Blogs from Tanzania, Africa - page 392

This, along with all my other Africa blogs, were actually emails sent to friends and family. I didn't know much about blogs at the time, but now I do. Hello all! I have a few hours in a very small town while waiting for the tour company to take me on Safari to the Ngorongoro Crater. Today I go to the crater rim and stay in the Crater Wildlife Lodge. I hear it's absolutely breathtaking there. Tomorrow we go into the crater and I'm hoping to see "the big five" ... elephants, lions, rhinos, hippos, and cheetas plus a few other animals we can only see in zoos in the States. I'll be in the crater for the summer solstice... except that it's winter here. Originally, my brother and his family were supposed to come with ... read more

So here I am in Zanzibar basking in the quiet of an internet cafe which is a contrast to the extremely noisy streets and alleys here. I got here on the ferry yesterday with my brother, my niece Heather, nephew Martin, and a house friend. My brother and the kids went snorkeling, but I decided to go on my own. I had big plans for Zanzibar, but it seems I got into town too late to catch any interesting tours and all my attempts to go sightseeing on my own haven't worked out. So maybe I'm supposed to be just relaxing and writing y'all. Actually, this is a really good option. We took the fastest ferry and the ride was exciting. On the way, my brother managed to get himself into the crew cabin where they ... read more

The next day we entered the Serengeti National Park at about 10 am. As soon as we got into the park we saw massive herds of Wildebeest covering the whole of the ground you could see. It was the annual migration. (http://www.lonelyplanet.com/destinations/africa/tanzania/attractions.htm#serengeti). We drove to a picnic site and on the way saw a couple of lions inside a bush very close. Lots of Zebras also. After our picnic lunch we saw Elephants, a couple of bull Giraffes fighting - banging their heads against each others necks! Wildebeest are a very strange shaped animal with short back legs and long front legs. We also saw some Hyenas with some old pieces of bone running around quite close to us. The lodge was amazing in the middle of the park. It had a lovely terrace where we ... read more

We got up the next day early so we could drive to the Ngorogoro crater. The crater is quite famous as an amazing place to see all the big game of East Africa. (http://www.lonelyplanet.com/destinations/africa/tanzania/attractions.htm#ngorongoro) On the way the roads were quite bumpy and after about an hour the Land Rover lost all power going up a hill. We diagnosed the problem that rear wheels were sapping all the power from the differential and I thought there might be a problem with the drive shaft. We found that by locking the differential the front wheels were able to pull the jeep along but fairly slowly. We struggled along for half an hour while many jeeps overtook us and then stopped at a small village to hopefully get a fix. The guy in the garage seemed to be ... read more

We left Dar on an early bus to Arusha where we planned to go on Safari. It was a full day on the bus with a short stop for lunch. When we got there I planned to walk around and check out a few places for accommodation. We had heard that things were a bit of a scramble in Arusha until after you purchased a safari since all the touts would be after you big time for the big dollars. We did have a little scuffle at the station, but Rasta Carlos was on hand to lead us to a nice guesthouse away from the touts. Kristen did cause quite a stir when she ripped up the price list of one of the touts in an effort to show him she really wasn't interested in reading ... read more