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Published: April 13th 2008
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Arrival in Lodge
Testing out the bar area upon arrival... it'd been a long drive! This year, we're calling "spring break" a different name. We're calling it "Easter holidays," mainly because it's not spring time here in Tanzania, so the other, more common name, wouldn't make sense!
So, for our Easter Holidays this year, we went on a road trip to the north of Tanzania. It all began early Saturday morning with cinnamon rolls, breakfast burritos, and juice over at Cody and Norah's place. We all got together there, and got each other psyched for the big upcoming trip. When finished with the delicious food, made by a local chef called "Mama Freedom," we headed downstairs and piled into the 2 cars. 8 people on the trip, four people per car... plenty of comfort to be had.
We drove up to the Usumbara Mountains for our first adventure. As we drove up the mountain to Lushoto, the rains started pouring down on us! As we had planned to camp on the greens outside of a lodge that night, this quickly changed our minds and we checked in for 2 rooms, squeezing 4 of us in each. The lodge was lovely- wooden walls and furniture, with plants and ivy growing on the outside, and sometimes
Golf practice
Team 1, preparing for battle inside! It felt like a real winter lodge, and we quickly put on warmer clothes and headed outside to play some "mini golf." Mini golf at this place was not on a set course, with funny looking obstacles, but rather a start point and an end point where you had to chip, hit, or put the ball all around the hotel and its rooms! Passerby's heading to the bathroom or bedrooms beware! After a rousing game, where clearly my team won, we headed inside to sit around a table and play card and word games over drinks and dinner. It was a lovely way to start our vacation!
The next day we headed out for the famous hikes in the mountains. We started out in the "rain forest" and were planning on ending at a waterfall. About 1 hour into the hike, the rain started to POUR down on us. Given the option to stop in a shelter and wait it out, or keep going, we kept going. We were given local umbrellas (banana leaves) to try and shield ourselves from the gallons of water, but to no avail. We walked through mud, puddles, lakes formerly known as fields,
Starting the Hike
All seemed to be going smoothly so far. etc. and finally arrived at the water fall... which was pretty small after the amount of water that had already been attacking our bodies for the past hour! We looked at the falls, opted against a fresh water swim, and walked back. As we walked back, the rain stopped. We went to a nearby hotel where our cars were parked, the lucky few with dry items in the car or in their backpacks got changed (my "waterproof" backpack failed me completely and I had not 1 item of dry clothing with me until we returned to our lodge.), and had a fire put on in the sitting room while we had a late lunch. We headed back to the hotel, took warm showers, put on dry clothes, and headed into town for a nice dinner.
The following day we left the mountain, and drove up to Arusha for a quick lunch and provisioning. Quick in Africa means several hours. So after lunch at a place where one of our group members had studied years ago when he was on an exchange program, we went to the shops to buy some food to cook while we "roughed it" the next
Village stop
Here they're squishing sugar cane to make some sort of super potent liquor. couple of days. We drove on out of Arusha and towards Lake Manyara, where we were met at a turn off by the guide from a safari company run by the friend of one of the members of our group (you still with me?). The safari company usually used a secluded area for their luxury safari camps, but they had already taken down the tents for the season, so he welcomed us to use to spot. The guide showed us the way, past several Masai villages, across open plains, through some big mud patches, to a open stretch of land right on the lake! Nobody else was around, all we could see was African plains, Lake Manyara, and spots to pitch our tents on. We were again racing against the rain, so we quickly pitched our tents in the dark. We made a nice dinner and sat around the fire with drinks and a guitar. Slowly group members ambled off to sleep in our tents amongst the wilderness. The next morning I woke up really early and went outside to read. The first thing I saw was a sea of pink sitting on top of the lake- flamingos! Eventually everyone
Village stop 2
More turning to squish the cane. Quite the process! else woke up and we had breakfast, got our act together, and had a Masai man take us on a "walking safari." I was a huge wimp during this because he didn't even have a stick or anything with him, and there we were walking in the middle of the wilderness! We saw tons of zebra, impala, flamingo, and even a freshly killed zebra, which meant there was a lion around nearby!
After the walk, we met back at camp and had some outdoor bucket showers (very scary when you go behind a tree and tall grass all alone, knowing there'd been a lion around recently!), and prepared the evenings dinner. The following day we were met again by the guide who showed us the way out of the site, past the mud and villages once more, and we headed out to Tarangire National Park.
Our hotel for the night was located in the park itself, so it was a fun first glimpse as we paid our fees and entered in. We put down our stuff, had some lunch, a dip in the swimming pool, and then went on a game drive where we saw a lion in
The Taste Test
Can you tell how it tasted? the distance, and hundreds of elephants! Apparently Tarangire has one of the highest concentration of elephants of all the parks in Tanzania! After our drive, we went back to the hotel, showered and had a delicious dinner. The next morning, we were woken up with coffee at our door, and then we went out on another game drive, with hundreds more elephants! We then came back for lunch, and afterwards most people relaxed with the amazing lodge top view of the park, while Peter, Vera, and I went on another drive. We saw a leopard! It was far away, and ended up climbing out of the tree and going away, but it was still so so cool! And apparently rare. We came back, met up with the group, packed up our stuff, and did one last drive before we left the park. I left with the early car, because one of our members had to get to Arusha for Tanzanian Rugby Team practice, while the other car stayed for one more drive. Thank goodness I didn't stay with that car, they almost got stampeded by an angry elephant! They had to floor it away from the beast while he chased
Local Umbrellas
They didn't work so well, but the experience was fun! them!
In Arusha, I met up with Derek and Belinda for coffee, which was so nice to see them again! We then checked into our bed and breakfast, where we had a massive guest house all to ourselves! We had the rest of the group pick up pizzas along the way, and we settled in for a night of card games, drinking, and some pool. The next day we took it easy, with a late but massive breakfast, before we headed into town to go and watch Tanzania vs. Kenya rugby. We had a couple of friends playing for Tanzania, so that was quite fun. We stayed on after the game for dinner and a bit of a party, before going back to our lovely guest house once again. The third and final day had us going into town to meet up with some Masai women for a bit of reminiscing for those of our group that had known them years ago, and bartering for her goods for the rest of us. It was fun to walk around Arusha and see what its streets are like compared to ours in Dar.
We then went home to the hotel
Camping
Our secluded camp site. Mine's the little one amongst the giants. for our last meal, where we had the raved about 5 course extravaganza cooked by the hotel manager/chef. It was lovely! So spoiled! We took off the next morning for a big 8 hour drive back to Dar... upon arrival, I hopped in my car and went and got my new puppy Kibo! It was such a great holiday, and it had the perfect blend of activity and rest so that we got back to school refreshed and ready to keep going!
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Jackie Turner
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Wow!
A leopard, that's amazing -- they are hardly ever spotted (no pun intended :). I'm a bit jealous...