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Published: October 29th 2007
Lion cub
A baby lion in the Serengeti I mean, it is a bit strange, really. When I first went travelling back in 1998, I didn't even have an email address. Communication with home was via very expensive - and infrequent - phone calls from international call centres, or poste restante in big city post offices. Sometimes news from home - or from me - would be weeks old when either end received it. Dad would send me newspaper clippings, so I knew what was going on in Australia the previous month. Then, in 2001, I had an email, and I started sending 'groupies', fortnightly updates on my progress. If I was adventurous, I could even scan some images into a PC and send them home (if I could find a scanner in Pakistan). And now? The blog, an application which allows you to send photos, news and silly opinions, almost instantly, to everyone in the world. How far we have come.
When I started doing this, the idea was that friends and family could access the blog - if they wished, no pressure - and
Elephantie
A Lake Manyara NP elephant see what I was up to and where I had been. Plus, I could rave on about whatever it was that was interesting me, or annoying me, at that point of my trip. Also, it allowed me to focus my thoughts about a place, so the trip made some kind of sense to me. However, as the year has gone on, 'the blog', as it has become, has taken on a life of its own. People from all over the world look at the photos, read the text, and then some of them even comment on what I have said. Sometimes the comments are positive, along the lines of 'nice pics, your trip sounds fun'; and sometimes they are not, along the lines of, 'how dare you insult my country, you know nothing, bugger off and die'. So I suppose this opening section is really leading up to this: for those who get upset, don't like the blog, think I'm an arsehole, whatever - this is a blog, a record of my thoughts, my experiences, and my ideas. It doesn't pretend to be an academic work, documenting the objective truths of African history and contemporary issues. If I say, 'the
Zebra and tent
One of the zebra at our Ngorongoro campsite people of Benin seem a little unfriendly', it is because I have met some people in Benin who were unfriendly (by the way, I haven't been to Benin). I make no claims to anything in this blog being definitive or incontrovertible. But please - keep the comments coming, even the death threats, as they keep the whole experience of posting these things interesting.
OK, got that off my chest. Now I can tear Tanzania apart. No, only joking, I am absolutely loving it here so far. Three weeks in, and Tanzie continues to impress, amaze and surprise. I can almost say with certainty that it is my favourite sub-Saharan African country so far (I am still finding Egypt hard to beat for top spot as premiere all-African destination). The people, the beaches, the towns, and, yes - the animals - are all larger than life.
Dad and I left Zanzibar about a week ago, back to Dar for a night, and then on the bus to Arusha, the safari capital of Tanzania. On the way we passed the magnificent Mount Kilimanjaro, which truly does rise like an Olympus, but not quite above the Serengeti (thanks, Nigel, for letting
Long neck
One of the giraffes at Tarangire me know that it doesn't rise like an Everest - I will listen more carefully to my Toto lyrics in future). Arusha, about an hour west of the mighty mountain, is a strange hodgepodge of international aid workers, international lawyers, international tourists, and very non-international Tanzanians. The city, about the size of Wollongong, sits in the northern highlands, and is the base for many NGOs and agribusinesses, as well as the site of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The UN decided to use the city for the trials of the genocide bigwigs, as it is close enough to Rwanda without actually being there, is within Africa, and has a fairly good infrastructure for dealing with high-level international legal processes. The ICTR has been plodding along for around a decade now, and has convicted its fair share of genocidaires, including the Rwandan PM of the time, and the mayor of Kigali. You can actually drop in and view the trials as they are happening, and Dad and I spent a rather interesting hour or two watching a defence witness for Augustin Bizimungu, who was chief of the Rwandan army during the killings. Cutting a rather sad figure in an old
Me and Kev
Dad and me standing above Lake Manyara NP red suit, Bizimungu was nothing like the bellicose general portrayed in the film Hotel Rwanda, and,sitting there in the courtroom, he didn't look like somebody capable of ordering the killings of hundreds of thousands of people. but then, he hasn't been convicted, so maybe he is completely innocent. You can check out a bit about him
here .
After watching Bizi get roasted, we set off on our true mission - a five-day safari on the well-beaten northern circuit, a selection of big parks in the north of the country, home to every large mammal you've ever fantasised about seeing, after watching a David Attenborough doco. We went with the very cheap but very trustworthy and good-value Crown Eagle safaris, guided and driven by the super-friendly and fun-loving John, and the silent but deadly cook, Ali. Joining us were a wonderful Honduran-Nicaraguan couple, Efrain and Janet, both doctors with Medecins Sans Frontieres in Rwanda. Our faltering Spanish, and their English, were tested to the limit during our four days together. Thus the title of this post - because together, we were on the lookout for the Big Five - buff, phanties, rhinos, lions and leopards. And we saw four-and-a-half of
Serengeti kopje
A kopje (Dutch for 'small head') rising from the Serengeti plain. These small outcrops are often home to snoozing lions or lounging leopards them.
Because each park we visited has its own unique character and animal populations, I have decided to deal with each in turn. So please bear with me...
Lake Manyara NP
Good for viewing: elephants (3000 of them in the park), baboons, and hippos
This small reserve is mostly taken up by the lake itself, which is home to flamingos and pelicans. The surrounding bushland is full of screaming blue monkeys, and ballsy baboons. There is a single hippo pool, and nearby a small mixed herd of zebra and wildebeest drink their fill of water. The real highlight for us were the gigantic elephants, many of which were feeding right on the roadside. We drove up to within one metre of two males, one of whom - the larger, by the way - clocked us and ambled over to the front of the Land Rover, readying for a charge. john shushed us all, and, as we shrank back into our seat, jumbo thought better of knocking the car over, and wandered away for some more grass. Tom officially crapped himself during the whole episode.
Serengeti NP
Good for viewing: lions (we saw 20), leopards, antelope, zebra
The
Leo
A big Serengeti lion most famous of them all. Serengeti means 'land of endless space' in the Masaai language, and, as you drive through kilometres of swaying grassland, you can see why. Joined to the smaller Masai Mara reserve in Kenya, the Serengeti is home to over 1.5 million large mammals, and hosts the annual cycle of migration which sees the zebra and wildebeest constantly moving on in search of greener pastures. The Tanzanian side is a bit empty right now, but we still had some incredible viewing. The highlight, of course, were the park's lions, who loll around in the sun and seem completely unfazed by the droves of gawping tourists watching them from open-topped cars. Perhaps most wonderful were the three young lion cubs sleeping away just a few metres from the road. Aaaaaaah. Scariest thing? Not being allowed to use the camp toilet during the night, in case of prowling lions and hyena.
Ngorongoro Crater
Good for viewing: hyenas, zebra, wildebeest, hippos
Wow. What a place. Try to picture this - the world's largest crater, almost 20kms across. Steep purple hills all around, rising some 600 metres, and keeping the crater's wildlife semi-imprisoned inside, as though in a 400-sq km
Lazy hippo
Hippos doing nothing much, Ngorongoro crater enclosure. Every imaginable savannah ecosystem represented inside the crater: lush grasslands, salt lakes, freshwater pools, acacia forest, swamplands, hills, montane forest. And 20,000 huge bloody animals, all just living their natural lives, right there. The view down into the caldera is stunning enough - the sheer volume of animals down inside is mind-blowing. We saw 70 hippos in one pool, zebra grazing, elephants browsing, buffalo staring right at us. And even better, on return to our crater-sde campsite, we had a herd of zebra right amongst the tents, seemingly oblivious to our presence. There was also a lone male elephant wandering around the edge of the site, and five cheeky Masaai boys tried to scrae him off by throwing stones at him - one as big as a fist hit him right on the head. Eventually he got the shits, and charged the boys, who ran off, giggling. A Tanzanian twist on our old childhood game of Cat patrol, where we did the same to cats, with not quite the same level of danger to life and limb.
Tarangire NP
Good for viewing: elephants (10,000 in this park), giraffes, warthogs, wildebeest
Not quite as impressive as the others, especially
Close up
An elephant in Manyara NP who got pretty darned close to our Land Rover... after the vast Serengeti, and the ethereal Ngorongoro, but a fun park to visit, if only for the elephants. We saw 70 in just a few hours, scratching themselves on trees, taking dust baths, munching grass, and nursing man-sized hard-ons. We also saw giraffes drinking, warthogs snuffling, and wildebeest migrating, all to a backdrop of bizarre-looking baobab trees. No lions, but we did see a leopard's tail. That counts, doesn't it?
So, there you go. All safaried out now, and tomorrow we trek back to Dar - our third visit there - before pushing on to Malawi.
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Chani
non-member comment
hand me the farking keys you farking c0cksucker
ok, pretty lame attempt at a death threat, i'll work on a really good one. say hi to big kev for me