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Published: July 20th 2009
7/18/09:
Habari za asabuhi? (Good morning / news of the morning?)
Well our exciting safari adventure started in the early morning…we were packed and down at breakfast by 8:30. I was really tired because I hadn’t sleep well the night before and was really looking forward to coffee and the usual omelet. Luckily breakfast was no indication of how the rest of the day would go; my usual delicious omelet was sour and rotten smelling…I didn’t really get as far as tasting. But at least I got my coffee in…
By 9am we were on the road to Tarangiere. Talk about rural; once we really go outside of Arusha, we would drive and past vast open expanses, with no signs of human life, sometimes for miles. Only the occasional Maasi with his cattle, or the thatched Maasi huts, dotted the dry landscape. It was beautiful, but overwhelming at the same time. This area is in need of some serious rain, it’s really affecting them.
Before I continue, I want to introduce to you our driver / guide and our intern. The driver / guide was named Michael, and he was great. He worked for the company we went through, One World Safari, which is owned by Ricky, and Ricky’s younger brother, Solomon hopes to enter the business some day, so he came along with us to start learning the ropes. There were four of us (Taina, Emily, Jessie and myself) in a big Land Cruiser.
So after about an hour or so, we found ourselves at the main entrance gate to Tarangiere National Park. We stopped to use the restroom and look around a bit; the national park service does an amazing job of keeping up with the parks, keeping them clean, and comfortable. Finally, after Michael got the park fees paid for, we were ready to enter Tarangiere. Let me start off by telling you that “T” is HUGE! It’s something like, 2,000km squared, or maybe even larger. And the gov’t didn’t redraw any boundaries, they just enclosed the whole area, dubbed it a national park, and work to keep the animals habitat as natural as possible. There are road networks, but they’re all dirt and they blend right into the scenery, as if one just carved a small lane in the middle of this great savannah. Solomon and Michael had unhinged the top of the truck, so we had two massive sunroofs that we could stick out through; we even stood on the seat to really put ourselves out there. At this point I should tell my mother that I tried wearing the hat we bought from H and M to cover my face, but the wind blew the hat off before we’d even been in the park five minutes; Solomon had to leap out of the truck and grab it real quick…luckily we weren’t in front of any animals yet. But now onto the animals…
The first thing we saw were zebras and wildebeests, which we eventually learned travel in packs; the wildebeests have a great sense of smell, and the zebras have keen eyes, so they help each other out in terms of predators. So first we saw zebras and lots of them, they’re EVERYWHERE! And they’re so beautiful up close, their coats really are amazing and they make a funny noise when they call to one another. It almost sounds like part turkey gobble, part hyena laugh. We also saw some Impalas, which are so beautiful. The cool thing about impalas is that for every like, 10, 15, 20 or even 30 females, there is only ONE male. Impalas are basically the pimp of the animal world because first they’ll fight another impala to see who is stronger and then the winner will literally be the go-to man for as many as 30 females. What a stud. In Tanzania, if a man is a “ladies man” his buddies will call him an impala…I found that very amusing. Ok so after the zebras / impalas/ etc we saw elephants…and not just running across the open plain like the zebras, but RIGHT there in front of us, eating leaves off the trees. They were so close; you could almost reach out and touch them. And they’re so big and wrinkly and cute. I got a great picture of me with a terrible towel and the elephants behind me…I’ll post it on WDVE’s “where in the world has the towel been” part of their website, along with a picture of me and the towel somewhere in Israel. But back to the safari…the other part that was so amazing, aside from the animals, was the scenery itself. Tarangiere was like this massive, vast, open plain that stretched on for miles and miles it seemed. There were cliffs and crags and trees, especially baobobs, EVERYWHERE. The sun just shone through the clouds basking everything in the most beautiful glow. And spread out all throughout Tarangiere we saw birds, giraffes (twigas!), wildebeests, zebras, warthogs, impalas, water bucks, dik diks (little mini deer) and elephants. By the time we stopped for lunch I was in such awe I didn’t know what else could make the day better, but it was to get better…
We stopped for lunch at a picnic area that was unfortunately patrolled by very nasty baboons. As we were eating, we watched two baboons jump onto a table, bang their fists, and steal some food from fellow picnickers. We laughed, but we shouldn’t have because about ten minutes later, Taina made the mistake of leaving her banana in plain view and sure enough, a baboon leapt up onto our table, swiped her banana and her hard boiled egg, which he proceeded to shove into his mouth. Nasty buggers baboons are! I was lucky enough to escape with all of my food but it certainly wasn’t the most relaxing lunch (one of the baboons “barked” at another man when he got to close…very scary).
After lunch there was a bit of a lull, we weren’t seeing much, the food made us sleepy, the sun had gotten really strong and then all of the sudden another car in front of us had stopped by a few trees and everyone in the car was totally silent. Literally like, half an hour before our car and the other arrived, about 5 lions had killed a wildebeest and had had it as their lunch. There were like 5 sleepy lions and one cub!!! Our guides looked at us and said, “Oh oh haya haya, this is very rare! Sleepy lions so close to the road, very, very rare for Tarangiere!” It was so intense!!! There they were, so close to the road, just relaxing and rolling around in the afternoon sun, with a wildebeest carcass in the background. What was even more amazing was all the vultures circling around…this tipped off the zebras and the smell tipped off the wildebeests and on the ridge further up, you could see a whole pack of zebras and wildebeests standing at full attention, totally aware that there had just been a kill and lions were very close. So we’re watching these lions and suddenly one of the males gets up and walks around, and a female did the same. They kind of danced around each other and we actually thought we were about to see a mating scene, but the male lion laid down again under a tree but the female suddenly turned towards our car and locked eyes on us. She started slowly walking towards us and our guides said to be quiet and roll up the windows…. we got so freaked out, but it was so cool at the same time…she got so close to the car!! It turns out she just wanted to lay under the tree on the other side of our car, but for just a moment everyone thought she was ready to leap onto our truck. Ok so after that you can imagine we were totally satisfied, money well spent feeling. But as luck would have it, we got incredibly lucky again. We’d been driving around for a bit and then our guide spotted a mother cheetah and three cubs! Plus, the mother had just killed an impala for her dinner. Michael turned the car around and him and Solomon got so excited, telling us how rare it is to see both lions AND cheetah in one day, and at such close range. Not to mention we saw both a lion cub and cheetah cubs. The cheetah cubs were ADORABLE and so fluffy. They must have just eaten also because they were content to just laze around and essentially pose for the camera. Never have I felt so good about spending almost 300 bucks, which is rare for me! ☺
We spent the rest of the afternoon / evening just driving around the park and I just put my headphones on and tried to take it all in. The sky in Africa is so big and the sun was setting and everything was turning orange…it was the most amazing feeling. We left around 4:30 or so and started the drive to Lake Manyara. A quite side note, we stopped at a market to use the bathroom and look around and this crazy Rastafarian gave me a free bracelet with the rasta colors on it, first time I got something free here, must have been my good looks 😉
The hill leading up to our camp was crazy and at the top when you looked to the left you saw the lake and all the hills and mountains; at sunset, it was breathtaking. We got to our camp, which was appropriately named Panorama as we had a complete panoramic view on the edge of the mountain, washed up and had dinner at 7:30. We also met up with the other half of our group, who were doing the 3-day safari. Dinner, prepared by our cook named Innocent, was fantastic! Boiled, seasoned potatoes, rice, fresh veggies, amazing avocado salad with a like, mustard dressing and fresh, fresh fruit for dessert. After dinner they played some awesome local music and had these three acrobats dance and flip around to the music, it was so cool and so authentic, I loved it. We sat on chairs by the cliff side after getting ready for bed, just to look at the stars. Everyone left to go to sleep and I just sat alone, looking up at the enormous sky. Looking out onto the valley below, it was amazing to see like no lights. A small town and a few cars on the road and that’s it….everywhere else was just cloaked in natural darkness. Looking up, you’ve never seen so many stars in our life, not even sitting out in your backyard, away from city lights. I’m talking, hundreds of thousands of stars, being able to see the milky way. I’ve been waiting for it this whole trip, the moment that just took my breath away, that one thing that would just cut into my core, my soul and open me up. I’ve read about it in all my books on or about Africa and I’ve been waiting for my moment, worried even, that it hadn’t come yet. But it did that night. I looked up at the stars, the ENORMOUS sky, the enveloping blackness and realized how small and insignificant we are, in the great scheme of things. How much mother nature overpowers us. I just cried and cried. Cried for myself, cried for Africa, for the people I love, the people I’ve hurt, for all the pain and the joy in the world. For a few moments, my suffering was aligned with the suffering of everyone in the world and instead of my own, organic thoughts, all I could think of was the monologue from American Beauty,
“I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me, but it’s hard to stay mad, when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold onto it, and then it flows through me like rain. And I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life. You have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m sure. But don’t worry, you will…someday.”
Because I felt that, I felt that my heart was so big. But then those thoughts got crowded by how hard life is, and how unfair and unjust it can be, and I once again was filled with sadness. I sought a sign, something to tell me if I’m a good person, trying to live a good life, if this is the place (Africa) I’m meant to help, if there’s something out there in this universe, if my grandmothers could hear me when I looked at the sky and told them I missed them. But I was only met with silence, and didn’t know what to make of anything. Maybe that’s what Africa does to people, maybe that’s why some people feel so drawn to this place because it’s like “god” is staring at you constantly, through the eyes of the poor, the children, the landscape, the animals, and you can either take it and embrace it or crumble. I haven’t figured out if I can embrace it or crumble.
After all that, my uncomfortable sleeping bag felt a rather trivial matter.
7/19/09:
Well after the philosophical musings of last night, I’ll take a lighter approach.
We woke up around 7:30 and had another great breakfast…fresh toast with peanut butter, fruit, hot coco and coffee. We prepared to head to Manyara National Park. As we left camp, we stopped on our way down the hill to an overlook point for the lake. Once again, everything looked huge…rolling hills, the lake in the distance, and green green trees everywhere. We arrived at the park and after a small glitch (the credit card wasn’t working, so I shelled out $140, to be paid back when we were back in Arusha), we entered the park.
One interesting note, when looking at Lake Manyara it looks ENORMOUS but then when you see it on a map compared to the famous Lake Victoria, which is partially in Tanzania and partially in Uganda, you could fit about 50 Lake Manyara’s into Lake Victoria. I can only imagine how amazing Lake Victoria is.
Ok so Manyara…couldn’t be more different, in terms of landscaping, than Tarangiere. Manyara is more of a jungle / rainforest atmosphere, meaning TONS of monkeys! We saw monkeys and baboons (ugh) alllllll day. Once again, we had the top off the truck and stood on the seats all day to soak everything in. We saw elephants hidden among the trees, baboons would block our way on the road, little monkeys would stare at us from the treetops. When you worked through the jungle part, Manyara opened up to a massive plain, leading up to the lake. All I could think of driving on the path was the Lion King and the circle of life song….there were birds flying everywhere, casting amazing shadows on the grass, zebras and wildebeests chewing grass and romping, twigas roaming, nibbling on the treetops. It was all so harmonious.
Before making it to the lake, we went along another path and I was deeply disturbed…it was mating season for the baboons and there right in front of us was a male baboon um…really taking it to the female. IT WAS SO APPAULING…and yet hilarious, hahahaha. Baboons have NO SHAME, they sit around all day mating, stealing food, eating bugs of out each other’s hair and “playing” with themselves. It’s disgusting and I did not enjoy witnessing it and the damn things were EVERYWHERE. Ugh. Anyhow, onto the lake…
We drove up to the lake and were able to get out of the truck. The lake was huge and the amount of wildlife concentrated in one area was staggering. There were HUNDREDS of birds, wildebeests and impalas. And of course in the water, and standing around in the sun warming up, were hippos, tons of hippos! They were so cute and BIG! All they do all day is sit in the sun, get hot, climb into the water, cool off, get hot again, cool off again, eat and sleep. What a life. In the water, they look like shiny brown stones but out of the water, their skin gets very dry and wrinkly. Sometimes when they were in the water, birds would perch on their heads, resting just above the water. It was so cool and the lake was just so beautiful. I got another terrible towel picture ☺
After the lake, we headed down a road through the open plain to stumble upon about 10 giraffes all hanging out together. Almost every one of them had different markings and each was beautiful. The great thing about twigas is when they see people, they just stop and stare. If they’re eating, they’ll pause, and give you the most quizzical look through their beautiful, long eyelashes, then resume eating. And they are so stunning up-close; majestic, elegant, graceful….all of those adjectives can fit a twiga. But yet, there’s this endearing awkwardness to them, like the adorable, yet nerdy kid, especially the babies (which we saw one of). We were ready to move on, but first one got really close to the car (I got amazing pictures!) and then we noticed two twigas, which must have been mates. They were nuzzling and rubbing and crossing necks…it was the most beautiful thing I think I have ever seen. Even if you’re not a vegetarian and don’t feel especially connected to animals, the one thing every species on this earth has in common is that of mating and finding a mate, some animals even sticking with one for life like us humans (the dik dik pick one mate for life!). In that moment, I saw two twigas in “love” and expressing that love, one of the most natural expressions both us humans and animals know (and it was much more romantic than the raunchy baboon porn scenes). Maybe it was more for me than the other members of the group because I so affectionately call Alan my giraffe (how it started, I have no idea but that’s what makes it special) and the blatant show of affection and love emulated the love and affection I have for Alan. Or maybe it was because I could think of a few people, Mom, Dad, Alan, Jess and Sam to name a few, who would have found that scene as beautiful and endearing as I did.
Alright I’m done with the mush and philosophy again. We moved on for lunch after that and had a delicious lunch (free of baboons) on a hill over looking the lake. The after lunch lull presented itself again, as did the strong heat and sun, but I was so fulfilled it didn’t matter. I would have been content to drive around all day with the sun on my face and music in my ears. I was sad when we began making our way back to the entrance gate. I fought the urge to nap on the way home and instead kept my eyes focused on the African landscape that I’ll be leaving behind in just seven days. I had no thoughts, so I just looked and tried to soak it all in.
Back at home I unpacked, did laundry, took a wonderful hot shower, and had a good dinner. I was exhausted so amazingly, I was in bed and fast asleep by 11. Never had my dinky little bed at Arusha Resort Center feel so comfortable and my mind so empty, for once.
I hope you can all read this and understand me, I’m sure I’ve rambled a bit. Most importantly, I hope that combined with this entry and the pictures I’m going to post, you can feel like you got a little piece of Manyara and Tarangiere and Africa to file away in your memory and maybe if you get the chance to come to this great continent one day, you’ll have a visual of the sights you may see. And maybe you’ll better understand both the joy and beauty, and sadness and pain this place has to offer and you’ll either embrace it or crumble. The choice, I think…I hope, is up to you.
Kwaheri.
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Mary Williams
non-member comment
Your Safari
Mackenzie, your safari experience sounds inspiring!