East African Adventures

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!