The great elephant encounter of 2011

Oh the wilds of Africa, you can be truly wild... even in a national park where the animals are more or less used to the presence of the herds of safari vehicles passing through.

On a mini safari over Easter weekend my lovely cousin (who came all the way from Denmark to visit me) and I had a bit of an adventure. Not only did our vehicle get stuck off track, 150 m from a few lionesses and their cubs (luckily they had recently killed a zebra and were more than satisfied with that), but we had a close encounter with a grumpy bull elephant. According to our guide, he's looking for some action. Female action that is. And we got right in his way. Word around the park afterwards was that this particular elephant has been terrorizing the females and the staff village inside the park for the last few days.

For your viewing pleasure, our close encounter (which I just happened to be filming). Hold on to your hats, folks!

Mom, Dad, I think this might seem familiar.



And now from something a little less wild...

Beach resort monkeys

More beach resort monkeys! This time on Zanzibar.

Spent the weekend at a fab little beach resort with 11 bandas, beautiful views, and good company. I must apologize for copping out on the blog posting recently and sticking to photo posts, but I promise I'll start writing again soon. Scouts honour. But until then...

"Karibuni. Welcome onboard. Next stop is Dar es Salaam in 20 minutes. Please fasten your seatbelts like in a car. Lifevests are under your seat."

This statement was closely followed by something along the lines of "look ma, no hands!" Or at least that's what I imagined when I saw we were making our climb without hands on the wheel while he was looking down and writing in some sort of book. Guess we were on autopilot?

Hello Cicero!

I'm hanging out in airports... again

This time en route to home sweet home in Tanzania. I'm being all grown up and have a day room (or in this case a night room) in the airport in Zürich.

I've just had a wonderful 40-ish hours in London with some of my best girl friends in this whole wide world (and it's a big one!). First time in London can definitely be rated a success. Loads of sunshine, lots of walking past historical type places, and a little wine-drinking in parks - what more could you want from a short stop over to (re) connect with friends?

Tomorrow I'm Dar bound again and am looking forward to being home with my doggy (ies?) and chilling out in the evening before starting a hectic week on Monday.

I really am lucky to do what I do and go where I go. And even luckier because next week my darling cousin in coming to spend a week with me in Tanzania. On our agenda in a trip to Kizimkazi to hang by the beach, snorkel and enjoy some dolphin watching before wandering Stone Town and then heading to a lovely tented camp for a few days in Mikumi National Park. I can't wait!

I'm hanging out in airports....

... and train stations.

This week I get a break from the tropics to enjoy a week of springtime in Europe. I jetted out of Dar es Salaam on Friday nights (only two hours delayed - due to a sick pilot and lack of replacement pilots on short notice) and arrived in Geneva on Saturday morning.

From Geneva, I caught a train, or rather four trains, to Turin, Italy. It's a mere 246-ish kilometers and should be doable in about 3 hours by road. But by train the route was some 464 kilometers and took 6 hours and 45 minutes.

So instead of doing this:
  View Larger Map

I did this (more or less just via the train tracks):
View Larger Map

But to arrive a day before the training and catch up with a family friend I hadn't seen since 1996 (we think), it was all worth it.

And I got some sweet views of the Alps along the way.