After 20 hours of travelling time, Garrett and I finally made
it to Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. We were so tired! Neither Garrett nor I got much sleep on the way over, which worked out pretty well because we arrived at our lodge at 10:30 p.m. local time and went to bed shortly thereafter. This virtually eliminated any jet lag we had, which was nice. The next morning we were off to Lake Manyara National Park for a game drive. On the way to our next lodge we passed baboons walking right along the roadway! They didn't seem too concerned that we were so close to them. We stopped our vehicle and took pictures.
After dropping our bags off at the lodge we went to Lake Manyara National Park. Once inside,
we saw blue monkeys in a tree. Moving on, we came to a sharp bend in the road and a herd of elephants came walking down the road, moving between our vehicles and others there. We watched them graze as they walked toward the lake. A female with a young elephant came by, but her baby went on the opposite side of the road. Our vehicles separated her from the baby, which is normally not a good thing! We began to hear rustling in the trees and the baby came out about 10 feet from our vehicle. The baby joined the mama and stood nearby for a while. As we moved on, 4 males crossed the road in front of our vehicle. In the distance by the lake we could see cape buffalo, wildebeest, warthogs, zebras and all kinds of birds, including flamingos and pelicans. Later we saw a kingfisher sitting on a branch next to a bridge. We also saw banded and slender mongoose, 1 giraffe, a few dikdiks as well
as many other birds. We must have seen 50 elephants or more in this park. When we were leaving the park we came upon a mama with a small baby (probably born this year) walking down the middle of the road. As we drew near she began walking purposefully towards us. Our vehicles backed up but she kept coming. We backed up more and turned off the engines and finally she began to relax. We watched her and her baby as well as one adolescent and "teenager" eat for a while and then we moved on out of the park.
The next day we headed for our next destination, Serengeti National Park. On the way there we drove along the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater. It was very foggy and we had a flat tire. This was a little unnerving since I we had to get out of the vehicle and I knew there were lions and other wildlife around. All you could see was the road and dense brush on both sides of the road. We might have heard something coming before we saw it, but it was a little creepy. Serengeti means
endless plains, and it wasn't difficult to see why. They seemed to go on forever. The roads were mostly dirt, and sometimes gravel, and all the time bumpy! Our driver told us the rides on the roads are called the African massage and it is definitely true. We passed many small towns along the way and you could tell by looking that the people were quite poor. After checking into our lodge and eating lunch we went on an afternoon game drive in the Serengeti. The first animals we saw were two young male lions in a tree. They eventually came down and ran away. I had read it was rare to see lions in trees, but we actually saw quite a lot of them this way. We saw so many elephants, giraffes,
hippos and zebras I lost count. At one point there were literally hundreds of zebras grazing together with Thompson's gazelles and wildebeest. We saw one cheetah and one leopard in the Serengeti. We also saw a lioness who had killed a baby zebra. While in the Serengeti we visited a place called Gong Rock, where the Maasai people have celebrations. They take a smaller rock and pound on a larger rock, which makes a distinct metallic sound. You can still see the marks left by the rock pounding. After that we visited some Maasai paintings at another location. One oddity we saw was a tree called a sausage tree. This tree has "fruit" that looks like it is hanging from string and the fruit are shaped like sausages. The Tanzanians make African moonshine out of it! The next day we left the lodge at 6 a.m. so we could see the sunrise over the Serengeti.
What an amazing, amazingly beautiful sight! And I thought the sunsets were beautiful! The sky changed with each passing minute, and the pictures don't begin to reflect how beautiful it was. We ate breakfast together as a group next to a hippo pool, with a 360 degree view of the Serengeti. I didn't want to leave! While there we saw water bucks, which remind me a lot of our whitetail deer. Right before leaving the Serengeti we came upon our first pride of lions. Before this we had only seen one or two together.
There were 9 near each other here. We actually got within 6 feet of lions; close enough they could have jumped into our vehicle if they so chose (I'm glad they didn't!). These two in the picture were sitting on top of a mound about 3-4 feet high and were practically eye level with us. We came upon 2 males with a female a little later, but they were more skittish and starting walking away when they saw us.
Later this day we visited Olduvai gorge which is where the Leakeys discovered the early man skeleton. After leaving the gorge we drove on until we were on the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater; we found a spot on the rim and sat down together and ate lunch. After this we visited a Maasai boma (village) nearby.
The people greeted us with songs and dancing. They wear such bright colors! I couldn't figure out how, in this desert environment, they could stay so clean. The men jump very high in their dancing! The women are very ornately adorned with beaded jewelry they make. Garrett tried jumping like the men, but couldn't jump very high because he had broken his leg in March. The maasai men laughed at him! They were so nice and friendly. I bought some jewelry from them that was like what the women wore. After visiting the Maasai, we got our next African massage while driving to our next lodge on the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater.
The next day we spent the majority of our time in the Crater. One of the first things we saw was a pride of lions who had recently killed a wildebeest.
The carcass was mostly consumed by the time we got there, but there were about 10 lions in the nearby area, including 2 or 3 very young lions. Later we came back to that same area and the hyenas, vultures and jackals had moved in and had finished everything except the skull and one other bone. You could hardly even see the blood that had been on the ground where it had laid. We looked all day for black rhino, but never saw any. This was the main disappointment of my trip, not getting to see this animal here or in the Serengeti, the only places to see them in Tanzania. We saw the rest of the big 5 though: Elephant, Cape Buffalo, Lion, Leopard. In the Crater we saw a Kori Bustard, the largest flight bird in Tanzania. We also saw a Victoria Crowned Crane, which is the national emblem of Uganda. We saw lots of cape buffalo and wildebeest in the crater, all in tight groups so I could get some good pictures. Right before leaving the crater we saw 2 cheetahs lying down together.
At one point there was a group of around 500 wildebeests all crossing the road to go to the lake nearby. What weird looking animals! No wonder the lions want to kill them! There was a hyena who had dug out a spot on a dirt pile and was bedding down for a nap. It looked so funny to see a wild animal behaving similarly to a domesticated dog.
It was pretty cold on the rim of the crater where our lodge was located. You could see your breath! I wore my jacket most of the time here, and all the Tanzanians had on long sleeves and coats. It was pretty funny. They kept asking me if I was cold because I had shorts on. At night in the lodge we slept with hot water bottles because the heat didn't work. It was fine, and the water bottles were still warm when we woke up the next day. The water in the shower came on and off, and sometimes only cold came out. Brrrrrr!
The next morning we left Ngorongoro Crater and drove to the Axwesso Iraqw Cultural Home, where we met Daniel, who talked to us about his tribe's heritage and history. He was an amazing person, and I'm so glad I got to meet him. He showed us, along with his wife Elizabeth, some traditional dancing.
Jane (wearing a wedding skirt) and I (wearing a dancing skirt) stood alongside Elizabeth, who showed us the steps of the dance. These skirts cost $500 USD if you were to purchase one. Daniel put on a skirt (tee hee) and showed us how the women traditionally play the music for the dancing. Daniel showed us how he takes the cow manure and urine and puts it into a pit and eventually captures the methane gas and uses it to heat, light and for cooking in his home. He also showed us how they use local plants for dyeing their leather, taking some green leaves, crushing them, and rubbing them on my hand. The color was bright orange! He had built an underground home like the ones used in the past, and the design was amazing. Elizabeth showed us how they used 2 stones to grind millet seed, and I got to try that. It was really easy, the stones doing all the work. Daniel told me how to kneel so that my back wouldn't get tired. The funny thing is, it seemed everywhere we went that the women did the majority of the work! I wondered what in the world the men spent their time doing!
Next we visited Gibbs Coffee Plantation, where they grow n
ot only coffee, but organic produce. It was a beautiful place, almost like a botanical garden. They told us how they grow, harvest, and roast coffee beans. I saw here how artichokes grow. A funny-looking plant! They grew all kinds of produce in addition to the coffee. We had lunch here. This was the only place we ate that I really liked the food. Gabriel (our tour guide) told me this was the only place we ate that didn't have traditional African food. In the other lodges they use a lot of curry and cinnamon in the savory foods, neither of which I like!
After leaving Gibbs we began to drive to Tarangire National Park. On the way we had a flat tire (our second for the trip!). As the driver worked on changing the tire some Maasai children ran up to the road. Garrett was trying to show them how to do high 5's. They didn't understand, so he did it with me to show them. Then they got it. They were soooooooo dirty! The children stay out in the field all day tending cattle and goats, and they get pretty grimy. There were children as small as 5 years old tending herds.
While driving to our lodge in Tarangire National
Park we saw lots of animals again. We got about 8 feet away from a fully grown giraffe and I had to change my camera lens to the close-up in order to get a picture of it.
In Tarangire there were many baobab (or upside down) trees. They look like someone pulled up a plant and set it back upside down! I got some beautiful sunset pictures with a baobab.
These trees were interesting in that the inside of the tree is fibrous and holds water so that during the dry season elephants can access the inside of the trees for water. We saw a lot of baobab trees with holes in them made by elephants. In Tarangire we saw a leopard in a tree. He looked completely relaxed. I was hoping to see elephants in the river here, but no luck. We did see lots of them, and in this park there are .25 elephants per km.
On our last evening, Garrett celebrated his 19th birthday. We had planned the trip to coincide with this occasion. The lodge surprised Garrett with a birthday cake. They turned all the lights out in the dining room and we began to hear singing.
A group of workers came in with a torch and cake singing a welcome song in Swahili, the native language. They set the cake down in front of him and lit 2 sparklers. Then they sang happy birthday to him in English.
On the last day of our trip we took a ride through Arusha, Tanzania. In the downtown area, the buildings were old, but in relatively good condition. As we were driving into town the buildings were very run down and trash was everywhere.
While we were in Tanzania the trial for a person responsible for the genocide in Rwanda was on trial. A person we met on the plane coming home saw the prime minister's motorcade driving through town. The picture above was taken from our vehicle on the edge of Arusha.
Garrett & I with Gabriel, our tour guide
Garrett & I with Denis (left) and Johnson (right), our drivers
Our Tour Group
L-R: Johnson, Bob & Jane (from Wisconsin), Al & Mitzi (from the LA area),
Me, Garrett, Jeff (from San Diego) and Denis
Toby (left) and Rudy (right)
