Safari Experience & Diving Zanzibar

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After seeing the Discovery Channel/BBC "Planet Earth" series I was very excited to see Africa's amazing wildlife in person. I even made my parents watch the entire DVD series when they were visiting me in hopes they found it as incredible as I did. While I didn't have the time and patience of the camera men who filmed that show, I did get to see some pretty cool sights, even though our safari got off to a rocky start. Laurence and I were all set to depart for our safari on a Wednesday morning as planned. Being that this is Africa, things don't always go as planned. As I came out of my hotel room to meet Laurence for breakfast there was an African man waiting for me to inform me there was "a problem". Apparently the gentleman I booked our safari with had sold my contract to this guy because we were the only ones going that day and this guy had 2 people to join us. Generally, that would be okay...however the "problem" was the couple who was supposed to join us couldn't get enough money out of the ATM to pay for the trip that morning, so they wanted us to rearrange all of our plans and leave for safari the following day. That plan was completely unacceptable given that it was already 8:30 am on the day we were supposed to leave and we had flights booked at the backend of the safari. We ultimately got the guy I originally booked the trip with to customize a safari schedule that would be affordable and fit our timeline so that we could leave that day even though there were just two of us. Once we got started, things improved. We got to our accomodations at the Twiga Lodge and were pleasantly surprised to find out there was a swimming pool. We went for a quick swim before heading out for our first sunset game drive at Lake Manyara. We saw lots of baboons, vervet monkeys(funny creatures, the males have blue testicles!), impalas, dik dik's (that is their actual name), wildebeest, zebras, hippos and a few elephants, buffalos and giraffes plus some other animals I won't bore you with the names of. When we got back from the game drive we found out that another person would be joining the group. Andrea arrived believing she was going to Lake Manyara, Tarangire Natl Park and the Ngorongoro crater. No great surprise to us that they had misinformed her of our itinerary, but she didn't know till we were sitting down to dinner. She decided to hang in there and go with the flow so she stayed with us for the remainder of the safari. The second day we started with a sunrise game drive at Lake Manyara and covered a much bigger portion of the park and saw lots more elephants and giraffes as well as flamingos. From there we drove to the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater and dropped off our camping equipment and cook before heading up to see the Serengeti Plains. (this was a compromise from going all the way to the Serengeti) There weren't many animals (excluding cattle & goats) but we did see many Masai villages and some amazing landscape/scenery. The road was really rough and we were actually pretty happy we had chosen not to do the entire drive that day. Instead, we headed back to the Simba campsite and showered (my best hot shower in Africa yet!) and relaxed before dinner. I was actually pretty excited as this was going to be my first night to truly camp out in a tent. Luckily, it was a standup size tent and big enough for both Laurence and I and our huge bags. I got out my new sleeping bag and was ready to "camp". We had a bit of rain so we had to close up all of our "vents" and so when we turned out our flashlights it was PITCH BLACK inside the tent. Laurence thought I was kidding when I asked if we could use his little flashlight as a nightlight. He obviously gave me a bit of a hard time about it and accused me of not liking to camp. I have nothing against camping...but some natural light and fresh air would have made it much more enjoyable. The next morning we were up early and excited because we would be driving in the Ngorongoro Crater. The drive into the crater was beautiful and you could see there were LOTS of animals down there...so our excitement grew. As we got down to the crater there was immediately a herd of buffalo and another herd of wildebeest crossing our path. I've included one photo of the bulls near the entrance to give you an idea of just how many there were. Not long after that we stopped and someone said there were some lions off in the distance. I eventually saw them, but they were really far away...but it gave us hope that we would see more close up. We eventually did see about 8 lions, a rhino (bascially a black spot in the distance) and many more animals (hyenas, warthogs, ostrich, etc). Unfortunately, my lion photos weren't very clear...but we did get some pretty good sightings. After an exciting/tiring day at Ngorongoro we headed back to the Twiga Lodge for the night. The next day we headed to Arusha National Park for a walking safari and a game drive. We stopped in Arusha to pick up 2 more passengers, Steven & Tim from England. I noticed one of them had on some sandals and asked if they were told it was a walking safari. You guessed it...they were told it was NOT a walking safari. They were pretty happy to get out and walk and then we did a game drive around the park. We had a park ranger accompany us and show us the way. Honestly, at that point it was like "oh, ANOTHER giraffe". I think we were just tired of being in a car and ready to get going. Andrea headed back to Moshi with the safari guide and the cook and Laurence and I stayed in Arusha for the night. Since Steven & Tim were staying in Arusha too I suggested they come meet us at our hotel for drinks. We had a fun night drinking lots of wine and I even got to see a re-run of the Jon Stewart show on CNN. (I haven't watched TV, excluding a few DVDs at the hostel, since I left the USA) Is Stephen Colbert really running for president?? The next day we flew from Arusha to Zanzibar and stayed in Stone Town for the night. A pretty uneventful visit there other than the fact that Laurence's mobile phone got stolen off our table at dinner. (bummer!) The next day we got a taxi up to Nungwi beach where we were staying for 6 days. It was nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of a city and just have some quiet time next to the ocean. We booked a dive for the next day and decided to walk around town. Being that I've become somewhat domesticated and have become accustomed to washing my clothes by hand, I was in need of a bucket if we were staying for 6 days. So, with my new bucket in hand we wandered around and got a few interesting comments. One local asked if I was moving there and a few English ladies had to enquire as to why I was carrying a bucket. They thought I was going to be working as a maid or something. It was quite comical. Nungwi was nice with good restaurants, good diving nearby and beautiful sunsets. The biggest downside was that you couldn't relax on the beach without someone trying to sell you something or talk to you. Being that we spent a few days on the boat diving/snorkeling...it didn't really bother us too much. There was a Halloween beach party where I was impressed at the costumes people came up with by just using their imagination and what they had available. Unfortunately we didn't know there was going to be a party till we were out at dinner that night. Oh, and I didn't mention that Andrea (whom we met on safari) also showed up at Nungwi so we had another friend to hang out with for a few days. Laurence had a flight back to Delhi on Sunday so we caught a high speed ferry to Dar es Salaam. Since I wanted to change my flight tickets I decided to head to the airport with him, thinking of course that would be a good place to get my ticket changed. (I know, I'm overly logical!) After Laurence was inside the gate I headed to the Emirates office whose door claimed they had office hours till 5pm. Of course, it was 4pm and there was no one around. Knowing I needed to sort out some accomodations before it got dark I headed to a local travel desk and ended up talking to a local who was picking up some volunteers arriving from the US. He was making suggestions of places I could stay which were the same as I had heard from all the travelers I had met. I had also heard that the YWCA had rats, so I wasn't so excited about that option. Boldiface then suggested I could stay at his hostel with the volunteers, but it wasn't close to town (which I was hoping for). Since this guy had been booked through a large volunteer group and there would be other westerners there I decided to give it a try knowing I could leave the next day if I didn't like it. Upon arriving at the hostel I met 4 other volunteers in addition to the 2 in the van with me. They were all really nice and were sharing stories of their experience so far. Spending one night with them totally reconfirmed my decision to do independent volunteering through the Hostel Hoff. Several of them were downright disappointed and unhappy with their experience thus far and had forked up over $2,000 a piece to come out here to volunteer. They felt the company, whom I won't name here, was more interested in selling them safaris and just pacifiying/entertaining them while they were here than actually getting them involved in any true volunteer work. The house they were staying in was also rather dark and depressing for my tastes and far away from everything. As you might have guessed, I left the next day with my bags and headed for the Emirates office in town. Not having any luck with Emirates, I decided I needed a place to leave my monster backpack and saw the YWCA just down the street...so that is where I'm currently staying. The good news is that I haven't seen any rats and the place seems pretty clean and is very cheap. I have finally managed to get my flights changed (with the help of Airtreks back in the USA) and am extending my stay in Africa till November 17th. Now I just need to figure out what I'll be doing next...so I am going to stop typing and start researching the quickest way to get out of Dar es Salaam.

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Photos

Roof of Africa
View of Mt. Kilimanjaro over Moshi the night before my safari.

Lake Manyara Baboons
The baboons were everywhere. I even saw them on the side of the road in the village digging through trash.

Baby Elephant
This guy was soo cute and got really close to our 4WD.

Simba campsite
Luckily for us our fellow safari passenger (Andrea) had a swiss army knife so we could open our bottle of wine and have a pre-dinner cocktail outside our tent.

Bulls in Ngorogoro Crater
Even though it's early in the migration season, there were quite a few bulls and wildebeasts (sp?) in the crater.

Campsite Zebras
There were zebras at our campsite as well as on the road to the crater. I was actually surprised they were the animal we saw most frequently.

Crater Hippo pool
Lots of hipppos and birds at the hippo pool in the Ngorogoro crater.

Wildebeest Ngorogoro crater
Saw lots of these guys

Safari vehicle
Laurence and Andrea next to our safari vehicle. It's really cool that the top pops up so you can stand up and look around.

Giraffes at Arusha Natl Park
We did a walking safari with a park ranger in Arusha national park. We got pretty close to the giraffes and bulls, but didn't see too much else while walking.

sunset at nungwi beach
View of the sunset from a bar on the beach.

Comments

[Gina]

WOW!!!
Sounds all so exciting!!! Amazing photo's!!! Great reading, feels like i'm there! I'm jealous. Keep having fun. Love Gina :)

[blah blah blah blah]

its awesome