Elephants and Goats Intestines

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Safari time! We flew from Zanzibar to Arusha (the plane was only two hours late), then transferred to Masai Camp, a campsite and safari company. We were booked on a 6 day safari with Tropical Trails which would take us to some of Tanzania's world famous national parks.

Early Tuesday morning, we loaded our gear into a Land Cruiser and along with our guide, Stephen, and cook, Kasim, set off for Tarangire National Park. En route we stopped for a morning tea of fried green bananas and goats intestines. No kidding. Kind of tasted like pork crackling, but that could have just been all the salt I poured on it. While I went to the (squat) toilet James walked to the car and was besieged by women trying to sell him beaded necklaces and wood carvings. He was saved by Stephen who quickly taught us the Swahili words for ‘no thank you’ and ‘I don’t want’.

During the drive to Tarangire, we passed countless villages and Masai markets. It was market day, which meant that there were hundreds of Masai driving their cows along the side of the road to and from the market. James was particularly interested to see Masai men riding bicycles in their shuka (traditional chequered blankets worn kind of like a toga).

After arriving at Tarangire we set up camp, ate our packed lunches then set up on our first game drive. Tarangire is known for its elephant population and boy, did we see lots! At one stage we came around a bend in the river to be greeted with the sight of forty or more elephants grazing amongst the trees. As we stood watching them, Stephen said, ‘Look look!’ which we soon came to know as a signal that there was something extra exciting. Amongst the legs of the adult elephants, was a 1 month old baby. Even James came close to using the word ‘cute’.

There was, of course, other wildlife spotted - baboons, gazelle, ostriches, warthogs and tsetse flies. The flies are vicious. We started off laughing at Stephen swatting them furiously with a tea towel but soon joined in the Tarangire dance. Tsetse fly bites hurt a lot and some flies carry sleeping sickness so we were as vigilant in killing them as we were in looking for other wildlife.

We drove back to the campsite around sunset to discover Kasim preparing a three course meal - local versions of potato & leek soup, fish from Lake Victoria and a vegetable curry followed by fresh papaya for dessert. It would have been a perfect dinner if not for the millions (not exaggerating at all) of beetles attracted to our torches. I am fairly sure that I didn’t eat any but James did find something crunchy in his curry. That made up for him not trying the intestines.

We went to bed early to escape the attacking insects but the canvas didn’t seem to deter them, and we went to sleep listening to what sounded like rainfall but was actually bugs hitting our tent. And who said camping in the African bush wasn’t romantic?

Despite the baobab tree with gouge marks in it from elephant tusks 20m from our tent, our guides assured us that we were quite safe and that we wouldn’t be bothered by animals. We had a good nights sleep but in the morning discovered hyena footprints throughout the campsite. No worries. After a hot breakfast and a cold shower, we packed up the campsite and headed to Lake Eyasi.

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Photos

James and Stephen
Awesome camp food - a three course meal!