Ben Wilhelmi

going home today.

 

taking off this afternoon, just back form a little safari yesterday in Manyara park, no time for posting this weekend. I hope to resume again tomorrow.

Arusha, Tanzania

 

cool glasses! Maybe the French singer Polnareff was here…

 

prisoners in a “convertible” prison van. Prisoners in Tanzania are probably not to be envied, like in any African country. “Midnight Express” revisited I heard. But in any case, you bump into prisoners here and there just walking along in town in their orange uniform without escort, or a bunch of them working along a road under the supervision of one sleepy ward. All happy, greeting me on my bicycle, not dangerous apparently. Some manage to keep and run their usual business from the prison! Look at this truck, only one warden (I think it’s the one with the blue hat) in the back and he looks away. But they don’t escape. Maybe they volunteered to avoid a nagging wife? One day I was looking for a short cut on dirt tracks with the motorbike and I ended up in the prison yard without anybody raising an eyebrow. It appears there is only one gate, at the front side, opposite the airport! Funny feeling to cross a prison gate like that.

 

moving furniture and using them at best in the meantime. Mount Meru towers above Arusha and is visible from many spots.

 

fashion is not as important as in the Congo but it is definitely taken seriously by some.

 

I have to try this with my bicycle one day. 5 crates of Cokes, that’s quite a feat, no?

 

yep there are zebra crossings. Better be careful nonetheless though. The pair on the left is made of a blind man being guided. I’ve noticed a few like these, begging.

 

colors! This fuel station was one the numerous ones involved in a scam where paraffin was mixed to regular fuel to lower the costs. Fuel filters didn’t appreciate the treatment, nor the motorists’ wallets. In term of justice, not much seemed to have happened…

 

poor guy, no need to go to the gym after that: a wheelbarrow and 120 lt of liquid to carry across town…

 

another hard day for this woman. The general condition of the pavements in Tanzania could deserve a full blog post one day.

 

Kaka, what a name to bear! That means “poo” in French…notice the advertising streamer above the daladala. Another evangelist booby trap. Some smart asses noticed it worked really well in the US, so they brought the technique  here. Some friends of mine who are themselves normal believers admit to be shocked too because in the end, local people wind up poorer too than when they got in, much poorer. “Yesu” means “Jesus” in Swahili of course.

the streets of Arusha

The Peugeot 504…that must have been one of the best saloon cars even produced. Many survive and still roam Africa. The older 403 and 404 are definitely rarities nowadays, at least in Tanzania. The newer 405 is doing good in Kenya though but Toyota has taken the lead over the Frenchies all across the continent. I don’t know what the marketing dudes at Peugeot have been doing lately but they failed in their job.

 

early morning, no traffic yet but texting while riding is diminishing survival chances specially here.

 

not a tourist I’d say. Otherwise she’d deserve the best dressed tourist award in a long time. The tourists in Africa are a league of their own, a mix of Ronald McDonald and Indiana Jones, with the brain of the former usually. Funny how some people seem to be able to leave their brain behind once travelling. The worst are the ones who while visiting Tanzania, or any exotic destination, for 2 weeks consider themselves as specialists after that trip. I’ve been here 11 years and I’m still puzzled by many aspects of this continent. A proof? 50 years of specialists from the World Bank or IMF or US foreign politics for instance still haven’t proved they performed very well in developing countries. Hmm how did I end up talking politics from a good looking girl…?

 

a poor man ignoring an even poorer beggar.

 

the French speaking people never fail to laugh at that name. “Naze” is slang for a loser, or crap quality. Otherwise I liked the mix of the red, yellow and blue. Arusha can be very colorful if you pay attention. A  lot of the main has been repainted in the yellow color. Which is a nice choice I’d say, quite warm and a good match under the sun. It used to be a Stalinist grey that had rotten over the years.

 

I had posted some pictures of the Kenyan matatus last year. Here the “matatus'” or “dala dalas” as they are know are still not so colorful and modified as in Nairobi. But it is getting there slowly.

 

modernity with a young woman and tradition with an elder, below. The young one would rather die than carrying a burden on her head and trash her brushing!

 

National Social Security Fund, or NSSF, the dreaded pension fund. Even ex-pats have to deal with it, well normally. When you quit your job or the country, you’re allowed to get all your money back. Yes very well, but it can take ages to see the first penny. Bribing helps a bit of course. I didn’t and I didn’t have any contact and in turn it took me 6 months to get my money back! On a Tanzanian bank account. Which would be very convenient if you’ve really left the country, isn’t it? Not to mention that banks here, even when they are an international branch, can be challenging. See I can be politically correct sometimes: I said challenging and not pile of shit…

 

3 colors again. Arusha is typical of 3rd world countries, reasonable modern center and slums all around.

 

those cartwheels are very common, carrying everything from fruit to furniture, to wrecked cars.

 

funny pointed bra, a model from the 50’s maybe?

the streets of Arusha, Tanzania.

a beautiful early morning with a great light. Colors were bright and intense. I was simply walking around shooting in digital but I was also equipped with a Leica M and Kodachrome film as a historic tool But I’ll have to wait to develop these special films in the US. Another day, it was the Rolleiflex in B/W as a complement. I’ve said it before but I just love using older equipment, some of the very equipment that has created the visual 20th century. Another philosophy.

US style school bus but English make. There are 2 accredited (and expensive) international schools in Arusha. A 3rd one only pretends to be. Africa can be cheap to live for ex-pats, except for the kids. My ex boss with 3 daughters at various school level said once he was paying a total of 40.000$ a year for them. No wonder our salaries were not the best in TZ… add the flights home usually once a year, a medical insurance…

 

the use of helmet is still not perceived as a must. Coming very slowly, but very. Here is one the new moto-cabs that appeared all over town a few months ago. No licensing, no rules but they are already considered hazardous. This is Clocktower, one of the roundabouts in town. I think roundabouts are better suited for the undisciplined drivers here, and cheaper than the only 2 crossroads with lights and it works the same I guess.

 

I’m always puzzled how the West is copied first for its craps it has to offer to 3rd world countries, like ugly advertising in any form, cheap entertainment like Madonna or Rambo or rap music, lack of planning or foreseeing, consumerism…I mean “ to keep up with the Joneses” existed before, they just replaced the cows and the wives by Mercedes and mistresses and golden watches and whatever is bling bling…for those who jump on the band wagon, I usually pee on Mr Politically Correct. Anyway this is not even racism, white “nouveaux riches” just follow the same pattern more often than not, right?

 

dangerous driver in the making…

 

Clocktower and the new movie boards that show wildlife scenes. I thought initially that this would be a distraction for drivers but it seems that they couldn’t get worse so the accident rate didn’t rise. Now I don’t mind it’s there in full sight, maybe kids will develop some wildlife awareness…

 

another roundabout, again with a wildlife theme.

 

many town have a monument for the armed forces.

luckily the soldiers fight better than they create monuments, always built in the same papier-mâché style. Ugly, looks like done by kindergarten kids. But hey, they kicked Amin Dada’s fat butt out of Uganda in 1978, not bad at all.

view of Mount Meru towards the NE. This tricycle is also part of a new arrival. All the rage in Dar es Salaam as taxis mostly, they arrive slowly in Arusha.

 

common scenery, street vendor pushing an Ali Baba cartwheel.

 

one of my enemies…well no these drivers are everybody’s enemies. If killing was permitted, they’d be high on the victims’ list. The guy in blue and his peers are the clowns I watch the most: he has the job to attract and prey on potential passengers, so he is the one banging on the door to tell the driver to stop, who happily obliges without thinking and looking for anything else. I don’t even notice but I have developed an instinct to bring my fingers around the brake levers without thinking when I spot one of these dala dalas or matatus (still waiting and hoping for my eyes to develop like chameleon’s eyes though). But finally, after 11 years, I may think it is safer to ride here than in Europe. Here I’m always, just always on high alert as if surrounded by hitmen. Whereas in Europe I might expect some form of politeness and consideration from drivers and relax a bit too much…then I’d get hit by the clumsy one who didn’t pay attention…

trekking on volcano Lengai, early morning.

we woke up early morning, welcome by an incredible morning light.

the active plateau is still in the shade. The shadow with a triangle shape is the volcano sticking out on the far and lower ground.

 

then the sun came higher to warm us. You can’t believe how cold it can be up there.

 

compare these pictures. Same kind of lava flow. The black flow is made of fresh lava, the white one is made of old lava, at least a few days old, when the air has altered the composition.

 

a panoramic view down to the south, south east.

 

whereas to the north, here is the lake Natron just below the cloud layer.

 

 

rotten egg smell, better be careful with the wind direction. Lava hadn’t stopped flowing all night long, accompanied by a permanent hissing noise like a welding machine, some deep rumbling gave the last touch to spoil a night with concerns, well that’s what my friend said. I had slept all the way through…

I knew she didn’t lie or exaggerate because this sloped lump tilting at 30° to the right was not there the day before.

 

 

 

 

we took a another walk around the plateau, conveniently flanked by a ridge

trekking on top of Lengai.

a photographer’s dream. The various stages of the lava and flow patterns offered endless combinations.

 

 

2 examples of fresh lava, jet black, digging its way in older, and paler, lava.

 

 

 

 

that was about the closest we could get to the flowing lava. 600° Celsius…considered cold for lava but still hot enough for us. Common red incandescent lava comes close to 2000° C and flows muuuch faster. here there were no risk to be caught by these little streams.

 

 

Kilimanjaro (near the sun) and Meru!

nice sunrise…

some drawing

sometimes I regret that photography consumes me so much of my time. Not dreaming of comparing myself to Henri Cartier-Bresson but at a later stage of his life, he gave up photography for fine art drawing.

anyway here is one pastel and some sketches. Too bad there is no more drawing teachers in Arusha.

 

 

 

 

 

trekking to the top of volcano Oldoinyo Lengai, an active volcano in Tanzania.

2 aerial views as a reminder of what the Lengai looked like before 2007, before the major eruptions. The climb used to happen on the SE slope, that is the right part of this picture.

 

the plateau had filled up over the last decades, some chimneys pop up here and there, collapse, start again.... Now there is a thick cone and a decent hole.

 

the landscape is declared mostly inhospitable. Don’t get lured by the little meager grass or the trees. The area is barren, dry, hot. This grass here grew up after the little rains, but would disappear fast.

Usually people climb up, spend one hour or 2 on the top then climb down.That time we decided to stay one night and camp. Safety and common sense should have prevailed and made us choose the other side of the ridge for pitching the tent. There the plateau is extinct for sure. But I didn’t want to miss any action, specially at night when I was hoping for some red lava or at least some red glow. In vain…

the climb is strenuous, performed at night to avoid the intense heat and the absence of any shade. Carrying our unusual 20 kg backpack for the night didn’t help. Tent, sleeping bags, stove, a lot of water…

 

but what a reward when the scenery to await for looks like this! A Moon landscape with lava flowing and chimneys rumbling and spitting, ground vibrating under your feet…

 

getting closer.

 

fresh lava is jet black, getting brown within a few hours, and grey or even white within a few days.

 

  

 

this was not a major eruption but impressive enough for a first one and on our own. The guides are not volcano experts so the decisions were on us.

 

various chemicals make the surface look like an abstract piece of art.

weather in Tanzania, dramatic clouds.

 

that used to be one of my favorite restaurants, when I was “stuck” in Mahale nat’l park for weeks in row. Competitors were very few and not as good anyway. Man, what a life by then… The rooms were located near the trees.

 

rooms with a view on the Congo, not bad he? One of the camp boats. She ended her career as furniture, sadly. Beyond reasonable repair.

 

still in Mahale, this is lake Tanganyika by the way. The gap on the Congo skyline is a river (I forgot the name)

 

a nice clearing in Congo bad weather.

 

dead calm lake, pretty unusual as waves are common, and sometimes quite high. I witnessed 2 m but others reported 6 m (?). This lake is the size of Belgium, small for a country but big for a lake, 30.000 sq km, so there is some local weather pattern on the lake that creates waves and storms.

 

 

 

 

Katavi nat’l park. Fog in Africa…that’s looks like an heresy but it happens, sometimes really bad, bad enough to close an airport. It was gentle that day…

the airstrip is visible just below the layer.

 

 

hippos and giraffes, parks in Tanzania

 

2003 onwards: only films by then, the Nikon D1 or D100 just came out, cost an arm and a leg…so I usually carried 2 cameras, sometimes more, usually one loaded in B/W, one in color. Though depending on the available light or the weather, I might have gone for both cameras loaded the same. No need to change lenses in this case.

the rains have disappeared, the ponds and the river get dryer, hippos start to pack closer to each other and their own feces mix nicely with the mud. Splendid!

 

 

probably a male, usually irate and grumpy.

 

I’ve never caught the action properly on picture but hippos are very territorial animals. Like dogs stupidly pissing everywhere, hippos drop a few things too. But it is their own feces that they propel against a wall or a tree. The real funny part of this is that they fan their little tail while shitting, spraying turds all over. The rapid “flapflapflap” noise is hilarious. Some bits fall in the water. “When the shit hit the fan” people say…

 

fighting is common scenery, between males of course. These hippos pictures above were shot in Katavi

 

 

 

young giraffes. Notice the proportions are not quite right yet and the hair on the neck is fluffier than on later age.

 

leaving Katavi for the Selous, below:

 

 

silhouette in the morning mist.

 

those white trees are dead, they were submerged by some floods years ago. The Rufiji river has now gone back to normal level.

I’d say giraffes blend in quite well. Though camouflage is a bit useless to giraffes since few predators are after them. Lions when desperate might try their luck, and human poachers. The giraffe is the national emblem for Tanzania but that doesn’t deter poachers of course. It just means the fine, or more likely the bribe, is higher when caught…

chimpanzees, various portraits, Mahale nat’l park, Tanzania

 

 

 

I guess I’ve shot equally B/W and colors. They are such photogenic powers, B/W is a must.

 

  

clipped ear, this young chimp in 2003 will always be easy to recognise.

and he became an alpha male. He looks more serious and maybe stressed here some years later.

 

 

 

  

 

a tiny ray of light on this one

then she/he looked at me intensely. I wish I could know what was the thinking about.

 

 

 

he looks like eating with chopsticks.

things happen when flying in Africa.

none of these are my pictures. They’re perfect to illustrate a few things here.

that pilot forgot to lower the gear (him again!).

 

this friend pilot was not at the controls, otherwise he probably wouldn’t smile like that. Though, knowing the guy…

 

 

people got seriously injured or died on this one.

 

that is not the airstrip (though with a few trees cut off, it could be a good one) but the pilot needed it for the emergency after the engine apparently stopped in the air.

 

a Boeing 707 landed at night in lake Victoria. Power cut that night, thanks fucking Tanesco again, and the airport generator never switched on! So the pilots had to come in blind…

 

not sure what happened here but I doubt it is made on purpose. A Russian Antonov 12 which looks a bit out of balance.

 

love this one too! This is a Let 410, Czech plane, maybe my next aeroplane in South Sudan …hope the lions will be included once in a while.

wildlife in Katavi nat’l park, Tanzania

 

aah black’n’white, even in the digital world, it does survive and quite well.

 

 

 

 

 

sex party amongst crocodiles. No risk of gate crashers of course…

 

Katavi was something like a unique place about crocodiles: only here would they pile on each other like this and dig holes in the dry river banks to seek shelter. I’ll have to tell the story soon of the day I went to pat a crocodile…

 

running topis.

 

      

a coupla buffaloes, one with a broken horn, probably after a fight or a direct hit against a vehicle. Tempered animals…

various animals, Katavi.

 

 

 

tender loving care. These two pictures were were done on foot, not too far away from camp. As soon as Iheard a suspicious noise in camp, ’d jump out my tent or office or library (yep there was a wonderful library in camp) with my camera bag ready and follow the intruder. I thought I could always run back a few hundred meters to the safety of the Chada camp if things got ugly. Mom, too late to slap me.

 

 

 

 

this eagle was struggling to handle its heavy prey, maybe an Egyptian goose. It couldn’t really take off with it.

 

 

 

 

 

here the goose size is easier to compare with the eagle.

 

examples of cohabitation between a croc and a hippo. Since they don’t share the same diet, there is no need to fight. When water gets scarce, the crocs move away from the hippos. They don’t want to share a pool of shitty mud.

 

whereas the hippos and the crocs ignore each other, zebras, wildebeests, topis or other gazelles can be seen walking together, like sharing the same life.

 

 

 

a herd of topis (damalisques en français), an animal that was an easy target for bloody hunters as the animal like to stand on a higher ground to observe around. So it was an easy target to spot with a sky in the backdrop.

chimpanzees with a tender loving care touch, Mahale, nat’l park.

 

child and mother, eye to eye, sweet, no?

 

 

all the pictures below are about grooming, an important social way of bonding to each other. Gender is not an issue, a male can groom a male for instance, usually from low rank to higher rank. The females deserve grooming too. The alpha male is the one who grooms less but expects a lot. Ass licking has its ways. Chimps are said to be very close to Humans. That unfortunately includes our bad habits too.

 

 

imagine this chimp imitating an American woman using the awful “oh…my…god” expression with the usual 10 sec gap between each word…

 

now imagine NCIS:

Gibbs: “Ouch! gentle, you idiot!!”

McGee or Di Nozzo: “Sorry Boss, won’t happen again…”

 

 

Joe Cool picking his teeth while being groomed.

   

 

Standing up to allow a better angle of attack. Needless to say, these sceneries involve laughing and naughty comments from clients.

 

 

concentration!

 

 

 

little one watching and maybe learning.

 

that’s the highest number of groomers at work together I’ve seen.

 

elephants and buffaloes in a pool, Katavi nat’l park.

Katavi could get dry as any other park in the long dry season, but the numerous ponds and the big river and the swamps seemed to last longer under the scorching sun.

still on B/W films except one shot, digital was still in its infancy by then, and very expensive.

(time of the day was around noon, horrible light for pictures…) here are some buffaloes coming for a proper bath after a dust bath. I’ve seen herds of buffaloes there up to 3000 heads in Katavi. Other people have said up to 5000. Such a herd spotted from an aircraft looks like an army of ants.

timing looked bad as elephants came in too for their share.

some buffaloes fled the scene right away. The tromping is heavy and it feels like a mini earth quake is happening.

but others stayed in, aware and making room.

cohabitation looks possible after all.

  

 

parallel trunks, some luck for me.

 

tender loving care.

splashing mud is a typical exercise.

elephants have no manners, Katavi nat’l park, Tanzania

 

I was having an undeserved nap in my tent when some noise woke me up. And there 2 m away from me, an elephant was sucking the water from my bucket. I had disturbed him when I tried to grab my camera silently so he walked away, took a pee on the tree…

then he took  a crap. No manner really.

 

I started to follow him across the camp.

 

another bucket was siphoned.

 

 

look here the trunk is curled, he is busy opening a water tank! Smart dude.

 

and it happened more than once. The camp employees hated that practice because they had to go and fetch the water at some spring or well quite far away.

 

elephants in camp were quite common. Foolishly I felt more confident and came very close to get a picture. Couldn’t resist.

 

  

they couldn’t resist the water, too easy to access. This one here is standing at a shower entrance. There is water drying on the ground or in the suspended bucket maybe. It happened to me one day, I had just finished showering and was about to come out of those flimsy bamboo walls when I saw the elie, just there at the entrance. He walked towards me, I don’t know why, I backed off against the wall inside thinking that bamboo wouldn’t stop him but he did stop when he felt the wall. Pfew! Funny feeling I tell you, an elephant looking at me 2 or 3 m away, his trunk pointed at me. I could have touched it, I didn’t dare, concerned I might piss him off for good. Finally he left…a similar case, the client was heard screaming, seen running to her tent, naked and all soapy. The elephant hadn’t hurt her but she lost it. The employee had to chase the elie away then bring another bucket of water to the shocked lady.

 

 

with water, another thing to collect were these seeds. just scooping the tent roofs and the jeep seats, very convenient and quick. At least that cleaning action was well perceived by the employees

I like this one, he relies more on his sense of smell than his vision (since they are poorly sighted, it makes sense).

Katavi nat’l park, Tanzania

with Mahale and the Selous, Katavi was nearly home for about 3 years. I had spent more time in those places than in Arusha. The camps were great, the scenery and wildlife were breathtaking and various, as was the flying around. If no one is jealous about this, I suggest sterilization right away to prevent that defective gene pool from surviving…

this beautiful bird is a grey heron ( un héron cendré) on a river bank.

 

stealthy crocodile in black mud.

 

basking in the sun, crocodiles show as much energy as a teenager in front of a television…though the croc’s brain is more alert I bet.

 

but once the hydraulics are high up, crocs are fast.

 

an African fish eagle, nicknamed the voice of Africa. (un pygargue à tête blanche ou pygargue vocifère). Its call is indeed a nice little melody that can’t be mistaken. The US bald eagle looks a bit familiar.

 

another big bird, 142 cm high, a female saddle-billed stork (un jabiru d’Afrique). The male has black eyes.

 

always a cute show: a giraffe drinking. It doesn’t look very comfortable to spread legs like that.

 

the brown stuff all around that hippo is faeces…

 

I thought of a forest in Belgium with some aliens…

 

 

topis (des damalisques) with a bit of mist.

chimpanzees in B/W, Mahale, Tanzania

some of my old pictures on B/W films, around 2003.

Mahale nat’l park is located in western Tanzania, facing the Congo. I’ve spent many months there, between clients to fly around to other camps. Wonderful memories! Paid to stay there (as in other great locations) with about the same advantages as the clients, lots of photography, swimming in the lake, jogging in the tropical forest, just enough flying time, and fun flying on top… What else to ask?

those chimpanzees were permanent performers, a great show time. Here comparing fleas. Seriously, grooming is an important social task.

by then the rules were a bit more relaxed than now. 5 m separation was the norm. No physical contact.

but the chimpanzees didn’t care about those rules and came very close to people some time. One chimp, called Darwin, was famous for occasionally touching people, preferably women’s butt and then run away!

 

grooming while performing the unique Mahale double clasp. No other location has chimps doing that according to specialists.

 

taking pictures is a bit of a challenge because of the low light but worth trying.

 

checking fleas or…?

 

sweet light for a portrait.

 

piggy back on mom’s back is the norm for a lazy or tired kid to move around.

 

fishing for termites.

 

 

chimpanzees don’t like water too much, usually. I remember one picture in a magazine of a  bathing chimp somewhere else. So this one will only come for a drink or cross the water very carefully.

 

coming close to people again, grabbing somebody’s walking stick. Curious animals too.

safari in black’n’white, Tanzania.

 

in those days of digital, it is good to be reminded that films used to take pictures too. I still shoot films on every trip I do, whether on a weekend or while on home leave. Some days I even only move around in Arusha with my Leica and some rare Kodachrome films on board. Kodak stopped that legendary film production last year, the films were nowhere to be found for a while and now, curiously, some can be traced on the net. So I quickly got 10 to be part of history before the next (and probably final) shortage. Too bad I’ll have to send them to the USA for developing, and wait for months to see the result. Only one place in the world to process Kodachrome nowadays. I’ve decided to shoot more in infrared films. Some problems there as for instance Kodak (again!) has stopped its regular color infrared film…You might wonder WTF to go through problems like that…well passion. Digital and film could be compared to writing with a fountain pen or typing on a computer.

 

below all shot with Nikon F3 or FM2, which means no autofocus, and various classical films, like Ilford or Kodak Tri X.

 

jumping waterbuck in the Selous, Rifiji river, Kiba area.

same area, concerned Mom with a new born.

 

still in the Selous.

 

 

moving to Katavi.

Katavi looked a home for buffaloes.

 

just like a domestic cat…

 

 

 

  

another jumping waterbuck.

 

and a Thomson gazelle.

I deserve some pity…

 

that was the Cessna 206 I was flying in my last job. Initial colors were white and blue but that last color brings bad luck in my boss’ religion. When I got the job, I was wearing blue jean’s and a blue shirt, quite some luck, no? Well in the long term, one could say it might have been bad luck to get the job in the first place…heehee.

anyway, within a few months the plane got repainted, and the blue interior upholstery was changed to red and white, luckily more white than red otherwise I would have felt in a brothel. I got a lot of sympathy from fellow pilots for this ugly paint scheme but this is not why I deserve some pity…look below.

 

I’ve said those guys were quite religious, which I respect short of fundamentalism. So all OK so far, but I cringed every time I had to fly: these things popped in front of my face for the whole flight.

 

  

nice discreet golden and glitter plastic frame! With the protective wrap still on…whatever this religious head or the pope straight in my face, I don’t make any difference, I’d rather have flown with a picture of Marilyn Monroe, Sophie Marceau or a Vargas pin up…and without the frame!

the source of the Nile

 

I googled for a few pictures from the past to illustrate the Ripon Falls, the official source of the Nile, which don’t exist anymore since the Owen dam was built a bit further down. I wonder why these falls were chosen as source and not lake Victoria which feeds them…

these 2 old B/W, like many others, are offered for free by the magazine LIFE, for non commercial purposes. Cool, no? LIFE has an incredible stock of famous pictures on show, one of the most amazing collection of pictures on the web. I even became Fan on facebook. I like their ways of posting by historic topics. Easier than fishing at random in archives.

 

nothing to compare with Victoria or Niagara Falls but the waters were definitively choppy near Ripon Falls. Whereas now…

…this is all there is to admire. The falls are underneath, completely submerged.

 

according to the guide, the smooth surface of the water stands straight on top of the original falls. Indeed the water is rougher a bit further but he couldn’t explain the reason of the smoothness. Side story, my by-then boss who is a high ranked religious person scooped with tin containers some water straight here, above the so-called source of the Nile. According to his status, he can only drink pure water. By pure, it means natural, coming from a well or a spring. Tap or bottled water maybe be clean but is not pure because of the various treatments. Luckily the water he drinks as “pure” can be boiled for health reasons.

 

 

 

that’s about it, take a boat, land on the other side of the river, hear about the smooth water spot (visible and shining alongside the boat here), listen to the guide and incomplete stories, and go back. I thought all of it was a big rip off, a touristy trap. But that’s only me. The visit was quite quick I admit. I really hated the crossing of the tourist shops selling junk and being harassed. And I didn’t like the too numerous dancers and clowns performing all the way down to the pier.

 

 

 

another old picture showing the Ripon Falls. Go up a few hundred meters and you’re wadding in lake Victoria.

 

this drawing was followed by the caption below:

The Ripon Falls,
the Source of the White Nile,
as John Speke encountered it in 1862.

He wrote about his first encounter:

". . . the most interesting sight
I had seen in Africa . . .
the roar of the waters,
the thousands of passenger-fish,
leaping  . . . with all their might."

I’m not sure where this fall fits in the whole Ripon Falls. Maybe what looks like a little gap straight in the middle of the previous picture?

 

 

this monument stands near the pier.

  

I had no clue Gandhi had any link with Uganda, to the point of being dispersed here?

aerials of Kilimanjaro, rain showers, the Nile and lake Kyoga

 

if you’re a keen photographer, always keep an eye open.

crap weather below the clouds. Then you pop out and you realise you can work on your suntan while the others are stuck below, heehee.

 

2 faraway rain showers on my way to Uganda.

 

more showers on lake Kyoga, north of Entebbe, Uganda.

 

 

this is the Nile source, off lake Victoria in Jinja, Uganda… Just right of the 2 parallel islands. Nothing exciting huh? A dam built in 1954 further down the river has raised the water level swallowing the Ripon falls. Sad…

 

the dam.

  

 

lake Victoria in the far distance, the Nile source stands near that bend in the river (high right corner of the picture) then the river crosses the little town of Jinja and starts its long journey…

…to the west of Uganda then resumes a northbound track towards Egypt.

aerials from lake Natron to Kilimanjaro area

 

here are some green patches to show the rain effect.

I’d say all that floating salt erring in the middle of the lake seems to come from the shore.

 

this white spot must be another spring, there are quite a few around.

 

 

floating salt. Very artistic.

 

from the lake, I went to Kilimanjaro airport, flying north of Mt Meru. Mt Kilimanjaro was hidden by clouds.

 

near the airport.

 

 

      

all the area looks pretty green, except this farm. I didn’t fly low enough to see what was going on here.

various weird stories in Africa.

 

read on Facebook, from a friend’s: “was part of the hooker charter today: 5 planes, 40 Russian bitches and 2 Arabs from Dubai. Some people really know what to do with their money!”

let me develop a bit: the royal family from Dubai has indeed corrupted a lot of people to buy a piece of land near Loliondo, north of Serengeti. They behave like real bad neighbors, scaring people away with violence so they poach, sorry “hunt”, in peace and sneak animals out of the country as pets. Dubai air force happily provides C130 cargo planes for their dirty business. helicopters, a fleet of jeep…nothing is too good for these princes and all. Including prostitutes as said in the Facebook statement, for only 2 guys…I hope Viagra is provided. Officially these girls are belly dancers of course. Double standards. Better sin far away from home. Good idea to practice with Russians prostitutes before dealing with the promised virgins in paradise…

 

and here below, an extract of newspaper. The guy is quite a philosopher too…

I’m tempted to say “no comment needed” but this kind of stuff is extremely common in Africa, and in Tanzania. There were these 6 guys in Arusha area some years ago, sentenced to jail for animal cruelty. The cruelty part was cutting off a donkey’s hind legs so the animal couldn’t kick back anymore while the 6 guys were gang shagging the poor animal! One story amongst others, though this one is more gruesome than the average.

lake Natron in the rainy season, aerials, part II

 

I often wish the Cessna 206 wouldn’t have a fixed landing gear. It reduces angle of field for the camera. So for a perfect vertical picture, I have to bank the plane by more than 70°. And usually it makes people scream…a nuisance. A retractable gear would be handy. But then the 206 wouldn’t be the famous workhorse it is known for.

 

floating salts after the lake filled up.

 

 

an extinct volcano, Shombole or Shompole, on the Kenyan border.

 

and the pictures below show some parts of the shoreline where salt has mixed with the neighboring soil, where rivers have created little deltas and interesting patterns.

 

 

 

 

lake Natron in the rainy season, aerials.

 

after all those rains, dry salts and incredible colors like the pictures I posted a few weeks ago were not to be expected. The lake is full and looks like a normal lake from the distance.

Here clouds are reflecting on the dark blue surface. But the salts are fighting and don’t want to disappear. Some streaks are still visible.

 

below are various shots, all more or less vertical views but at different altitudes of the streaks. Seen from close the dark blue surface looks rather black.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

even if I didn’t get to see my psychedelic lake at its best, this little flight was still worth every minute of it. This lake is permanent show time. I haven’t spotted a single flamingo on central and northern Natron. I guess the few ones are located on the southern part, that is the ones we visited last month.