of immersion in zoology, biology, geology, and photography - with a little bit of sociology and sex ed thrown in for good measure. That's right, because Stefan (age 9) kept hearing about (and in some cases witnessing) animals mating, I thought it was an opportune time for our father-son chat about the birds and the bees, which actually seemed to resonate in this environment. Now we just needed to come across some mating lions.

In addition to learning that lions mate about every fifteen minutes for two to three straight days, our designated ranger Charles, who guided us around Botswana's Linyanti swamps and Okavango Delta, kept the boys engaged during the eight or so hours we spent bouncing around in the jeep each day.  Because he knew we were home-schooling the boys for the year, we took full advantage and allowed him to substitute for us to his heart's content.  Besides just observing the likes of lion, cheetah, hyena, baboons and a plethora of other mammals, birds and reptiles, Charles taught us all how to recognize certain behaviors and what they meant. He also made it entertaining by injecting some fun facts like baby elephants having milk tusks which fall out when they are about one year old or that a group of zebra is called a "dazzle," while a herd of rhinos is referred to as a "crash."

Fact-checking our upcoming April edition of Smart Traveler on voluntourism put me in touch with African Impact's Jolene Harris, the company's South Africa and Mozambique destination manager and marketing assistant. We chatted about African Impact, the volunteer work it facilitates for travelers to Africa, and what makes it special.

First off, can you please tell us a bit about African Impact and what it does? 

African Impact started in 2004 by local Zimbabweans who recognized an increasing desire by international travelers to give back and do some meaningful work when they vacation. African Impact has offices in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya and we have just branched out to South Africa. Over the last five years, African Impact has placed over 2,000 volunteers, with numbers growing each year. 2008 saw nearly 800 volunteers placed in eight countries on over 20 projects.

I notice you coordinate a wide array of volunteer opportunities: from lion, whale shark, manta ray, and black rhino conservation to assisting at clinics and fostering HIV/AIDS awareness as well as educational programs. What are some of your most popular projects?
 
Our most popular project would be our oldest and biggest which is the Lion Rehabilitation Project in Gweru, Zimbabwe. There are several more that receive large numbers of volunteers, namely our Livingstone Medical Project in Zambia, the Conservation and Photography Project in South Africa, and our Teaching and Community Project in Zanzibar. 

Anyone planning on traveling to Africa this year should check out the amazing fare offers on Ethiopian Airlines. In celebration of Obama's inauguration, between now and March 30 they're offering a "Free Companion Fare"--one free ticket from the U.S. to some 32 destinations in Africa with the purchase of another ticket. Tickets must be booked before March 30, with a 21-day limit on the length of stay, and travel must start during that time (though travelers can return as late as 21 days after March 30, or April 20, if I can count correctly).

If you're not planning to fly within the next couple of months, other deals include round-trip fare from Washington Dulles International to Johannesburg from $900 or to Kigali for $1050 (travel before April 30), according to the website.

Even if you didn't vote for Obama, you gotta admit this is a pretty sweet deal.

Photo: David Erazo via the Intelligent Travel Flickr pool 

Friend of IT Andrew Evans is just back from a trip to Bostwana, Africa, where he got savvy on the ways of the king of the jungle.

Behind every good traveler is a good local guide, someone who can give you the inside scoop on his or her own backyard. A guide also keeps you out of trouble--that's especially true in Africa where one wrong step could be your last.  That sounds a little bit melodramatic, but just wait until you're actually out there in the open wilderness with a pod of four-ton hippos staring back at you, snorting angry mist through their flared nostrils . . . and then a fifteen-foot crocodile just pops up from the ripples and winks at you. A guide comes in handy.
 
Joseph Makhulo is the game tracker at Xaranna Camp of the Okavango Delta. As a member of the San tribe, Joseph knows the African bush like his own backyard... because that's what it is. On a recent trip to Botswana, he shared his amazing knowledge with me, the kind of Boy Scout skills that date back a few thousand years before the Boy Scouts. Joseph taught me how to make a fire with two sticks, he showed me how to hide in the grass when a big, bull elephant got a little too close for comfort, and he showed me how to track lions. The highlight of my safari was a pride of lionesses that we spotted getting ready to go hunting after dusk--Joseph tracked them down in under an hour.  I was most fascinated by his skills, so the next night, he showed me how it's done.

Find out how after the jump.  

The tanking international economy has led to a tourism downturn throughout the world, with the notable exception of Kenya, where safari operators are reporting brisk bookings following the November election of Barack Obama, whose father hailed from the town of Kogelo in the western part of the country.

"We've seen a 12 percent increase since November over the same period last year and our Web traffic is up 17 percent," says Dennis Pinto of Micato Safaris. "Given the prevailing economic conditions, we can only attribute this to the Obama factor." The Kenya Tourist Board also reports large increases in recent arrivals numbers.