Last time we posted we were in Joburg - our last day there was spent at the Apartheid museum. 5 hours and we still felt like we were rushing it. Excellent museum. We then said goodbye to South Africa and flew to Nairobi, where we began our official honeymoon. We were picked up at the airport and taken to our hotel in the city. Fairly fancy hotel (though not really by western standards), we had a suite with a tv which was very exciting. Went for a nice dip in the heated swimming pool, and an ok dinner while being serenaded by a cheesy lounge singer.
The next day we were picked up and driven to the Tanzanian border. We had been worried about getting visas, but have had no problems. The immigration lady at the Kenya airport was the nicest immig. officer i've ever seen, and for Tanzania our driver gave our passports and money to a lady who took it into the office and processed it all for us. Super easy. The drive itself was very nice (though the potholes on the main road in Kenya weren't enjoyable) - saw lots of Masaii in the fields looking after their cattle, and we're still enjoying greenery after spending so much time in the desert.
Arusha, Tanzania, was a big tourist town. you couldn't walk around without getting mobbed by people trying to sell you stuff. Some boys took us around the local market which was interesting - the butchers, the live chickens, the fish, the maize ... Very lively.
Now we get to the good stuff - our private safari in Tanzania! Unbelievable, that's all we can say. If you love animals, you must go to these parks (and the Galapagos in South america)! We went to Lake Manyara, the Serengeti (north and central), Ngorongoro Crater and Tarangire Parks. Each one was incredible. Over the trip we were fortunate to see the Big 6 - at least 20 lions (yeah!), a leopard, two black rhinos, many buffalo, many elephant, and many many hippos - all pretty close to us except for maybe the rhinos. We also saw a few cheetahs - two who were trying to hunt some gazelle but failed miserably, and one which hung out near our vehicle for quite some time, and walked right by us crossing the road. That was pretty cool since we were the only people around.
Probably my highlight was seeing an older male lion at the side of the road with his kill - a male ostrich!!! We got up really really close - hit the branches of the tree that the lion was sitting under (he looked a bit startled at that, but then went back to sleep, so exhausted after the kill he hadn't even started to eat yet). Our guide, Mbaula, was pretty excited about this, too, since he had just told us the previous day that ostrich rarely get killed by lions since they're so fast.
It was fantastic having a private guided safari. We had a huge land cruiser all to ourselves, Mbaula all to ourselves, and we stayed at nice lodges every night, eating huge buffet meals three times a day. We were with Leopard tours, which is pretty big - they have around 200 vehicles in the area. Which meant our guide would regularly get messages from the other drivers so he would know where the more unusual animals were. Seeing a leopard walk right by you is pretty cool!
It was literally the tail end of the migration. Ha ha ha. We were seeing the last of the wildebeest and zebra make their way to the Masaii Mara just north of the Serengeti. There were huge lines of them moving along, eating along the way. I took tons of pictures of the zebras - they're such beautiful animals. actually, i took tons of pictures of all the animals. We will eventually get the photos up. Brian tried to burn them onto a dvd in Arusha after the safari, but we ran out of time, the computer was too slow.
So, safari done, we had to figure out what else to do. The original plan to hike Mt Meru was quashed after seeing the prices and realizing how out of shape we were. So, instead we decided to take a local bus from Arusha to katesh, in more central tanzania. good luck finding it on a map - it's quite small. We met with a guide there, who gave us a tour of the town. It was amazing! Very authentic (the tourism marketing person in me). All the school kids followed us around town, wanting to shake our hands, say hello. We watched the local ladies frying up fish in the market, etc. And we ate traditional meals of ugali (maize) or rice with beef and veggies.
The next day we hiked up Mt Hanang - the 4th largest mountain in Tanzania, at 3400 metres. It took us an hour to get to the base of the mountain, and then another 3.5 hours to the first peak (3200 metres), climbing around 1800 metres, and I was totally beaten! I had a nap for over an hour at the top before I felt good enough to go back down. Brutal. Took us 3.5 hours to get back down and to our guest house in town. glad we did it, the hike was beautiful (lots of wildflowers, nice views). And there were no other tourists around, except for 3 Brits who did the hike with us.
So now we come to yesterday - one of the worst travel days I think I've ever had. Yet a memorable experience. We spent 12 hours on 3 buses, with no breaks in between (not even one potty break, and no mealtime!), to get from Katesh to Dodoman, Tanzania's capital city. One section of the road, which was around 18 kms long, took us over an hour. It took us 9 hours to cover 250 kms. The buses were absolutely packed, with people, luggage and a few chickens. One stretch was so bumpy that I was body checking the poor old man I was sitting with, and had a guy in the aisle pretty much sitting on me. The buses were falling apart... The roads were so dusty that the greenery beside us was brown, and our bags and clothes came out of the bus brown. you know, at first i was thinking this is amazing - a real Tanzanian experience. But after 10 hours I was fantasizing about a cold Fanta orange soda, a shower, and taking a luxury bus next time! have to say that all the people we met along the way were extremely nice and helpful, making sure that we had seats most of the time (kicking people out of their seats for us, which was a bit embarassing), making sure we got on the right connecting buses, etc. Really really nice.
And today we spent the day in Dodoma. A very quiet capital city. It is sunday, so most people were going to church, etc. But i have a feeling this is always a pretty relaxed town. Only have seen a couple of tourists, so think white people are still unusual here. again had kids following us around - very cute - and pretty much everyone stares at us. i'm ok with that!
Tomorrow we're off to dar es salaam, the real social and economic capital of Tanzania. We'll spend a couple of nights there before we go to Zanzibar and relax in a swahili town and on the beach.
hope all is well!
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
Our South African Adventure
Well, we've made it to Johannesburg safe and sound, after an amazing trip around Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. We were on an overland tour with Drifters, a South African adventure travel company. Covered 8,000 km in 24 days - wow! It's like driving across Canada 1.5 times. We had a group of 13 people including our guide - most of the people were from Germany and Switzerland.
I had been really looking forward to seeing Namibia - the pictures I had seen of the dunes were amazing. Much of the country is desert. The Namib desert is the only desert which touches the ocean. So, of course, Brian and I had to go up in a plane 10,000 feet and jump out to get the proper view of this phenomenen. Truly amazing. We dropped 5,000 feet in 30 seconds - and this time I was totally relaxed and enjoyed the whole thing. We also went quad biking on the dunes for a couple of hours, and hiked up a couple of the large dunes - and ran down them (like walking on the moon, you just float down). There's only 1.7 million people in the country, so it's quite empty really. We watched lots of beautiful sunsets atop rocky mountains with vast views of the desert plains (and the rocks you're sitting on are hundreds of millions of years old!).
The wildlife in Namibia was also amazing. We had a truly unusual experience in Palmwag, where a huge male elephant visited our campsite during the evening while we were having dinner (a lovely braii, aka bbq). It was just a few metres away, chomping away on trees and bushes. We walked right up to it when it was hanging out behind our bathroom. A stare down resulted in us carefully walking away backwards. Scary! Our guide said he has never had clients that close to an elephant while on foot before. In Namibia's Etosha Park we saw tons of giraffe, zebras, elephant, birds, all kinds of antelope, jackal, etc.
We unfortunately only had 3 days in Botswana - would definitely like to go back. We took a 40 minute scenic flight over the Okavanga Delta. Out of this world! You could see huge herds of elephants, hippos, giraffe, etc. grazing and browsing in the marshland - plus really see the Delta. We were picked up at a small airstrip, and taken by truck then mekoro (a traditional canoe with a poler pushing it thru the water) to our remote campsite. We had a bush walk and a sunset mekoro ride, and saw a giraffe - but no hippos, thank goodness. A hippos fresh track went past our tent, but we didn't see anything. Ignorance is bliss.
We also had a game drive in Chobe park in Botswana, where we saw tons and tons of Elephants. I've got pictures of elephants doing everything imaginable - having a mud bath, drinking, snorkelling in the water, babies playing, adults fighting... We have actually taken over 1000 pictures since we arrived in Africa. Is that a lot? :) And yes, we'll make you all look at each and every one of them when we get home. Just joking!
Now I get to Zimbabwe. I'm sure you've read the news and heard that there's a lot of stuff going on there right now. Bad situation. We spent 4 days in Zimbabwe and really loved it - the people, the landscape, the wildlife, the lodges/camps, everything. I'd love to go back. Highlights included seeing Victoria Falls - and seeing it from the sky, since we took a helicopter tour above it. Brian also did the bunji jump over the gorge by the falls. Yes, he's crazy, but didn't hurt anything. The market in Victoria Falls was soooo much fun. We had a great time bartering and joking around with the guys. Just bought one small carving. But got offered a job from one guy :)
And in Zimbabwe we stayed at the most beautiful lodge ever. Brian and i had our own tree hut, all open concept with beautiful views of the watering hole where at least 50 elephants visited in the afternoon. You could watch the watering hole even from a luxurious bath tub! We were going to have our bottle of champagne there (since it coincided with our 3 month anniversary and a Friday the 13th), but unfortunately Brian was a bit under the weather with a flu bug. But he's ok now.
In Zimbabwe we also went for a bush walk with a guide and got 20 metres away from 3 white rhino! Very cool. They can only see up to 15 metres, so they couldn't see us, but they knew we were there - their ears were twitching like crazy.
That's just a few of the highlights. WE're now hanging in Joburg for 2 nights. Most likely go to the Apartheid museum tomorrow. Then fly to Nairobi on Wednesday and start Part 2 of our adventure.
Miss you all! Send updates whenever you can - love to hear from you. We just don't get to computers very often, so I apologize if we don't email back very often.
We'll be going thru our pictures soon and posting a few...
Love,
Anne & Brian
I had been really looking forward to seeing Namibia - the pictures I had seen of the dunes were amazing. Much of the country is desert. The Namib desert is the only desert which touches the ocean. So, of course, Brian and I had to go up in a plane 10,000 feet and jump out to get the proper view of this phenomenen. Truly amazing. We dropped 5,000 feet in 30 seconds - and this time I was totally relaxed and enjoyed the whole thing. We also went quad biking on the dunes for a couple of hours, and hiked up a couple of the large dunes - and ran down them (like walking on the moon, you just float down). There's only 1.7 million people in the country, so it's quite empty really. We watched lots of beautiful sunsets atop rocky mountains with vast views of the desert plains (and the rocks you're sitting on are hundreds of millions of years old!).
The wildlife in Namibia was also amazing. We had a truly unusual experience in Palmwag, where a huge male elephant visited our campsite during the evening while we were having dinner (a lovely braii, aka bbq). It was just a few metres away, chomping away on trees and bushes. We walked right up to it when it was hanging out behind our bathroom. A stare down resulted in us carefully walking away backwards. Scary! Our guide said he has never had clients that close to an elephant while on foot before. In Namibia's Etosha Park we saw tons of giraffe, zebras, elephant, birds, all kinds of antelope, jackal, etc.
We unfortunately only had 3 days in Botswana - would definitely like to go back. We took a 40 minute scenic flight over the Okavanga Delta. Out of this world! You could see huge herds of elephants, hippos, giraffe, etc. grazing and browsing in the marshland - plus really see the Delta. We were picked up at a small airstrip, and taken by truck then mekoro (a traditional canoe with a poler pushing it thru the water) to our remote campsite. We had a bush walk and a sunset mekoro ride, and saw a giraffe - but no hippos, thank goodness. A hippos fresh track went past our tent, but we didn't see anything. Ignorance is bliss.
We also had a game drive in Chobe park in Botswana, where we saw tons and tons of Elephants. I've got pictures of elephants doing everything imaginable - having a mud bath, drinking, snorkelling in the water, babies playing, adults fighting... We have actually taken over 1000 pictures since we arrived in Africa. Is that a lot? :) And yes, we'll make you all look at each and every one of them when we get home. Just joking!
Now I get to Zimbabwe. I'm sure you've read the news and heard that there's a lot of stuff going on there right now. Bad situation. We spent 4 days in Zimbabwe and really loved it - the people, the landscape, the wildlife, the lodges/camps, everything. I'd love to go back. Highlights included seeing Victoria Falls - and seeing it from the sky, since we took a helicopter tour above it. Brian also did the bunji jump over the gorge by the falls. Yes, he's crazy, but didn't hurt anything. The market in Victoria Falls was soooo much fun. We had a great time bartering and joking around with the guys. Just bought one small carving. But got offered a job from one guy :)
And in Zimbabwe we stayed at the most beautiful lodge ever. Brian and i had our own tree hut, all open concept with beautiful views of the watering hole where at least 50 elephants visited in the afternoon. You could watch the watering hole even from a luxurious bath tub! We were going to have our bottle of champagne there (since it coincided with our 3 month anniversary and a Friday the 13th), but unfortunately Brian was a bit under the weather with a flu bug. But he's ok now.
In Zimbabwe we also went for a bush walk with a guide and got 20 metres away from 3 white rhino! Very cool. They can only see up to 15 metres, so they couldn't see us, but they knew we were there - their ears were twitching like crazy.
That's just a few of the highlights. WE're now hanging in Joburg for 2 nights. Most likely go to the Apartheid museum tomorrow. Then fly to Nairobi on Wednesday and start Part 2 of our adventure.
Miss you all! Send updates whenever you can - love to hear from you. We just don't get to computers very often, so I apologize if we don't email back very often.
We'll be going thru our pictures soon and posting a few...
Love,
Anne & Brian
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