The third stop on our trip was at Genovesa Island.  This was the longest sail we’d have to do on the trip, and was the worst nights sleep any of us experienced.  Our boat was comfortably sized for the 16 passengers plus crew, however during long open ocean crossings, the engine noise and the rocking made for a challenging night.  Even the icebreakers I’ve spent time on in the Antarctic were much smoother than this! 

Once we arrived it was immediately obvious why this was nicknamed “Bird Island.”  Just on the beach alone there were hundreds of boobies, gulls, frigate-birds, and of course the famous Galapagos finches.  We spent about three hours walking around the beach, probably not more than two kilometers total, but never for a second felt bored.  I was really enjoying myself, playing with all the settings on my camera, getting up close to the birds, and just smelling the salt air.    We went snorkeling again before lunch, and spotted another black tipped reef shark, along with our first Galapagos shark.  Pretty cool!

After a quick trip back to the yacht for lunch, we came out to another landing called “Prince Phillip’s Steps.”  Apparently if you’re a prince, people tend to really be impressed by where you walk.  No one really seemed to take my suggest to rename them to Henry Malmgren’s steps very seriously… 

The steps led to the top of the island, where we spent a couple of hours looking for the rare short eared owl.  The surface of the island was pretty spectacular..it was all old lava flows, and had huge cracks and crevices running everywhere.  The soil was extremely poor, and the vegetation was pretty sparse.  It was surprisingly hot, but we got to see the cooling behavior of the birds as they vibrated their throat pouches to generate a breeze.   We’d just about given up on seeing the owl and were on our way back to the boat when our guide spotted one way off in the distance.  None of us would have ever seen it, and it took my longest lens to even come close to getting a shot. 

That evening after dinner we started sailing back towards our next destination…another mostly sleepless night, punctuated by a bit of excitement as we crossed over the equator.

 

Our second stop was small islet called Santa Fe off of the larger island of Santa Cruz.  This one was similar in geography to yesterday’s stop, but it had the largest variety of prickly pear cactus I’ve ever seen.  Normally they grow on the ground like shrubs, but these had evolved into tree like plants.  Their only predator on this island are the land iguanas that populate the island, but can’t climb up to reach the high succulent leaves.  Our guide said that the only islands where the cactus grow so tall are the ones that have tortoises and iguanas, both herbivores who treat their leaves as a favorite snack.  This has developed into an evolutionary arms race, where the tortoises evolved longer necks, and the cactus keep getting taller.  Unfortunately all the tortoises on this island were hunted into extinction by the 1800s era sailors, so it appears that the cactus have won this battle…at least until there are sufficient tortoises raised in captivity to repopulate the island!

After lunch we went for our first snorkel of the trip..the water was cool, but with a rented wetsuit pretty tolerable.  It didn’t take long at all before some of the local sea lions came over to investigate the new people who were hanging out.  They’re pretty curious creatures, but easily distracted…they see so many people on a daily basis that they don’t hang out very long.  I guess chasing crabs or relaxing on the beach is a lot more interesting to them than swimming with some pasty white tourists!  A highlight of the diving was our first shark encounter of the trip.  I’ve been fortunate enough to do more than my share of diving in a lot of different oceans, but these were the sharkiest waters I’ve ever been in.  I don’t think there was a day that we didn’t see a shark of one kind or another.

The final activity of the evening was going for a panga ride in a mangrove swamp.  It was pretty close to dusk, and we were on the lookout for sea turtles.  I figured we’d see a couple of individuals…never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that we’d stumble upon a turtle orgy of bacchanalian proportions!   We’d apparently come during the hight of mating season, and the turtles were going at it everywhere we looked.  It was crazy…one on one, three on one, we even saw one poor female trying to get away from five very determined males who were chasing her like she was this year’s Sports Illustrated cover girl!

 

The first stop on the Galapagos trip was a small little island just off the coast of Isla Santa Cruz.  It’s not the most spectacular island, but for a group of tourists who are very eager to get their first wildlife experience, it is in just about the perfect location.  After leaving the harbor, it took about 20 minutes of sailing to get there, and then it was off to the beach.

The name literally translates to “Wolf Island”, but our guide kept calling it Sea Lion Island.  Whatever the real translation was, there were plenty of sea lions to be found.  It is also a nesting site for the Blue Footed Booby, and the frigate-bird.  I’m really glad that we stopped here, as this was the only place during the entire week that we’d see Frigate-birds displaying their inflated red pouches.  Apparently we’d just missed prime breeding time, and we were very fortunate to see the last poor unchosen males still desperately trying to find a mate.

 

After months of sitting in the same location in Victory Base, I finally had the opportunity to get out of the office, and make a brief trip to the International Zone in the center of Baghdad.  The IZ was once the main hub of the US occupational government, but has been slowly turned back over to the Iraqi’s.  There are two FOB (Forward Operating Bases) still over there, and to get between them you have to drive in an unarmored truck on roads whose legal status can be described as “murky” at best.

Seeing the sights was a nice break..we ended up at most of the “tourist” places…Assassian’s gate, the Hands of Victory monument, the roof of the former Republican Guard palace.  Lots of fun, and on the way back home to Camp Victory, we got caught in the first thunderstorm of the season…very cool…at least till I found out about the mud!

 

 Our final stop after leaving Swaziland was a lesser known park back in Zululand in South Africa called Hluhluwe Umfolozi.  To be honest, at this point in the trip I think a good many of us were starting to suffer from “Africa Fatigue”, where things that got us excited on the first few days wouldn’t even get us to turn our heads.  Another zebra?  Yawn…wake me up if you see a leopard making a kill.   Despite that, this park had quite a few things that kept our attention at peak performance for the entire day.

The terrain here was quite unlike any other game park I’d ever been to.  Most parks are in the “veld”…fields of grass, trees, almost always flat.  This park was so much more!  Hills, ridges, streams running down valleys..lots of interest and a good challenge for photography.  There were fewer places for tourists to stay in the park, but if I ever come back with someone “special”, I’ll definitely be staying at the Hill Top lodge..amazing views, beautiful furnishings, and what looked like a very fun bar.

From an animal spotting perspective, two events really stand out in my memory of this park.  First we spent about two hours stalking and following a large herd of elephants, trying to intercept them around the terrain to get us into perfect photo distance.  We eventually succeeded, but unfortunately the light was at the worst mid-day height.  Still, for a fun experience this couldn’t be beat.  Our most impressive encounter happened on our way out of the park…we ran across several rhino’s, two of which were large males fighting over a female.  We watched the battle for about 45 minutes, with the animals getting increasingly more tired and bloody.  Eventually the loser ran off in defeat, and we bugged out with the evening closing time right on our tail.

 

Cutting thru Swaziland on the way back to J’berg was something I wasn’t expecting at all, but turned out to be one of the highlights of this trip.  Crossing over the border, the difference between the third world conditions of Mozambique and the 2nd world Swaziland was immediately apparent.   The roads were in better condition, the street signs were in good repair, and there were modern irrigated fields of sugar cane, instead of scraggly patches of subsistence farms where one single family would try to grow their own food supply, supplemented by food aid. 

Swaziland is a fairly small country, but it has a remarkably  well developed  parks system.  They’ve done a great job of developing the park infrastructure for a wide range of tourist types; everything from grungy overlander (like us!) to luxury and family friendly places.   Hlane National Park is the overlander one,  so we stopped in for an overnight visit.  This place was fantastic compared to some of the previous campsites we’d stayed in!  Hot showers, electricity for charging our camera batteries, and even a very well put together cultural show in the evening, asking only tips at the end. 

Hlane has their wildlife fenced into two areas.  They’ve got one area that is for game driving where the big cats can wander around freely.  It was at this area that we got our first up close lion sighting of the trip.  We’d previously seen a lion or two way off in the distance, hiding under trees, but this was the first time we’d spotted one up close, and walking around. 

The other half of the park has relocated all of the dangerous cats elsewhere, and guests are allowed to walk with a guide.  The big attraction to this is the opportunity to get up close with rhinos.  We were not disappointed!   We found several groups of animals, one with a small baby that were happy to stand still and be photographed for a while.  Our guide was great at teaching us to read the wind, and sneak up on the animals so they didn’t detect our scent.  As long as they weren’t disturbed by our smell, their eyesight was so poor that we could get right up to them!

 

 Our next stop was another beach town farther south on the Mozambique coastline called Inhambane.  This was another fishing village (are there any other types on the coast?) that was pretty well known for its whale watching opportunities.    Whale watching is one of those  activities that are the bread and butter of many tour companies.  They love it because all they have to do is advertise the stuff that can be seen every once in a while, and if people don’t see the big attraction, you just have to say “Well, that’s nature!”.  Generally there are a few dolphins or other some such ordinary creature that still thrills the tourists enough that none of them complain too much about missing the highlighted attraction. 

This was kinda the way our tour went…we were told that there were whale sharks in the area, which if you are a diver will recognize as one of those holy grail type animals that everyone would be happy to see just once in their lifetime.  I’ve never been lucky enough myself (yet!), but was hopeful from the initial talk that our guide gave us.  Well, I ended up showing up early to the shop to chat about some diving, and the guide there told me that the chances of seeing the whale sharks this time of the year were slim to none..sigh, foiled again!  Anyway, we did end up seeing dolphins (of course!), and a surprising number of humpback whales right off the shore.  I’d seen humpbacks in the Antarctic before, but never this close, and for such a long duration!   We weren’t able to get in the water with them, but I did have a great opportunity to see one of the biggest manta rays I’ve been around.  Our guide spotted him below the surface, and told us to jump in with our snorkel gear.  I was the only one who was interested, and I was down in a heartbeat chasing him with my camera.  Unfortunately, I’m still learning how to shoot underwater, and chasing a fast moving animal on just snorkel gear isn’t the easiest thing to do, but I still managed to get at least one “decent” shot of him.

The next day the rest of the group slept in, and lazed on the beach while I went diving.  The coral was pretty sub-average, but some of the critters were amazing!  I’ve never seen octopus in the daytime before, but I spotted two HUGE ones crawling over the rocks, changing their colors constantly.  Eventually the two of them ran into each other and immediately started flashing their colors.  They extended an arm out, and did some kind of wrestling move, which I’m guessing was a type of courtship ritual.  After a couple of minutes of that, they split off, and I decided I was going to need a cold shower.   Unfortunately I fell victim to the most common of underwater photographer problems…dead batteries just before the most spectacular sight on the trip!   

 

After four days of bouncing over some of the worst roads I’ve seen in the world (I thought nothing could beat Cambodia!), we finally arrived at our coastal destination in the town of Vilankulo.  This was originally a small fishing village, but its proximity to the Bazaruto Archipelago has turned it into quite the backpacker hub.   We arrived at around three in the afternoon, and promptly headed for the nearest beach…unfortunately the hotel that our tour company (Drifters) use was in a pretty lousy location, and it took a while of scrambling past half sunken fishing boats and broken glass before we finally found a small stretch of sand that was clear enough for us to strip off and head for the water.  Once we got into the ocean, it was glorious!  The water temperature was a little cool, but for winter in Africa it was absolutely refreshing.  We splashed around for a while, and keeping in mind that we’d all had our tetanus shots, headed back to the hotel to explore the bar.

While the hotel might not have had the best location, the staff did a fantastic job of maintaining the beautiful landscaping, and the hospitality was superb.   Our group composition  was a bit older than most African overlander groups, and that definitely showed in the evenings.  We enjoyed a few beverages, had some dinner and then headed off to bed at a reasonable hour..definitely not something I’m used to on a trip like this.

The next morning we were up early for one of the highlights of the trip, a dhow trip out to Magaruque Island.   It took about 45 minutes using the motor to get out to the island, where I was surprised to find one of the prettiest beaches I’ve seen in a long time waiting for us.  Our itinerary was pretty simple…do a little snorkeling, some sunbathing, and maybe work my way through a chapter or two in the Wilbur Smith book I was working on.  The snorkeling was pretty decent, although the water temperature made it a little less enticing than the warm sandy beaches.   Lunch was served by the boat crew..they were offering some of the freshest barracuda I think I’ve ever had.  I hadn’t tasted fish that good since one holiday back in Texas when a couple of us went spear-fishing on the oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

After another nap in the shade, we headed back to the hotel, this time under sail.  There was something really peaceful and relaxing about just chilling out, listening to the waves gently slap against the wooden hull, and hearing the fabric of the sails snapping in the breeze.

The next morning Ula and I decided to go horseback riding before we headed out for another day of driving.  The riding was beautiful, although the guy we rented the horses from was a bit of a racist prick.  He’d been kicked out of Zimbabwe a couple of years ago, and had resettled with his wife in Mozambique.  He was full of opinions, mostly involving how lazy the locals were, and how they should be grateful for the white people’s generosity.  Unfortunately this was something that we’d encounter several times over the next week or two.  Still, despite his attitude, the beaches were beautiful, and we were able to get in a couple of  great gallops in across the sands.

 

Immediately upon leaving the South African side of the International Transfrontier Peace Park, the landscape changed dramatically.  We’d gotten used to seeing wildlife fairly regularly along the road..mostly impala and other antelope species, but as soon as we crossed over into Mozambique, they were no where to be found.  According to Neil, our guide, during the Mozambique civil war both sides had come to depend on bush meat for sustenance.   In addition, there are quite a few tiny villages still in the Mozambique side of the park, and between the hunting and the human presence, the wildlife just hasn’t returned.

Despite the lack of game, driving thru the back country was definitely interesting.  We were going on roads barely wide enough for our vehicle, with branches coming in the vehicle that would quite easily take out an eye, or even remove your head if you happened to not duck in time!

For the next four nights we ended up camping at very primitive campsites with no facilities.  Showers were basically wet-wipes, and toilets were pretty much pits that we dug in the ground.    We did spend one really remarkable evening with a local family who had built a very primitive campsite for overland trucks.  The head of the family was a friendly gentleman, but it was impossible to guess his age or his wife’s age.  The husband was blind in one eye, and spent much of his time sewing on an old manually operated machine that he had under a thatched hut.  We had a few things for him to repair, and for the most part he did a great job.   We spent the afternoon playing bocci ball with the kids using “monkey-apples” for balls..tons of fun, and lots of laughs when the fruit finally couldn’t handle it anymore and exploded in a sticky mess on someone’s hands. 

Still, despite the dust, noise, discomfort and the lack of ammenities, it was a good couple of days, although I don’t think any of us would have chosen to delay our upcoming beach holidays in order to extend the experience!

 

Our second day game driving covered the northern areas of Kruger park.  Conditions were better today, and I felt more confidient with the new lens.   The intital excitement of being back in Africa was starting to fade, which meant that I could concentrate on good shots instead of just trying to take a snapshot of every animal in sight.   The lighting conditions were significantly improved from the previous day, due to our getting up early to be able to head to the Mozambique border before noon.  The wildlife was pretty decent today, and we even technically spotted a lion feasting on a giraffe that had been killed, but unfortunately it was hidden by way too much brush to have any chance of getting a good photo. 

After we finished our morning drive we headed to Mozambique, via the Giriyondo border post inside Kruger itself.  In theory Kruger is just one section of a larger international “Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park”, but unfortunately Mozambique’s section is pretty poor.   As soon as we crossed the border, the road quality dropped a thousand fold, and we didn’t see any further big animals other than the occassional Impala until nearly 10 days later when we returned back into Swaziland. 

 

Driving thru Kruger Game Park in an overland truck is a bit of an exercise in frustration for the photographer.  Due to the rigors of the truck schedule, and the sheer size, it is not really possible to control the time of your visit, nor do you have the flexibility to move around for the best composition.  In addition, you are competing with the other 14 people on the trip for the limited free space where you can even get a clear view.   Still, despite the obstacles, this was a fairly successful day for photography.  Today was the first chance I’d had to use my new Canon 100-400L in real world conditions, and I think that once I learn the limitations of it, I’ll really enjoy the capabilities it offers. 

Kruger is one of the biggest parks in Africa, if not the biggest, and due to the more developed tourist infrastructure in South Africa, it often feels like an “Disneyland Africa”.   It is very well equiped to handle a large number of visitors, and has some very restrictive policies that ensure that the wildlife is not stressed too much by the sheer quantity of people who come for their African holiday.  Only about 13 percent of the park is even visible from a road, and large vehicles like our truck are limited to the paved roads only, futher limiting the range.  Of course in Africa, game spotting is always a matter of luck, but having our range restricted like this felt like we were artificially handicapped with our options.   I think I’d have enjoyed the park more if I’d been in a smaller vehicle with the options to go exploring at my own leisure…maybe next time.

 

In the three months I’ve been here, I’ve never seen the exterior lights of the palace turned on after dusk.  On the 4th however, the I Corps band played a concert for the base, and the lights were turned on. 

 This is an HDR image, composed of three images bracketed at 1.3 stops each way from the “correct” exposure.  The longest exposure was 1.5 seconds, and even on a tripod it was a bit blurry.  If  I could do it again, I’d have taken the image from the left side of the bridge where there isn’t nearly as much algae in the water and could have gotten a better reflection.

Since I’ve gotten to Iraq, I’ve been living on an area called the Victory Base Complex.  This is a group of several Army “camps” with various patriotic sounding names such as Victory and Liberty, along with several others named after either individual soldiers, or units that served with distinction.  Camp Slayer is one of those, and has got to be the prettiest area over here that I’ve seen to date.

The camp is made up of various buildings commandeered for housing, administration, and other mundane stuff, but the centerpiece is a huge man-made lake containing  the ruins of several of Saddam Hussein’s old palaces.   According to our military tour guide, this entire complex besides being the permanent home of Uday Hussein was also the equivalent of the US President’s Camp David retreat.   The tour guides seemed pretty well trained, but there was definitely a feeling that the history they were relating was a very one sided version, with lots of tales designed to really reassure the audience that Saddam was a really, super evil dude, and that the US did the right thing  by invading.  It got to be so over the top at times that I almost expected to hear the guide tell us that “This next room is where Saddam and his sons would kill and dismember kittens before dinner every night just for fun!”

We went on a tour of several buildings starting out with an exterior view of the Perfume Palace, which was supposedly where Saddam and his sons kept their various concubines before they were ready to use them.   It’s used for upper level officer staff offices now, so we weren’t allowed in, but it is apparently decorated way over the top with lots of marble, expensive tile, gold fittings, all paid for by the oil for food program.   Next we moved onto Uday’s house where I was impressed with the results that happen when the US military decides that its time to perform an eviction with extreme prejudice.  Seriously, we don’t mess around.  A couple of JDAMs (look it up) will really make a mess of the place, and destroy the resale value.

After that we drove around the lake and headed to the Victory over Iran and America palaces..these are two buildings that are very well constructed, and completely over the top decorated.  Its interesting to see how the really impressive finish construction hides the most lazy example of the rough in  job.   The buildings weren’t finished yet when we attacked, but they still held up very well to our bombings. It won’t surprise me to see them cleaned up and eventually finished once we’re out of here by the Iraqis.

The final stop on our tour was what our guide called the B’aath Party House.  This was another fantastically decorated palace where the higher level government officials came to work and play.  This was complete with a movie theater, ballroom, and swimming pool (in which our tour guide made sure to point out bloodstains from executions).  The palace was pretty much intact (except that all the bathroom fittings had been stolen), except for one room which was where the first Tomahawk missile of the war was fired into…apparently we missed Saddam by about 45 minutes here.

 

Pettingell Peak is the high point of Grand Country in Colorado, and a great 13′er near Herman Lake. Getting to the top requires a bit of class 3 rock scrambling and is definitely not advised for those who have an extreme fear of heights or exposure. The weather was pretty nice for most of the day, although we did get caught in a brief snow and rainstorm about 25 minutes from the top.

 

In the five years that I’ve been privileged to come to the Antarctic, I’ve never been lucky enough to see an emperor penguin up close in the wild. I may have spotted one standing alone on an ice floe while I was on the NBP several years ago, but it was so far in the distance that even with binoculars, I couldn’t make a positive ID. Today, my luck changed, and I finally got up close and personal with a group of six penguins hanging out near the base.

I’ve been sitting in McMurdo for the past week waiting for the weather to clear up enough that we can get to Pole and open the station. To kill some time, the cargo department organized a trip out to Cape Evans and Shackleton’s historic hut. I’d been out there before, but I figured that any trip off station is better than sitting around watching another movie.

We had been traveling out for about an hour or so, and had just passed the Erebus ice tongue and were about to pass the Razorback islands. It had been a pretty boring drive so far, with no wildlife spotted except for a few Weddell seals off in the distance. I was about to drift off to sleep again when the vehicle we were in lurched to a stop, and we heard the driver on the radio calling out “Penguins! Emperor penguins!” That got everyone awake pretty quickly! We quickly threw on our coats and grabbed our cameras and headed out the door to take a look around. About 150 feet away, and headed straight for us were six Emperors just out for a stroll.

I couldn’t belive our luck…the penguins were obviously curious about us, but as they approached they managed to maintain a dignified appearance. Unlike the clownish adelie penguins, these were stately and aloof. They gave the impression that they didn’t want us to know that they even cared if we were there or not. The whole group stayed together as they approached with no one individual showing any read leadership. Every once in a while, they’d let out a squawk, or wave their flippers, but no matter what, refused to get excited. Eventually they got to within about 20 feet of our group, and hung out for about 10 minutes just watching us watch them. Folks were going crazy with their cameras…I think this was a completely new experience for every one of us.

After about 10 or 15 minutes of hanging out, the penguins started to get bored, and continued on their path across the ice shelf. They were obviously in no hurry to get where ever their destination was, leaving us even more opportunities to get shots of their backsides.

All in all, the entire encounter couldn’t have lasted more than 25 minutes or so, but I think it was one of the highlights of my Antarctic career.