Serengeti Balloon Ride!

We were originally going to skip the balloon ride on the Serengeti. It's expensive ($500 a head) and a bit scary (see http://www.eturbonews.com/18869/tanzania-bans-hot-air-balloons-its-national-park), but fortunately we relented and signed up for the trip. It was one of the main highlights of our vacation.

It all starts well before dawn when the balloon company comes to pick you up at your camp in their Land Rover. It takes a good hour to get to the take off spot which changes from day to day depending on wind direction. Once the sunrise is imminent, they fill the three balloons by heating the air pocket inside and load everyone into the basket. These are large balloons - our basket held 16 people, divided into eight compartments. You lie down on the side of the compartment and wait for the balloon to rise. Slowly and majestically, the balloon rises above your head and the basket starts to right itself and suddenly you're flying!

Here we are getting organized to get into the basket. That's our pilot directing traffic.

Here's what it looks like from the basket before lift-off - one view sideways and another upwards

And suddenly you're flying!

The pilot of the balloon is well-trained and certified. You have to have their Private Pilot's License (B) to fly a balloon and then you have to get your CPL (B) (Commercial Pilot's License - Balloon) to be able to take passengers. The minimum number of qualifying hours is 75. Our pilot was a Canadian trained in the U.S. 

For the most part, the balloons fly at tree-top level so that the passengers can see the animal life. According to our pilot, it is possible to have a good amount of precision over the altitude of a balloon, but speed and direction depend totally on the winds. However, winds do vary with altitude, so it is possible to change direction and speed a certain amount by choosing the right altitude.

Here's the view from the balloon:

The sun rises shortly after take-off

Here's a shot of one of the other two balloons flying over the Serengeti plain. It's a large, empty place.

Here's a jackal from above

A herd of zebras

A pool of very smelly hippos

Hippo pod close-up

Rare shot of a hippo out on a walk-about

A herd of buffalo flees from the balloon. Note how low we are!

Here's a bat-eared fox out for a stroll.

Another shot of our fellow balloon riders

Proof that we made it through unscathed

After our flight, we were taken to a lovely site for a champagne breakfast. Here are the pilots preparing the champagne for their guests.

Three Computer Problems Solved!

Cue the Hallelujah Chorus! Today I managed to solve three problems that have been bugging me for MONTHS. In case you were suffering the same symptoms, here are the solutions:

1. Does your Nvidia video driver crash if you do a print preview for your Epson printer from Photoshop or Lightroom in Windows 7 64 bit? Mine did! Here's the simple fix from Epson (courtesy of a discussion forum): 
• Click on the bottom left button and choose devices and printers
• Right click on the Epson printer that has the problem
• Click on printer properties
• Select the advanced tab
• Unclick the "enable advanced printing features" check box
2. Are you having REALLY SLOW RESPONSE TIMES from your Epson printer driver running under Windows 7 64 bit? It was taking MINUTES to navigate the driver to do stuff like changing the paper type and set properties. I called Epson support on this and they acknowledge a bug. There is a file in an Epson folder that keeps growing larger and larger and slowing down the driver. They don't have a fix, but they do have a workaround -- you can just delete the file and the driver instantly speeds up. Over time, the file grows and the driver slows down and you have to do it again. Here is the path to the file: c:\ProgramData\EPSON\PRINTER\EPAUD01.AUD. Mine was over 40 MB and it is now sitting at 3 KB.
   
3. Do you have a DPR-1260 printer server from D-Link? Does it work in fits and starts with Windows 7 causing you to tear your hair out when you get communication error after communication error? Here is the fix:
• Launch your web browser and enter the IP number of your printer server. 
• You should get a dashboard for the device.
• Click on the SETUP tab 
• Choose the Firmware option from the left side. You'll be prompted for a password - leave it blank and press enter
• Open another browser tab and go to the support site for the product: http://www.dlink.ca/products/?pid=482
• Choose the Support Resources tab and download the latest firmware version
• Go back to the device tab and follow the instructions to install the firmware
• The device will reboot
• Call up the Windows 7 Devices and Printers Dialog and delete your current DPR-1260 printers
• Go back to the device browser tab after allowing a minute for it to reboot. Select the Setup tab and follow the instructions to re-install your printer.

Hopefully those of you who have one or more of these problems will find this post. I saw hundreds of discussion forum postings on these topics with only a handful of actual answers. If I have time, I'll go back and post the answers in some of the forums.

The Rock Paintings of Kolo

Kolo is a small village in the middle of Tanzania just north of the town of Kondoa. Kolo is unremarkable as African villages go. It has a dry river that runs through it and the villagers tend herds of cows and goats. However, if you climb the walls of a canyon just outside the village, you come across shallow caves that have long been inhabited by bushmen. These are the caves that shelter some very nice rock paintings as we shall see.

Here is a picture of one of the larger caves. You can easily tell the four tourists from the Kolo guide and our driver by the extensive Tilley garb. Many thousands of years ago, bushmen lived in these caves and hunted in the valley below. They decided to paint pictures of the animals that they hunted on the cave walls using a red ochre paint. The paint has lasted centuries, although the onslaught of modern civilization threatens to ruin the pictures. I was reminded of visiting Stonehenge when I was a youngster, playing tag with my brother as we ran around the stones. Today, the stones are protected by a stout barricade and tourists are kept well away lest the stones be ruined. In Kolo, we had full access to the paintings and could touch them if we wanted to. How long will it be before these are guarded by plexiglass to preserve the paint? Will they create faux caves with faithful copies of the artwork like they do in the caves of France?

If you are interested in the artwork and wish to visit, I suggest that you start off by reading Mary Leakey's book "Africa's Vanishing Art, The Rock Paintings of Tanzania". It is out of print, but can be ordered through used book stores or Amazon.com.

Here are my best pictures of the artwork:

The men are depicted with large dreadlocks and straight bodies. Here they are carrying a spear. The women are depicted with curved bodies as you can see below.

Here's the famous abduction scene with two factions vying over the woman in the middle.

Two male figures, a giraffe and a skinned animal.

Close-up of a figure carrying a basket

Close-up of a stretched out animal hide.

More basket carriers. These were painted with more orange in the paint indicating a later time period.

A Figure

A pair of animals

An animal about to get into a trap.

More animal traps

The Road to Kondoa

Perhaps the highlight of our trip to Africa was our journey to Kondoa to view the rock paintings at Kolo. It all seemed pretty simple when we were planning this part of the trip on the Internet. The distances looked quite modest and the logistics of putting up four adults in "semi-luxe" camping style in the middle of the African countryside were not particularly daunting. In other words, I had no idea!

Take the trip as an example. Our tour company, Bush2Beach, had to arrange for two vehicles and a half dozen people to drive our camping equipment and ourselves down a pothole-filled road with enough dust to fill the Air Canada Centre ten times over. We just went along for the ride. Here's a photo of the road:

As you can see, the buses whiz by you at a high rate of knots leaving you choking on the dust. The Chinese government is assisting with the job of building a better road, but they decided to put down a fine dust layer for 80 kilometers before they paved it. By the time they get to paving the roadway, the dust will have blown away!

The roadside viewing gave us a terrific insight into rural Tanzanian life. Here are some photos from the car:

The young boys are in charge of taking the herd to the watering hole

A roadside seamstress is a common sight in Tanzanian villages.

We saw a lot of carts being pulled by bullocks, donkeys and even humans.

Here are some kids with the ubiquitous plastic water containers getting water from the village well. They are fortunate to have a well in the village.

A pair of bullocks ready to pull a load.

Just like the tinker in the olden days, these men move from village to village selling their wares. Plastic instead of tin, but the same idea.

We saw many markets, large and small.

At the suggestion of some friends, we had brought along some gifts suitable for school children. This gave us an excuse to call on a school and see what Tanzanian schools were like. Three of our group had some teaching experience, so we were very interested finding a school. Our driver managed to find a school in a small town and we arrived with our gift of World Cup soccer balls for the kids. The teacher was very helpful and, as you can see, the kids thought the sight of four slightly chubby, slightly old white folks was just a riot.

Young boys are the same the world over.

Here is the head teacher with her beautiful baby.

Proud owners of world cup soccer balls (yes, we did give them the little valves so they could pump them up).

This young girl was one of my favourites. She had a huge grin!

Here's Deb surrounded by kids. One of the little girls was bolder than the rest and reached out and touched her shoulder.

Here's the little girl with the big smile.

We reached our destination of Kolo, a small village just outside of Kondoa and the crew had already set up our camp. We camped on the very spot where Mary Leakey had stayed in 1953 when she documented the Kolo rock paintings. As you can see, we had all the luxuries of home including a bush toilet. 

Here is Rick with our friend James who was in charge of setting up the camp. Our camp was on the bank of a dry river.

Here we are with our drinks. As you can see, we had a cast of thousands looking after us. Running a tour company takes a lot of organization. 

Our bush toilet!

Our tour company hired a local guard to make sure we were kept safe at night.

We went for a great walk down the dry river. Deb found a cracked gourd that had been used to dig up water that was just below the surface of the river bed.

Rick and Deb pose in front of some interesting formations caused by water erosion. Can you look any more Canadian than these two?

These three boys lived nearby and were our constant companions. They watched us with great fascination.

The following day, we went to the guide office to meet our guide for the rock paintings. Pascali (probably spelled incorrectly) turned out to be a treasure. He showed us through his small museum with great pride and then marched us up the hillside to view the rock paintings. 

Pascali, Kolo rock painting guide deluxe, in his office

Pascali shows us the rock paintings (coming in the next post)

To get to the caves containing the rock paintings, you have to climb up the side of a large valley. Here you can see the view from an outcrop.

On the way to one of the caves, we passed through fields of crops. Here Pascali demonstrates something (I forget what) with great passion.

On our trip to one of the caves, we came upon an empty school house. As you can see, there are no windows or doors. The teacher has a blackboard and chalk and the kids are lucky to have paper and pencils.

Here we have a lesson on dhows. We were going to see a lot of these boats in Zanzibar.

In the next post, I'll show you some pictures of the rock paintings and discuss the technical difficulties I faced in trying to get decent prints of the rock art.