Spaghetti in the Serengeti and Madness in Malawi

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So from the craziness of the few weeks before Christmas and the Kenya - Uganda - Rwanda - Uganda - Kenya loop it was time to cross into Tanzania and experience some real African wildlife moments.

From our base in Arusha we took a three day trip to the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater as a wonderful introduction to Tanzania. The Serengeti of course is one of the most famous National Parks in Africa and its huge 14,000 sq km size means it was always going to be an exciting adventure to see what animals we were going to meet there. We worked out that in the two half day game drives in the park we probably didn’t even cover 1% of the park so in fact we were incredibly lucky to see the array of wildlife that we did.

The Serengeti boasts the typical African savannah that you see on postcards, nature programmes and in books and in reality it doesn’t disappoint. Whilst there we saw the most stunning sunsets and sunrises I’ve ever seen, as a backdrop to Acacia trees, huge roaming plains and of course plenty of animals in the foreground! Our first half day game drive gave us some sights of most of the typically seen animals including elephants, giraffe, hippos, buffalo, many types of deer and plenty of birds. We also saw the left-overs of some of the wilderbeest migration who are making their way back through the Serengeti to the south. They weren’t quite as en-mass as when you see the great migration on the nature programmes (as the big move happens earlier in Oct/Nov) but there were still rows and rows of them (with the odd zebra tagging along) all walking in the same direction in single lines so still a pretty impressive sight. Our one main ask of our guide for the two days was to see a leopard. This was our wish but because they are so illusive and rarely seen we didn’t really ever believe it would be granted, so at the end of the game drive when our guide starting driving quickly to a rock once his radio had given him instructions, we were stunned to see a lone leopard sat on the top of a rock. It was a beautiful sight and we felt so lucky to be there to see her.

That night we had spaghetti in the Serengeti (which amused us!) and stayed at one of the campsites right in the park (with no fences or barriers with the animal life) and were woken to the sounds of lions rumbling into the night. It’s a sound I’ve never forgotten from South Africa last year and a sound that is so exciting and unlike a lion roar (in fact some of the group didn’t realise until the morning that that’s what the sound was) that it sends a shiver down your spine. Geoff and I spent most of the night laying awake listening to the grunting every half an hour sounding nearer and nearer, it was amazing to be there.

The next morning we joked to our guide that to top the previous day we wanted to see cheetahs, giraffes giving birth and a lion kill! We never expected again to see any of these so were very happy to see one of our three requests. The first thing we came across were two male cheetahs out on the hunt in the early morning sun, they strolled right in front of our vehicle several times before trying two attempts at a kill. We sat in awe watching the beautiful creatures for over an hour, they are so elegant and beautiful and were so unconcerned that several safari vehicles were watching their every move.

The rest of the mornings game drive brought sights of a baby lion cub sat on top of a rock (he couldn’t have looked any more like Simba from the Lion King sat on Pride Rock if he tried!), over thirty hippos wallowing in the water, vultures in the trees and plenty more of what we’d seen the day before.
The next day was to be another morning game drive in the Ngorongoro Crater which is a series of collapsed volcanoes, leaving a big hole in the ground with water, plains and forest areas perfect for wildlife to live. First we spent the night camping on the rim of the crater and again woke to excitement, this time to pop our heads out of the tents and be surrounded by buffalo. Needless to say no one got up to go to the toilet that night what with the buffalo being one of the big five therefore being notoriously dangerous! The crater game drive was again great, we saw lots of the same again in a fabulous setting (including more cheetahs) and the black rhino which meant that in the three days and between the Serengeti and the crater we’d seen all of the Big 5!

After the amazing three day trip it was time to head to Dar es Salaam for a night spent camping on the beach before getting the ferry over to Zanzibar and Stone Town. We spent a night in Stone Town, sampling the delights of the fish markets where you choose skewers of prawns, crab, lobster, kingfish etc. from the stalls and they cook for you out in the open o the seafront and all for several pounds before heading up to the northern beaches ready for Christmas.

Before hitting Nungwe beach the next day we did a spice tour in Stone Town which gave us the chance to look around the spice plantations and learn about all the herbs and spices that are grown on Zanzibar. It was really interesting and we all learnt some interesting things about the spices (including that pepper is grown on a bush!) and what to do with them as well as tasting many of them direct from the trees/ground. The tour culminated in seeing a boy climb a huge coconut tree to get us one down to try fresh - of course done without ropes or support.

So at last we were on the beach and ready for Christmas Eve (where we did a sunset cruise to bring in the festive season), the hotel was lovely with a bar on wooden stilts right into to water and beautiful weather. On Christmas Day unfortunately (and I’m sure some of you will be pleased so you weren’t too jealous!) we woke to the sounds of huge tropical thunderstorms, meaning the trip to swim with dolphins was cancelled  We took it all in good spirit though and had fun having a few drinks, sitting in the bar watching the storm and even swimming in the sea with the rain coming down. It had cleared though by the evening so we managed to have our seafood dinner (complete with the crackers I’d made for everyone) sat outside looking out to sea. Everyone exchanged secret santa presents which was nice and we did a rendition of jingle bells on the mini-recorders & marakers that I put in the crackers (it went someway to make up for my lack of flute playing on Christmas morning!). The next day was glorious again to plenty of time to sunbathe before heading back to Stone town and the ferry back to Dar es Salaam the next day. I can honestly say that out of all the beach resorts I’ve been to in my life, Zanzibar is by far the most unspoilt and beautiful - the sea is so turquoise and sand so white - it’s somewhere I’d definitely go back to for a holiday.

So Tanzania was almost over and we crossed over into Malawi on Tuesday where we spent New Year on the shores of the lake at Kande. Lake Malawi is one of the largest lakes in Africa and looks more like the sea - you cannot see the other shores and it has tides like the ocean. Our campsite was right on the shore with a beach and bar. So for New Years Eve we had a big pig roast that we were all in charge of rotating on the skewer throughout the day and lots of drinks and relaxing. It was great fun as the other Oasis truck and a few other overland trucks are all staying at the same campsite so it was a big party atmosphere, we had fireworks on the beach at midnight and even went late night swimming in the lake! We’re now in Lilongwe - the capital - for one night before heading into Mozambique tomorrow for a night before we cross into Zimbabwe for the next part of the trip.

-Sorry there's not more pictures of Zanzibar on here, blame the African internet speeds!

Happy 2010 everyone, hope you all had an amazing time whatever you were doing. I can’t believe it’s come around already and it’s somewhat sad now thinking that the trip only has 6 weeks left to go….but plenty more adventures to be had.

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