Jambo from us or, Hello in Swahili

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WE NEVER STOP LEARNING

We are trying to learn a little Swahili as we go and we now have a little list of words we can, or try to say.

Hello - Jambo
Goodbye - Kwaheri
Thankyou very much - Asanti - sunna
Your welcome - Kariwu
Yes - Ndeo
No - Habana
Milk - Maziwa
Tea - Chai
Sleep well - Lalla sallama

And for all you people who are literate in Swahili, I know its possibly (okay, most likely) spelt wrong, but this was a lesson from ‘Swahili for Dummies’.

We have breakfast at 7:30am and then at 8am we’re off for our game drive on route to Lake Manyara.

ELEPHANTS, CHEETAHS AND MORE…

This morning we see everything from yesterday including a bigger family of Mongoose and the smallest deer in Africa, its only 5kg! We see some huge families of elephants, all with a lot of babies.

But then at the same time, we spot something moving in a tree, when we get closer we realise it is 3 cheetahs! They are already jumping down and suddenly they have disappeared into the long grass, we spot them again maybe 50 metres away and then they are gone. It makes you wonder what else is in that long grass that we can’t see. Talk about being in the right place at the right time though! As we pass other vehicles, the drivers talk to each other and no one else has seen them so we feel a very spoilt.

CHANGE OF PLANS

We leave the park and while we’re in the carpark Roman gets a call from his office, we need to change the order of our itinerary and go to the Ngorongoro Crater, then Serengeti and then Lake Manyara last. So we shall go back into the park for a while longer, have lunch there then head off.

We also see a huge family of baboons in some trees then a tiny turtle, maybe the size of a saucer, trying very hard to cross the track. Roman didn’t see him and we were very close, Tim and I almost held our breath as we went over him. As soon as we passed we both looked out the back, he was okay! Although head and tail were now all tucked in!

We have lunch that was packed by the hotel; it has rolls, yoghurt, an egg (the eggs are enormous everywhere in Africa!), fruit a drink and even a small block of dairy milk chocolate. We eat in a nice little picnic spot that for some reason everyone deems it to be safe, except we must close the car up so the baboons don’t ransack it. There are metal table and chairs there overlooking the river. On the other side of the river is a herd of maybe 20 elephants. Roman gives our leftovers to 2 local boys that are there for them to eat.

As we get going again, I’m sitting and Tim is standing looking out. Then I hear him say ‘Here cutey’ so I stand up and say ‘hello, what can you see?’. Tim just looks at me blank and I said didn’t you say ‘here cutey’ asking me to stand up? He says no, he was saying ‘here kitty’ calling for a lion or cheetah! hmmphhh, that’s men for you!

If you were a bird person then I highly recommend coming here, I never really considered Africa as the place to see birds, but the ones that we’ve seen have been amazing. Bright blues, yellows and reds. While everything else in Africa is trying to blend in, the birds couldn’t stand out any more!

On the way out we see a huge herd of Impala, maybe 50 or more and a huge herd of over 100 Water Buffalo.

We finish our drive and it’s time to head off.

OFF TO NGORONGORO

We arrive at the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, which is before you get to the actual crater. We stop at a lookout spot on the way to see Lake Manyara and the view is spectacular. Words can’t describe the greenness of the country with the rolling hills with this huge lake in the middle.

THE TRADE

At the lookout there were 2 hawkers selling necklaces and bracelets. They didn’t pull these out until they asked where we were from, I said Australia and they said Kangaroo! That’s when they pulled out there bits and pieces. I said we had no money until we got to the hotel so one of them says if you have a little koala bear he would trade. Little did he know I did, ha! So I go back to the car, get said koala and he starts asking for money as well, I said no a trade is a trade. He argued for a bit, his friend was telling him to give me the necklace, eventually Roman came around and growled at him, I took my necklace and away we went.

We drive up a windy road that would give South Africa’s mountain roads a run for its money, except this was dirt. The dirt here is a much deeper red than even Pilbara dirt, it looks really nice. We stop at a lookout along the way (complete with an armed guard) and we get our first look at the crater, the enormity of it is overwhelming, pictures in books and shows on TV don’t do it justice. It 256 kms around the rim, so that’s pretty well from Perth to Bunbury! The other thing we notice is it’s getting cold, we are around 2,500 mtrs above sea level here, bad thing about that is that it’s back to the cold weather but the good news is it’s too cold for the nasty flies.

All the hotels are in the Conservation area and if you are lucky, your hotel will be one on the rim of the crater. We are one of the lucky ones.

NGORONGORO SERENA HOTEL

We get to the hotel about 4:30pm and again you can’t fault the hotel. To get to our room we go down lots of steps and then up lots of steps.

Our room is overlooking the crater, complete with a balcony. It has a heater in the bedroom and the bathroom so I’m pretty happy bout that. We have showers and head out to explore the hotel. It’s really cool now, so after finding that the bar had fireplaces and a huge window overlooking the crater we decide to move in there until dinner time.

A group of men set up a band with a xylophone and a few different types of drums. They sounded great, very relaxing and I would have quite happily gone to sleep there and then. But these guys didn’t just play music, they were also acrobats, I’ve never really thought of acrobatic when I think of Africa so am a little doubtful as to what they will be like, considering it is inside with a low roof and hard tiled floors. But they were great; they were tumbling and balancing with each other then they took turns doing handstands on a little table with small blocks on it. They would move the blocks so each person balanced in a harder and harder way each time.

This took us up to dinner time and again it was a set menu with choices for the main meal. The difference was the vegetarian option involved a buffet so it was great, I could get exactly what and how much I wanted. The food was delicious. They had a dessert buffet that looked great but neither of us could fit in, pity we couldn’t take it to our room to eat later on.

Early night tonight as tomorrow we have a full day spent in the crater. There is a sightings book in the bar where people write what they have seen each day and we are very excited because everyone has been seeing lions!

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