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Published: September 3rd 2007
Not love play as we thought!
Fighting amongst giraffes..I wouldn't like to try that with some of my friends!In Naivasha we were met by our new truck and tour guide. The surprise was that we also had a cook on this part of the trip! They were all local people which made it a totally different experience to the first part of the trip which had foreigners as guide and driver.
In Naivasha we went on two excursions. The first to Crater Lake Game Reserve where we saw heaps of giraffes - about 30. We even got to witness a couple of males having a fight. Quite funny to watch as they fight by bending their necks in totally wierd ways and bashing each other with their heads. It makes a really big thump noise. Around the lake we also saw heaps of black and white colobus monkeys, flamingos and even an old camel who has retired from giving rides. He was very cute.
The other excursion was a boat ride out on Lake Naivasha which is famous for its hippos. Apparently there are about 1700 hippos in the lake. The amount we saw was enough for me, especially given how close we were. We went out at sunset when they are all starting to yawn and
Whoa - let's get out of here!
Lucky the motor didn't stall. get out of the water ready to feed all night on land. A couple of times our boat driver got a little too close and the hippos started to take active steps in our direction. Luckily for us the boat didn't stall. The motor didn't look all that reassuring.
The other really interesting thing about Naivasha was that Evan discovered another side to himself. He was found late in the night "dirty dancing", and not with me! Liam - another guy from our tour. Those of you who know Evan will know that is not usually his style. I think he is surprised at himself even now. Liam was later found spewing at the bar (classy hey?), but I don't think it was because of Evan... For those of you interested, a friend took photos, so when I get them...
Our next stop en tour was the famous Masia Mara Game Reserve. It was absolutely amazing. By far the best reserve we went to for game spotting - but I think a lot of that comes down to luck as well. We spent 2 nights in the Mara and saw the Big Five many times over. The Big
How high they jump
And note the shoes made out of car tyres! Five are buffalo, rhino, lion, leopard and elephant. It was amazing. Some of the highlights included seeing a male lion (rare) together with his female (laying sated after mating), lots of females and their cubs, and a leopard with his kill up a tree.
We also had the opportunity to see a Masai village and talk to the local Masai people. It was very enlightening. Of course, a lot of what they told us is changing significantly (or already has) to cope with the changing world. For example, the young men used to have to kill a lion and bring back its head before they were allowed to marry. The government now has a treaty with the Masai to stop them killing lions and other game animals which are popular with tourists so they get married without the tradition. One really interesting thing though was that the Masai people don't eat vegetable matter - their diet consists mainly of meat, milk and animal blood.
After Masai Mara we went back to Nairobi on one of the worst roads we experienced in Africa. Not good in an old truck with average suspension. We only had one night in Nairobi
Cheetahs - amazingly close
Check out the amount of people! so we used it to go to the famous Carnivores restaurant. Its main attraction is an all you can eat meat buffet. Not really a place for vegetarians, but we loved it! The waiters come around to your table with skewers of large slabs of meat (like at a kebab shop) and they slice it straight off on to your plate. When you have finally had enough you put down your flag and they stop bringing the meat.
In the past Carnivores used to be particularly famous for its game meat - but Kenya has stricter laws now and it is not possible to provide the quantities they did in the past. I think the only game meat we got was ostrich - but it was great. We also tried the local specialty cocktail - a dawa (spelling?). It was sort of like a mojito but with honey. Very nice. After dinner we hit the nightclub next door. A lot of fun after a few drinks.
In Nairobi we changed guides and then drove to Arusha in Tanzania - our fourth country in 3 weeks. On the way we visited Amboseli National Park - famous for its elephants.
The lovers!
A male lion - we were very lucky Unfortunately for us our truck sprang a leak in the fuel tank on the way down (what was I saying about old trucks?) so we were delayed a few hours while we drained the tank and so we missed our night game drive. But we finally got to see the elephants in the morning though. There were heaps!
After a night in Arusha to get organised we left the truck behind and jumped into 4WDs for our trip to the Serengheti National Park and the Ngorongoro Crater National Park. It was an awesome three day excursion. The Crater was first. There was a lot of Lion King singing here as it was the inspiration for it. The highlight for us was definitely the elephants. We came across a large group of them - large and small - and we got incredibly close. The elephants were only about 3 metres max from our 4WD. It was awesome.
Our visit to the Crater yeilded another game drive where we saw all of the Big Five within a few hours. The night before at our camp we were lucky enough to see a porcupine. Very different to our echnidas - porcupines
are huge, and their quills are really long. The next morning we had elephants walking around our campsite! Amazing.
The funniest thing about that part of the trip though was the night before the Crater drive when we camped at the top of the Crater on the rim at Simba Camp. We were told not to keep food in our tent because there were bush pigs around and they could smell it and would wreck our tents trying to get in. These bush pigs look more like cow-sized wart hogs - big horns.
It was a really windy night and I heard lots of animal noises that night which was quite unsettling, but luckily nothing tried to get into our tent. The next morning though I was told the story of an English girl who was in our group. She apparently heard some noises outside her tent in the night and got so nervous that she decided she needed to do something. So what did she do? She rang her dad! In England!! Not sure what she thought he could do from there. It was hilarious. I was also told later that we had zebras and buffalos walking
Us!
In case you forget what we look like around camp munching on the grass. Wierd.
After these few days we headed back to Arusha where we celebrated one of the guys birthdays by having a Masia party where we all had to wear our Masia blankets to the campsite bar. Pretty much all the campsites in Africa seem to have bars - not good for keeping costs down on the trip! It was a lot of fun and led to another of those holiday romances I was talking about.
Next was the relaxing part of the trip. After a 2 day drive down to Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania we went by ferry over to Zanzibar Island. Wow - what a place. On the ferry ride over we saw whales breaching and I saw a dolphin too. Beautiful.
After a tour of the main highlights in Stone Town including the old slave market stories and spice farms which Zanzibar is famous for, we spent the first night in Stone Town wandering the old streets and alleyways and buying food at the street fish market. That was an experience. Many people set up stalls on the waterfront selling fish seafood. It is all on skewers and
you select what you want and then they cook it for you while you wait. One of the local specialities is also a banana and chocolate crepe.
After Stone Town we drove north up to the beaches. We stayed at Ngungwi - the alleged party beach. It was so beautiful. We spent our days laying on the beach or going for a walk around our place - through the village, to the boat building area, etc. One of the funny things was watching the new arrivals get washed off the beach when the tide came in - they didn't seem to notice it creeping in, and the next thing they knew a big wave came and they and their towels got all wet.
Some people spent their time having their hair braided, getting henna tattoos or having massages. All worthwhile pursuits but we decided to give them a miss despite the relative inexpense. Instead, Evan got a haircut! It was hilarious. Despite what he said, I don't think this African man was very used to doing the hair of white people. To start with he just grabbed big chunks of Evan's hair and applied the clippers to it
- no scissors until the very last moment. It was starting to get scary, and I don't think Evan was particularly happy watching my face, or the faces of our friends who had come for the amusement of it. But it all turned out OK - thank god.
After 3 nights at Zanzibar the rest of the tour group left except Evan and I and our friend Aleisha. We didn't want to spend 2 days driving back to Nairobi, so we had another night at the beach and then another night in Stone Town before flying down to Victoria Falls.
Of course things couldn't go too well on our first venture on our own. When we were leaving our hostel in Stone Town to get the return ferry we found that our tent was locked in a left luggage room (where we had put it), but the man on duty didn't have the key! He had to ring the boss and we had quite a bit of stress time trying to work out if we were going to miss the ferry. Then the boss was really pissed at us - we should've known better apparently. But we didn't
miss the ferry and we made it back to Dar in time for flight.
So that was the end of our first 5 weeks on tour. It was an amazing experience and we have some great souvenirs to show for it. Some beautiful carvings and paintings which Africa is famous for. East Africa was gorgeous, beautiful people and scenery, and we would love to return for another visit. Until next time guys "lala salama". (Sleep well in kiswahili.)
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