S/V Tavarua

Day 1:
We were off for a good sleep-in the first day, breakfast was at the late hour of 8 AM. After getting introduced to everyone again, we split up into two Land Rovers, one for smokers and one for non-smokers. We ended up with Christian, Jenny, Helen, and the group’s guide, Dennis, and our driver, Afwan, for the week. It was a pleasant group with a good deal of twenty-something enthusiasm thrown in for good measure.

It was a four-hour drive from Arusha to the Ngorongoro Crater. A paved road is being constructed between Arusha and the crater. The road ended just before our lunch stop at a town that seemed solely dependent on national park jobs. Since the construction was just starting to reach the village, it left the buildings covered thickly in red iron-rich dirt. Everyone looked dusty in this village. Now come to think of it, most everyone looks dusty in most of Africa…

Along the way we saw many mud huts with straw roofs, a good handful of brick buildings and a spattering of partially built cement block buildings. The huts are cheap and can be made by anyone, since neighbors will help with supplying and acquiring the necessary wood poles, mud, dung and straw. The brick buildings take more work. We passed a brick ‘quarry’. Bricks were formed from the red dirt into the required rectangle form, then piled into a chimney form about three feet high. Once piled, a fire was built to cure them and then they were set along the side of the road. If you wanted to buy some for your home, you just needed to shout and someone would appear to sell them to you. The brick homes usually had a corrugated tin roof, but some still had straw which is a bit cooler on hot days. The final style of homes were the cement block. These were often in partial completion. If your crops are good for the year, you can pay for a good deal of blocks, but if it is a poor year, you may only be able to add two or three. It often takes families about 10 years to complete a cement building… and then comes the really good part, painting the front. A few of the building fronts were painted by bright green ads for Foma Dazzle Clothes Detergent, and the rest were custom jobs of vivid blues or greens with a rogue lilac or Barbie pink thrown to spice up the neighborhood.

This area didn’t look very rich or tidy but it was certainly bustling with people, guesthouses, ladies sitting outside with archaic Singer sewing machines, chemist and medic offices announced with hand-painted lettering, women with yellow plastic buckets of water on their heads walking back from the river, and the random set of chickens and goats wandering about, and the clutter of the ever needed car parts shops. It is a bit of a visual assault on you as you try to take it all in.

Our lunch stop consisted of a box lunch with the ever-present boiled egg thrown in. The amount of eggs presented to us must have easily surpassed 20 by the end of the week. Derrell managed to avoid the majority of them, but I still ended up with at least 8 of them in me. Woe to my cholesterol levels.

We arrived at the Ngorongoro Crater just before 4 PM and drove down to the floor of the crater and back up to our campsite with all told taking about 1-1/2 hours. Our van was ecstatic, we saw monkeys, zebras, flamingos on the soda lake, wildebeest, buffalos and a number of birds. Kodak must be very pleased with this park. Or in our case, SanDisk and Hitachi…

Our evening was spent in a public campsite; sorry no running water due to elephants. The pup tents were already deployed, complete with foam mattresses, and a bowl of warm water was set out for washing. We soon discovered that bowl would be the extent of the washing available each evening. Dinner was filling but nothing spectacular, although Derrell rediscovered the joy of “real” oil-popped popcorn and bullied the cooks into having it again a few days later.

Day 2:
Up at 6 AM and presented with a full English breakfast: porridge, eggs, sausage, toast, mango, avocado, green oranges, pineapple, AfriCafe instant coffee, Nestle Milo, Cadbury hot chocolate, and the ever ubiquitous Five Roses tea. We certainly weren’t going to starve, eh? It seems the rest of the world seems to like a very big breakfast.

The day ended up being rather long. We drove through the crater in the morning and then headed over to our campsite in the Serengeti. The dirt roads were a bit like being on a washboard, and a very short afternoon shower slowed us down for a bit. Actually the roads were so much like a washboard that we lost a shock on the Land Rover which also took a few minutes to get us going again.

But who can complain about bumps or long drives? We saw everything we had hoped to see in the wild. The acacia trees outlined in the sun, vast soda lakes with flocks of flamingos arriving and departing, zebras that weren’t interested in getting out of the road, lazy lions lying on their backs in the grass with feet dangling in the sky. It was beyond stunning. To top it all off, it is baby season and every creature we encounter in full size, we also saw in miniature.

Our list of creatures spotted:
• warthogs (their tails stand straight up when they walk)
• hippos in hippo ponds (complete with red-light district show)
• giraffes (did you know they have color eyesight?)
• Thompson’s gazelles (they give the impression of running like rabbits)
• Grant’s gazelles
• Reedbucks
• Hartebeests
• Topis
• Western white-bearded wildebeest (thousands)
• Impalas
• Black Rhinoceros (he was hefty)
• Zebras and more zebras and more zebras
• African Elephants (they can live to 100 years)
• Hyrax (a marmot that is a distant relative to an elephant, a bit hard to contemplate if you ask me; prompting Derrell to remark once again, “that’s insane”)
• Spotted hyenas (not the prettiest creatures)
• Cheetahs (distant in the field with cubs)
• Leopard (distant in the trees, with a gazelle carcass hauled up in the branches, and with two cubs)
• Lions (close and snoozing without a care in the world with cubs)
• Black-backed Jackals
• Blue monkeys
• Vervet monkeys (my favorite, the youngsters are great at summersaults)
• Baboons (troops range from 8 to 200, causing complete mayhem)
• Ostriches (oddly from a distance, they look like trees on the horizon)
• Dik-diks
• Nile Crocodiles (dang they are big)
• Leopard tortoise
• Red-headed Agama
• Elephant dung beetles
• Millipedes (big and black)

Birds spotted (our guide was good at making sure we inspected the bird guide at each spotting):
• Gray Heron
• Cattle Egrets (sitting on top of hippos)
• Yellow-billed Stork
• White Stork
• Sacred Ibis
• Lesser Flamingos
• Egyptian Goose
• Black Kites
• White-headed vultures
• Black-headed vultures
• Egyptian vultures
• Brown Snake Eagle
• Bateleur
• Pale Chanting Goshawk
• Tawny Eagle
• Secretary Bird (these are impressively big)
• Kestrel
• Helmeted Guineafowl (we saw one of these guys fly, we were shocked. that fluffy white spots on black body didn’t look very aerodynamic)
• Gray Crowned Crane (Uganda’s national bird - beautiful with a gold tuft on the top of it’s head)
• Kori Bustard
• Lilac-breasted Roller (that’s a lot of color)
• Bearded Woodpecker
• Yellow Wagtail
• Common Fiscal Shrike
• Pintail Whydah (think of Woodstock of Peanuts fame flying with a 12″ plume tail, this little black and white bird looked about as coordinated)
• Village Weaver
• Greater Blue-eared Starling
• Hildebrandt’s Starling
• Superb Starling
• African Black Crow (yes, looks just like the home version)
• Long-crested Eagle
• Marabou Stork (4th largest wingspan)

Day 3:
Up at 6 AM again, and off for a morning game drive. The highlights were elephants walking peacefully through the acacias in the early morning, close encounters with giraffes, leopards with cubs, cheetahs with cubs, and lion with cubs.

The Serengeti has expanses of grass plains to the horizon without a tree in sight. There are Kopjes, outcroppings of stones that host a fine contingent of smaller creatures. And termite mounds that reach up to six to ten feet in height. Some are used by the big cats to perch upon for a better view of the surrounding area.

We checked out the visitor center after lunch and walked through a small visitor’s path. It was a bit hokey, but we did learn that the Frankfurt Zoological Society was a big factor behind the Serengeti national park existing.

We passed a hippo pond in the afternoon with a ‘Large Log’ lounging in it, a.k.a. Nile Crocodile. The list of creatures that could eat you out here is immense, and if they don’t do you in, an insect might. Christian had a close encounter with an Elephant Dung Beetle. He was doing what we all were, gaping at the scenery as we were driving along, and with no warning a beetle came flying through the window and banged him on the back of the throat. A bit of mayhem ensued in the vehicle after that, but Christian handled it rather well.

Our afternoon was another game drive, with more of the same. Animals everywhere, it was beautiful.

Helen requested for a 12-step program to keep her from snapping another photograph of a girafffe. She held her reserve fairly well until Christian and Jenny got enthusiastic about another ‘perfect’ shot. Kodak and SanDisk should be fully funding this park.

Day 4:
Up again at 6 AM, and off for the return drive back out of the parks. We stopped along the way and saw six lions barely thinking about stalking some zebras walking by, actually they looked more content on catching some more sleep. The majority of zebras stopped and faced the lions which seemed to communicate the threat through the entire herd, the rest scooted by them. It was fascinating. I think we spent a full hour observing the interaction.

Another half-hour was spent watching a cheetah and her cub walking between termite lookout points. The grasses are deep enough that the cats almost completely disappear when walking. This required some contemplation about being a human in such an expanse.

Day 5:
Outside of the park, we were back in the land of showers. Those bloody elephants are smart enough to take out the pipes from the water tanks to give themselves showers. The noises in the area are as if you are in the midst of an aviary.

We were informed that this area was ‘Mosquito River’ and completely rife with Malaria mosquitos. Derrell and I started to loose faith with our safari group. Sure the driving was good, the food was adequate and safe, and the team wonderfully efficient and friendly. But… we were sort of expecting ‘lodge’ meant cabin for two nights and a bit more game driving. Alas, that wasn’t to happen, we were now turning to the uncomfortable (albeit interesting) “cultural tourism” part of the week.

Our morning was spent in the Mto Wa Mbu town. There are guides that give tours of the town. This consisted of seeing the rice fields, ebony wood carvers at work (of coooourse you can buy a carving), a preschool that the program funded (us as a pack of 10 white tourists standing at the front of the class like idiots for a half an hour- ugh), a walk through a banana plantation (Derrell got a good set of insect bites), a guy that climbed a coconut tree and cracked one open for us, a pomegranate split open and passed about, a view and sample of the 2% banana beer they were brewing (fermenting with loads of flies on the top of the vats, noticed after we sampled the communal beer), views of goats and a dairy cow in pens (to keep them from eating the plants around the houses and to keep them safe from the Maasi, who, get this, believe all cows, everywhere in the world, belong to them resulting in excessive compulsive cow stealing), and a basket weaving shop. The guides gave us lore of the area and we definitely came away with the understanding that your tribe defines some of who you are. (We had noticed earlier in the week on signing in at hotels that there was a column for us to state our ‘Tribe’.. Europeans having great sport with entries in that column.) So, overall it was interesting, but rather awkward.

The afternoon the group went over to a Maasi market, a real one for the Maasi tribe, not one with curios to sell to tourists. Derrell and I skipped out and hung out at the campsite for the afternoon. We heard back from the group when they returned. There was a fine goat’s head soup boiling over the fire. The men at the market were well lubricated on alcohol and were welcoming at first, but asked that the group leave after a half-hour. We heard that it was a good 30 minutes after that that the group actually left. Ah, another awkward moment of life. Glad we skipped it; those guys have spears!

Day 6:
We got one last game drive in on this day to Lake Manyara. First stopping at the entrance to pay the park entrance fees. They booted us out of the vehicles for a break and mentioned the park had a museum, but, well, snicker, it wasn’t a very good one. Over we go to the one room museum to check it out. Helen just about lost it and that wasn’t surprising given her being a peaceful vegetarian for humanitarian reasons. The place was stocked with stuffed things. Stuffed rats. Stuffed birds. Much with stuffing coming out or feathers decomposing a bit. It sort of created a horror movie ambiance. Lovely. Dennis snickered when we returned and muttered, “So how did you like the Museum?”

The park was much different than the crater and the Serengeti. This was full of jungle vegetation, monkeys, baboons, giraffe, elephants, hippos and a sprinkling of zebras. We watched a giraffe awkwardly drink from a stream, that’s a long way down when your legs are longer than your neck. The drink also always seems to end with the Giraffe bolting away from the stream as if s/he were about to be attacked by a lion. I guess it’s just easier to do that everytime, just in case… We had a peaceful stop at the rest area in the park on a hillside that overlooked the jungle and absorbed the elephant calls, baboon screeches and birdsongs that echoed through the trees.

From there it was back up for a drive back through Arusha to a Maasi village about 1.5 hours north of Arusha to Longido. We arrived about 6 PM. There has been A LOT of very bumpy driving on this trip.

A couple of Maasi’s helped set up our campsite and after dinner we were serenaded by the next day’s guide with his guitar around a campfire. Unfortunately, his guitar and voice was out of tune, but it was amusing. He was a great fan of Jonny Cash’s Ring of Fire, or so we guessed since he played it twice.

Day 7:
Last day. We headed out for a morning walk up to the “Maasi’s training facility”. The Maasi’s are nomadic, eat only meat, blood and milk, and the men wear red red printed cloth and lots of beads. These are people and images from National Geographic. Derrell immediately branded them a Cow Cult, nice eh? There are still 500,000 in the area, or so they said, and they have free immigration rights to move across the Tanzania and Kenyan border. The government has given them the offer of free education, free middle school (which is only free to other tribes if you are top student), and free university. The town we were staying at was set up for education for 450 students. Since the Maasi are nomadic, education is a challenge.

Well, anyhow, we took a 45 minute walk up the hillside not to anything to do with formal education, but to the traditional ‘training facility’. This consisted of a cave over looking the area. It is used by the men in the rainy season for initiation rites into manhood. It goes something like this: First around 12 or 13 you get circumcised. Then you join in with 8 to 10 other boys your age and get put out into the bush (the cave) for three months. During this time, an elder will come out every few days and give lessons on how to care for your wives (up to about 10 usually, purchased at 1-30 cows apiece, the paler you are the more you’re worth; Tiff is worth “40 cows”), how to deal with conflicts, how to protect your cattle by spear, and eventually to see that they prove their skill by killing a male ostrich by spear. The trees in the area are notched with marks denoting the days spent in the area.

From there we headed back down to one of the Maasi villages. The people are tall and beautiful with perfectly white straight teeth. The village was just two families residing in about eight mud and thatch huts. They get about two to eight visits a month from the tour groups coming through. We met everyone. Got an overview of the layout of the village and how to holler to have some of the thorn fence moved aside so you can enter. The goats were separated within their own thorn fence. The cows get the center of the village. And the one cat (no hens for the cow cult) gets free range of the area. We saw the inside of one of the huts, complete with a banked fire and a brand new baby goat hanging out near the warmth. The woman built the hut and lives there with the children. A special place is reserved for the husband, if he should deign to visit. With a number of wives, you never know where he’ll sleep.

From that visit, we had a final lunch and headed back to Arusha in the afternoon. The tipping of our guides didn’t go smoothly. Our group had lumped the money together for them to divide among themselves, since that’s what our email told us to do. Well, that was returned back to us for us to designate the correct percentage for each person. Ah, the final awkward moment. It was one of those moments where you just felt that you’d done it wrong, no matter how you split it. At least our group had the good sense to only spend about five minutes deciding the matter amongst us. No hung jury here.

That evening we spent at the Golden Rose hotel in Arusha. We felt like we made a bit of a mistake on price. It was $48 a night. Christian and Jenny had a guesthouse room for $7. And Helen had a room for $4. Hmmm. (We felt a bit better when we heard from Helen the next day on the shuttle that it was fine, but there was someone trying to break the door down at 5 AM over some issue.) Our evening was spent trying to watch the African Cup soccer game on the dish, but the power kept going out in the town. So the beer was cold, the lighting a bit dim, and the hot shower a godsend after a full week of camping. Our clothes got a beating on the trip and look a dull red now, and our bags had an afterglow of goat smell. You can imagine just how good that shower was.