Masai Mara National Reserve is in the south-western area of Kenya. Named after the Masai people (the traditional inhabitants) and their description of the area when looked from far away and "Mara" which is Maa (local language) for spotted (description for the trees, scrub, savannah and cloud shadows in the area). It covers 1530 square kilometers.
Serengeti National Park in Tanzania is most famous for it's annual migration of over 1.5 million white bearded wildebeest and 200,000 zebra. The park covers 14,763 square kilometers (5,700 square miles) of grassland plains as well as riverine forest and wooded areas. It's located in the north of the country, bordering Kenya on the northborder, where it is continuous with the Masai Mara National Reserve and just to the south-east is Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA), which we visited as well.
The NCA is situated 180 kilometers (112 miles) west of Arusha in the Crater Highland area of Tanzania. the Ngorongoro Crater, a large, unbroken, unflooded volcanic caldera, which formed from a giant volcano explotion followed by it collapsing on itself about three million years ago, it is 610 meters (2,000 feet) deep and its covers 260 square meters (100 square miles). The estimated height of the original volcano ranges from 15 to 19 thousand feet (4500 to 5800 metres) high. We spent one night sleeping on the rim of this crater & then went for a morning game drive inside the crater. The NCA also holds Olduvai Gorge which is in the flat area and considered to be the seat of humanity since the discovery of the earliest known specimens of the human beaings. This excavation work was pioneered by Louis Leakey and his wife Mary back in the 1950s and is still going on today thanks to their family.
Lake Malawi is the third largest in Africa and the 8th in the world and second deepest in lake in Africa and an African Great Lake. It borders Malawi, Tanzania, and Mozambique. This great lake's tropical waters supposedly has more species of fish than any other lake on the Earth. It is 580 kilometers long, but only 75 kilometers wide at it's widest point. The lake also supports large populations of snails, some of which are known to carry , a reason I never swam in the water, cause I sure as heck don't want to have schisto, but then maybe some of my mates in London and Saranac Lake could do research on me - LOL.
Victoria Falls also called Mosi-oa-Tunya (the Mist that Thunders) is a water fall located on the Zambezi River and considered to be one of the seven natural wonders of the world. It was first recorded viewing of the falls was by David Livingstone the Scottish missionary. Even though it is not the highest or widest in the world, it clains to be the largest based on it's widthe of 1,708 meters (5,600 feet) and 108 meters high (360 feet), making it the largest sheet of falling water in the world. Apparently 1,000 cubic meters per second fall over the falls, which equals tons of water as well - CRAZY huh?
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an impressive recap of your visits. sounds like Victoria Falls is about a mile wide...that is a big WOW! thanks for the report and update. all the best and love from DAD
ReplyDeleteinterested that you went to Olduvai Gorge. Louis' Leakey's son Richard was a client of the bank where I worked in NYC before being married. I was always fascinated with his father's and his work. Did you know that Jane Goodall was personally chosen by L. Leakey to do research in primatology and she and 2 other women were called Leakey's Angels. Thanks for your time in doing this blog. Love, Mommio
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