Lake Manyara

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Before we left Amboseli we took a bush walk with Jonathan, the Masai warrior and sometime waiter. We had a spear chucking contest. Guess who won? It is evident from the photos that my form and projection were the best. I can tell you that Greg was the most dramatic thrower. But don't let the photos fool you. Jonathan’s spear went twice as far as Greg’s or mine. And his stuck in the ground when it landed. Youth and experience won. But just look at my form. If I were only younger. And if I had only grown up spear chucking. And, well never mind. Wouldn't have been worth it.

We left early for our "four hour" drive to our next destination. Eight hours later, five of them on a dusty washboard road, we arrived. Hmmmmmmmmm. But I was on vacation and I didn't let it bother me at all. Right. But I did promise Fran I wouldn’t complain much and I didn't. Now it's time for a short vent. A two hour drive to the border of Tanzania took three hours on a teeth-chattering, dust filled, dirt road. Ok, no problem. Then we stood in line for a while to get our passports stamped out by Kenya. Then we walked across the border and stood in line for a while to have our passports stamped in Tanzania. Then we switched cars, drivers and guides and away we were, to Arusha, another 2 hours on the same type road. Lunch at a hotel was not bad but we were pretty much full from eating dust all morning. On the other hand, there was a positive. We learned the Tanzanian tradition of washing dust down with Kilimanjaro, the Tanzanian beer. We were first introduced to this custom In Kenya, with the Kenyan beer, Tusker, which we had learned to love along with our G & Ts. Kilimanjaro was, if anything, better. Tusker is the only beer sold in the Kenya safari camps and it is sold only in bottles the size of small bathtubs. They sell Kilimanjaro in more standard one and two gallon bottles. We don't remember much of our three hour drive from Arusha to our hotel above Lake Manyara. At least the last 3 hours were on a paved road. There were better options and A & K will have them explained to them in detail. Ok, I’m over it.

Our new guide, Kelvin, is very nice but quiet, a welcome change from Godfrey, our Kenyan guide, who is a talker. Godfrey is more experienced than Kelvin and hence has a lot more stories. How many are true is anyone’s guess. The one about the reason the Masai always wear red was immediately suspect. According to Godfrey, the Masai warriors (which are every male past circumcision age - 17 ouch) wear red so that when they are wounded in battle their enemies won’t know they are bleeding and think them weak. Yeah, right. We didn't buy it for a minute. But Godfrey, himself had an interesting history. Here’s his story. Both his father and mother were Mau Mau. Now, if you don’t know about the Mau Mau, you should look it up. And there’s a book, Uhuru, by Robert Ruarke, from 1963 Godfrey was born in the jungle during the time of the Mau Mau but he was taken to town at four days old by his mother because he had developed a fever. She and Godfrey stayed until he recovered and soon after, the revolution was over. Godfrey had three mothers and his father had 19 children. Godfrey was not a favorite child and hence, when the authorities came to his parents telling them that school was required, his father offered them Godfrey, keeping the favored children at home to work the land with his parents. He's a college graduate and knows a whole heck of a lot about the flora, the fauna, history, politics and culture of Kenya. We got to really like and respect him over time and would feel great about hiring him again. But during those first few days, before we were used to it, Godfrey was with us from dawn till dusk. Kelvin gave us space and was knowledgeable and pleasant, though he was not as informative as Godfrey. He also had this other thing. We think he always wanted to drive formula one, which got to Fran a bit. Toyota Land Cruisers don’t like to go fast. They sort of lift up and float. The Serena Hotel at Lake Manyara had a pool and we took a swim. The water was cold but we were too tired and stiff from the ride to complain. The G & T was the best we’ve ever tasted. The Kilimanjaro Beer wasn’t bad either.

We left the hotel early to visit Lake Manyara, a national park that could not be more different from Amboseli. It’s almost a rain forest with water everywhere; tall trees, streams and a lake that is part of the Great Rift Valley system. Baboons, big ones and little ones, were all over. We were fortunate to get to see the blue balled monkeys. See the picture. They are just like other Vervit monkeys but, according to Godfrey, they are really teenage boy monkeys and the girl monkeys at this age are saving themselves for Mr. Monkey Right. That’s what caused their balls to turn bright blue. Another Godfrey story. Should we be suspicious? I had this idea that we should use this photo in middle schools everywhere as part of the normal sex education curriculum. President Obama could add that requirement to "the race to the top" program.

At Lake Manyara we also saw mongoose, lots of hippos, zebras, impalas, and warthogs (now those have a face that only mother could love). It was a short visit and then a short drive to Gibbs Farm for lunch.
Gibbs Farm is a privately owned coffee plantation but they have a few guest rooms and a wonderful lunch with everything from the farm. It lies in a lush valley that looks a bit like Vermont. The air was cool. Each dish was better than the next and the coffee was the best we’ve ever had. The chef was proud of his work and told us that he picked the peas that morning and roasted the coffee the day before. Can we stay there, please, was the refrain from our little group. No, we are off to the Serena Lodge on the rim of Ngorogoro.

The lodge has a magnificent view. We couldn’t wait to get into the crater, but we had dawdled at the farm and now it was too late in the day. So we took a hike with a young man, not Masai, one of the other 132 tribes in Tanzania. Kelvin told us that there are so many that they don’t slaughter against each other like the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda or the Kikuyus and everyone else in Kenya. Our hiking guide said the hike would be easy but he’s African and young. The crater rim is at 7,500 feet ASL and the incline talked back to me. Greg and Lizzie, on the other hand, weren’t even breathing hard. We hiked to a peak about an hour away. On the way we ran into two young Masai boys with their faces painted white. They had just come from their circumcision. Fran asked them to smile for a picture and they did their best. Wasn't what I'd call a full Masai smile, but hey, what would you expect?

Ngorogoro tomorrow.

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