Safari So Good

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We were sad to leave Peru; our time flew by as it always does! But we were excited to get to Tanzania. This leg of the trip required setting a new personal record for longest series of flights, which took us from Cusco north to Bogota, Columbia; across the Atlantic to Madrid, Spain; then southeast to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia before the final flight to Kilimanjaro airport in northern Tanzania. What a trip! It seemed like every couple hours we had meals provided for us, and often free wine as well. The food made the trip a lot easier to take, and was a nice contrast to the tiny bag of nuts we always seem to get on North American flights.

At the Kilimanjaro airport we managed to find a cheap van to Arusha, the first of many hot, crowded African buses for us. Huge dust devils were scattered across the landscape during our hour-long bus ride to the city of Arusha. Arusha, where we were based for a couple nights before our safari, did not impress us much, as Shania Twain might say. We'd been warned about the aggressive street touts trying to 'help' us, basically looking to rope in tourists to sell us bus tickets or safari tours or anything. During our first couple walks in town they were everywhere, and relentless. Luckily on our initial arrival though we we got scooped up by a not too overly-friendly fellow who set us up with a pretty cheap taxi to our hostel with only minimal hassling along the way. Then, after over 36 hours of travelling we slept for 17 hours at our Arusha hostel, we were pretty wiped out!

Following our recuperation day it was Safari Time! This was easily a high point of the trip so far and it went something like this:

Day 1: Guide/Driver Kisimbo and Cook Julius picked us up at our hostel. It was just the four of us in our land cruiser with a pop up top! During the long bumpy drive to Lake Natron, our first destination, we came to realize our guide was quite a chatter box. Every gate checkpoint (of which there were many) seemed to have a lot of socializing involved! Julius' contribution to most of the Swahili conversations with Kisimbo was a repetitive goat-sounding grunt of acknowledgement, which we couldn't help but chuckle at behind their backs everything time.

As part of the safari package, we stopped for an awkward and somewhat annoying Maasai village tour. You might know the Maasai as the brightly coloured robe-wearing, jump-dancing eastern-African tribe. Or you might not. We got an extensive cultural display of some of their dancing, their tiny crowded huts made of cow dung, and their huge display of trinkets and other handmade products. We made the mistake of believing that because they maintained their traditional lifestyle that hadn't really changed in hundreds of years, that they were a poor community. We ended up donating, in retrospect, far too many shillings for a token bracelet to support their community. Too many because after the tour, Kisimbo told us not to be fooled -- many of the Maasai communities actually have considerable wealth, in the form of huge herds of livestock. Their goats were everywhere! Apparently they never want for food, given their goat diet. Later on during the safari it seemed like we were often bombarded by Maasai women trying very hard to sell us bracelets. No doubt they don't have easy lives, living in their dung houses and spending considerable time collecting firewood and water and all, but man - do they have a nose for tourists! A couple times we were in the middle of nowhere, thinking there was nobody for miles when a Maasai woman would pop out from behind a bush, thrusting bead jewellery in our faces.

Our campsite for the first two nights was on top of a giant hill overlooking the massive plains, a small Maasai village, and Lake Natron. It was so quiet and peaceful that night, except for the rogue hedge hog that surprised us when he ran under our tent.

Day 2 started off with a guided hike by a local Maasai guide. Maasai Dennis (probably not his real name), took us on a sweaty hike from the campsite to Lake Natron. The big attraction of Lake Natron is the number of flamingos - the lake is a huge, shallow, slightly salty lake that is home at times to both Greater (white) and Lesser (pink) Flamingos. Both are very beautiful, if somewhat bizarre. Their incessant honking sounds were a bit of a surprise. There must have been 5 thousand or so when we were there. This however was just a drop in the bucket though as we were told that there can around 3 million at the peak of their migration. The lake area was a stunning place to hike. We could see for miles because there weren't any real trees in the area, as it was mostly flat grasslands. After checking out the lake we happily stumbled across a family of giraffe (as you can guess they are easy to see!) in some small acacia trees, and then headed into the village where we spent a little time at the local school (at Nancy's request). We got there at school breakfast time (a program that encourages parents to send their children to school --each child gets a heaping bowl of porridge, and then lunch later as well).
After returning to our campsite we went on a second guided hike, trekking to a nearby waterfalls where we took a much needed swim. We were pretty hot and dusty from our morning walk and from battling somewhat of a sand storm when hiking up the river valley.

The big international news of the week was the American election, of course. Many local folks were talking about it, and interested in what we thought of the result. However we still weren't prepared when Dennis asked Fraser, in his rough English, "How is your erection?" It was a very long, awkward moment before we figured out what he was really asking.

On day 3 we drove into the northern part of Serengeti National Park. Along the way we passed through many small villages, and often as soon as the children spotted Gringos in the truck they started running alongside, yelling and waving. After seeing some young kids with school uniforms, our guide figured it was a good time for us to hand out the Canadian pencils we had been packing around with us, and we were rewarded with giant smiles. Once we arrived in the park we were in awe. There were large animals everywhere! Almost immediately after the park entrance it seemed like there was constantly some combination of zebra, buffalo, wildebeest, or antelope within sight. It helped that we could see for miles in any direction of course, but there were often dozens at a time and frequently we had to stop the truck to allow some herd of critters to bolt across the road in front of us.

Our campsite for the next two nights was a public site called Lobo. We had it all to ourselves! -- with the exception of all the local wildlife. It was amazing. Baboons and hyraxes lived on the rocks behind our tents, and the buffalo liked to hang out very close by -- apparently they know it is a safe refuge from lions. Although we found out later the lions weren't too far away. We could hear them roaring at night. That was exciting but a little unsettling at the same time. At the campsite we had a full panoramic view of the Serengeti all to ourselves! It was spectacular. We would return each evening at dusk, to a waiting cup of tea and camp chairs looking out at all the animals preparing to bed down. Each day of the safari seemed to get better and we wondered how it could possibly continue to improve. There couldn't possible be anything we had not yet seen!?

Well, day 4 started with a double rainbow over baboon-crested cliffs immediately behind our campsite, with dozens of vultures soaring overhead. Not a bad start to the day! We did another couple game drives, where we ran into tons more wildlife and not more than a handful of other safari vehicles all day. Travelling during the off-season is the way to go! The new wildlife included huge groups of roving mongoose (mongeese?), up close encounters with lions, and dancing ostriches. We saw an old leopard kill hanging from a tree, and we had our first up-close and personal encounter with giraffes - they walked right beside the truck! The giraffes were our new favourite animal, some of them seemed almost as curious about us as we were about them. At dusk, on our final game drive in the north, three huge adult male lions walked just in front of our truck, across the grass and perched themselves in front of us on a large kopje (a rock outcropping), where the setting sun silhouetted their tremendous size. They almost appeared to be showing off their strength and sharp looks just for us. Overall, it really is hard to convey just how impressive the landscape is, and just how many animals we got to see.

With the exception of bat-infested bathroom buildings at one site (it is impressive how much guano 30 or 40 mid-sized bats can produce overnight) our camping was rather luxurious. We had a huge canvas tent with large screened areas so we could see the views outside the tent. We also had big comfy bed rolls and pillows, plus the cook who made breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner every day for us! We never had to lift a finger. It was a strange feeling at first, and we could not help but volunteer to help pitch our tent, but we quickly adjusted well to never worrying about food preparations -- it meant more time for watching the wild life!

Day 5 started with an early morning game drive, and then we headed south to the central Serengeti. As we left the campsite though we noticed a buffalo was still lying down less than 100m from our camp. He'd been there the day before and we assumed he'd been snoozing, but upon closer inspection by the cook it turned out he was soon to be vulture food - we got to see many beginnings and ends on this trip. As we worked our way south we had out first hippo sightings. They are the epitome of cool. They were literally lying on top of each other in their dirty ponds, grunting and splashing water over themselves, not seeming to have a care in the world. It was hard to believe they could be so vicious, apparently they are one of the most dangerous critters on the continent. In one couple km stretch near a hippo pool, we saw at least 20 giraffes, they were everywhere! Later on we also had had an incredible encounter with elephants, where about 40 of them surrounded our vehicle on their way across the road. They were close enough we had to wonder exactly what those prehensile trunks could get up to.

We had to share our new campsite in the central Serengeti with a few other small groups this time but it was still awesome: storks, giraffes and zebras hung out at times right in the campsite, and a hyena kept us awake for a while the first night. The second night we were woken up by the sound of buffalo munching grass right outside our tent, it couldn't have been more than ten feet away! The central Serengeti is apparently famous for its big cats, with good reason. We saw piles more lions, a cheetah, and our first leopards. Leopards are usually seen in trees we were told, but one of the adults we spotted (get it? Spotted?) was sleeping in a ditch right on the side of the road. But the highlight of the day was easy to pick - we got to see an amazing lion hunt, from start to its rather intense finish. Not many of the hunts are successful, but we were super lucky (Nancy is still a little unsure about how "lucky" she felt...) to see two female lions take down a zebra right in front of us. (What is black and white and red all over?) Before the hunt, the lions looked hungry and on a serious mission and trotted right beside our truck on the way to pursue a herd of zebra. After a short 10 minutes or so of stalking through the grass, the panicking zebras ended up doubling back into the lion attack range. It was right out of some wildlife TV special (or as our friend Jodie predicted, " a national geographic experience"), we couldn't believe our eyes; Nancy even managed to capture some of the hunt on video.

Day 6: Again we wondered how things could be so amazing day after day, and this day did not disappoint. Although there were not as many zebras and buffalo in the central area compared to the northern Serengeti, we did get to see hyenas close-up, and we got to take a long drive away from everybody looking for cheetah, which was the only large cat we hadn't had a really good look at. We didn't have much luck with the cheetah, but the open grasslands as far as the eye can see made the drive worth-while. We also got so see a number of crested cranes (with their fancy headgear!) and different kinds of bustard birds, which were great to see every time, not just because they are a majestic bird but also because our guide consistently pronounced their name as 'bastards'.

Before we left the Serengeti on Day 7, we manged to catch the beginnings of another lion hunt, but this one was half-hearted. A pride of 9 lions was lazing about a water hole, seeming very stuffed (bulging bellies and all) and content until 3 of them got up to start stalking an approaching herd of buffalo. The buffalo weren't too concerned though, we were told by our guide that they were safe from predation while in groups, and sure enough after a buffalo almost stepped on a lion crouching in the grass the herd safely romped off. On the way out of Serengeti park we managed to spot one of the elusive Serengeti tortoises. This happy sighting pretty much completed our wildlife check list for the park -- the only animal that we weren't lucky enough to see was the honey badger. Oh well, the honey badger doesn't care. http://https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg (warning - offensive language)

We then headed from the central Serengeti to a little busier public campsite on the Ngorongoro crater rim, which had spectacular views of the crater and full-time armed guards keeping the nasty locals (local people more than wildlife, apparently) at bay. On day 8, our last day on safari, we drove down into the scenic Ngorongoro crater where, although the animals weren't as numerous as the Serengeti, we did get to see a very rare black rhino streaking through the bush, and numerous young animals of different species. The imminent rainy season must bring on the babies because we saw some very young and very cute warthogs, bush bucks and vervet monkeys. We spotted a particularly young baby monkey hanging from the belly of his mama, both of whom jumped up briefly right inside the truck stopped next to us. This didn't make the people in the other truck very happy -- the tourists inside the truck jumped out almost as fast as the guide chased the monkeys back out again.

The lions' reproductive schedule didn't quite match the warthogs and monkeys though, the lions in the crater seemed all paired up, one male with one female and we got to see exactly what they got up to between naps. Those lucky lioness we saw got about 8 full seconds of bliss and a not-so-gentle neck nibble.

Our safari finished with our final delicious boxed lunch and the half day drive back to Arusha, which although not too exciting animal-wise, was still an adventure, because the small trailer full of camping gear made a break for freedom from the back of our truck. Nobody realized this until another truck whizzed by us with the driver yelling something excitedly in Swahili, which we quickly figured out very likely meant something like "Hey dumbasses, your trailer fell off!" We raced back a few miles where, although upside down and in the middle of the dirt road, it seemed no worse for wear. After righting and re-attaching it we were happily on our way to Arusha again. We stayed just one more night in Arusha before getting out of town. It is not recommended to be outside at night, and during the day we found there was not much for us there, so we were happy to make tracks, and we caught a bus heading to the eastern coast.

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