Schedules

Late October 2008 and Early January 2009
West Kilimanjaro, Rift Valley, Loliondo and Ngorongoro Crater
Kilimanjaro To Crater Workshop - 10 nights / 11 days

Throughout this safari all meals are included. Under canvas in the mess tent your evening meal is lit by hurricane lamps creating a Hemingway ambient, whilst you dine beneath the stars and share the days experiences. Close to the equator the day is short, twelve hours from sunup to sundown. We try to be out by first light each day to catch the world being born anew each morning as the sun casts her light across the primeval African scenery, and capture the extraordinary shape and feel of the landscape.

Day 1 Saturday: Kilimanjaro
Workshop members will be met at Kilimanjaro International airport and transferred to the tented lodge where a warm welcome and a light supper await you. After a brief camp experience introduction you will be shown your luxurious tented rooms which stand on wooden platforms in the foothills west of Kilimanjaro.

Day 2 Sunday: West Kilimanjaro
After breakfast in the banda we will go on a familiarization tour and hope to encounter the elephants and other wildlife. The camp is an ecologically sensitive enterprise and $20 of your nightly fee is a donation to Kilimanjaro Conservancy. After lunch the first workshop will be on the dining veranda. Gaelle will begin with a demonstration and give personal attention to everyone as the group paints and sketches, getting to know each other and the medium with which to work.

Day 3 Monday: West Kilimanjaro to N'garuka
Dawn heralds with tea delivered to your tent veranda. We will depart for a location on the foothills where we capture the first beams of sunshine slanting across the plains. Gaelle will show you watercolour washes that capture the fast changing light. Breakfast will be served by our driver on location. On returning to camp lunch will be served. After packing our bags we say goodbye to the Ndarakwai staff and head for the airport to fly to Manyara. Where we are met by the drivers and vehicles that will be with us for the rest of our trip. We depart for the Rift Valley. On the way stopping for a while in Mto Wa Mbo. A bustling town where all the tribes are represented and all nations meet. Market stalls laden with fruit and spices, tinkers, tailors and curio shops. An opportunity to sketch the colourful scene. A drive along the foot of the escarpment will bring us to camp by tea-time. After settling in, a game drive at dusk will end the day.

Day 4 Tuesday: N'garuka
We will rise at dawn to catch the morning light etching the escarpment. Breakfast will be served on location. After lunch in camp, Gaelle will give an 'Introduction to Acrylics' workshop in the mess-tent. Tea will be served before setting out for our painting session before sunset.

Day 5 Wednesday: N'garuka
Tea at dawn will give us an early start. Today we will be welcomed at the nearby Manyatta by the age-set chief and his very extensive family for a day of 'Life and Location' painting. The Maasai, their domestic animals and their homes are a fascinating colour-rich subject. These people will charm and delight you with their welcome, humour, elegance and grace.

Day 6 Thursday: Lake Natron
After breakfast in camp we will visit the isolated village of N'garuka. Travel through magnificent volcanic country for a few hours will bring us to our overnight camp at Ngare Sero river. Lake Natron is a forbidding and surreal environment, a soda lake of ever changing shades of pink and red, sharply contrasting white soda crusted edges, alkaline mud flats, fresh-water inlets and a feeling of eternal space, at the lowest point of the Rift Valley. Truly peace in the wilderness.

Day 7 Friday: Loliondo, Serengeti
On leaving Lake Natron we climb the walls of the escarpment to enjoy the fabulous views over the length of the wildest part of the Great Rift Valley which rent the continent of Africa asunder millions of years ago. We will stop to practice a watercolour wash and enjoy a picnic lunch before heading for our camp under canvas in the Loliondo Hills. Here a hot shower and a sundowner await us among the shady acacias.

Day 8 Saturday: Loliondo, Serengeti
Loliondo is the gateway to Serengeti. Wake to 'early morning tea' before setting off for a days' painting on the savanna, where breakfast will be served. After returning to camp for lunch, the afternoon can be spent in camp with Gaelle will help to develop sketches into paintings. We will choose a sunset location to practice very quick watercolour washes.

Day 9 Sunday: Loliondo, Serengeti
An early start will bring us to a location where morning light slants across the rocky outcrops through the fever trees. Gaelle will spend time with each member and encourage them to develop different watercolour techniques.

Day 10 Monday: Ol Duvai Gorge to Ngorongoro
This morning we depart for the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. We take a step back in time and visit the Olduvai Gorge where Luis and Mary Leakey discovered early remnants of mankind. The near-human Hominids - over 2 million years old. A mere crack in the surface of the Serengeti, the gorge is the result of geographical, geological and evolutionary events that have rendered history available to our eyes. We climb to the edge of the Ngorongoro Crater and reach our lodge in time for sunset.

Day 11 Tuesday: Ngorongoro to KIA
The African sunrise should not be missed on your last day in the crater. Clouds shift and part, the lake below gleams iridescent. Breathtaking . . . or not, the crater can be covered completely in an early misty haze. This is a special end to your trip, a photo safari in the fabled Ngorongoro Crater, eighth wonder of the world. The exciting drive down what was once only a path for Maasai herdsmen, who still travel the same route to graze their herds on the grassland below, brings us a day spent with all the big game, except giraffe which cannot negotiate the towering lava walls. The animals of the crater are so disdainful of humans that one can take startlingly close photographs, a source of your own to continue the wilderness painting experience at home. Lunch will be a picnic in the crater. At the end of this eventful day you will depart by plane from Manyara to catch your onward flight in the evening.