Africa - February 2014

Our trip started out with an ice storm in Atlanta and our flight being canceled, so we had to scramble and fly through Minneapolis, thereby losing our Economy Comfort seats.  Flying to Africa from the States is long, and not something we would ever do again.  We arrived at 9:00 p.m. and had to wait for our VISA for over 2 hours, so were exhausted by the time we arrived at our lodge at midnight.  Our room was fine, with a mosquito net around the bed, but with a shower that really only dripped.  Not fun after feeling like a nice hot shower after traveling over 24 hours.  Awoke the next morning after listening to dogs barking in the kennel next door, to find the gardens and the pool at our lodge just beautiful.  We learned that breakfast is very simple, with eggs and sometimes breakfast meat, fruit, toast and cereal (although they don't refrigerate their dairy products).

Our driver, named Amani, picked us up and we headed to Arusha National Park.

Greg ready for safari

Amani told us it was a small park and we shouldn't expect to see much, so imagine our surprise when only shortly inside the park we saw warthogs, zebras, waterbuck and cape buffaloes.  Shortly thereafter we saw colobus monkeys climbing around the trees.  This then led to seeing many more animals, including large herds of giraffes.  What an amazing sight they were!  We continued on to see gazelle, baboons and flamingos. 

We stopped for our first boxed lunch of the trip.  Fried chicken leg, hard boiled egg, meat/vegetable pie, bread with butter and shredded carrots, fruit, yogurt, drink, peanuts and cookies.  Loads of food for lunch.

Typical boxed lunch

Colobus Monkey

We had chosen an optional canoe trip which occurred after lunch on Lake Momella.  Greg and I were in one canoe and there was another couple in another as well as two guides in a third canoe.  We rowed around the edge of the lakes, finding many beautiful birds, cape buffalo, giraffes, waterbuck, a baby python and most importantly, hippos!  The guides were sure to keep us away from the hippos as the hippos bellowed out their warnings that we needed to stay away from them.  We pulled over to one spot just to watch them watch us.  It was a little unnerving knowing they could come over and bite our canoe in half.

Waterbuck Antelope

The day continued with seeing more and more of the same animals.  We would spend time just sitting watching them as they went about their daily business.  It was an awesome first day of safari. 

As we made our way back to our lodge we drove through some small towns.  The poverty levels are incredible.

This is a hotel

local moving market

store front

As we got closer to our lodge, we could hear trumpets and music and learned that weddings would be coming to our lodge to have pictures taken in the gardens.  It was so great to see 3 different wedding parties and loads of people having pictures taken.

Day Two we would leave Arusha and head to Tarangire National Park.  On our route we passed many Massai homes as pictured below.  We would see these homes throughout our trip in Tanzania as well as the Massai tending their herds of cattle and goats.  Tarangire is home to over 300 elephants and I think we saw every one of them!  There were also the beautiful baobab trees everywhere.   We saw 9 lions, jackals, a leopard hanging in a tree and one in the bush, giraffes, ostriches, and antelopes, but by far, the elephants were the best part of this park.  We could have stayed and watched them forever.  At one point, we had a huge parade of elephants walking right by our truck.  They were so close that taking a picture didn't even work.  Amazing!

Massai homes

 

Greg's tree hugging tradition

Male impala with warthogs in the background



These monkeys were grabbing everyone's boxed lunch



After a day of safari, we headed to our first tent camping experience.  The tent was extremely nice, with a big king size bed, plenty of room and a bathroom.  The view of the valley below was extremely nice.

Our first tent experience

The lodge had this great open patio which overlooked the plains where we would see giraffe, our first jackals, waterbuck and gazelle.  It was a great place to have a drink before dinner.  They served popcorn and tortilla chips as snacks and we sat and watched an army of ants move a piece of popcorn across the wall in seconds.....fascinating.

Our beautiful view

Dinner was a buffet of interesting food and then back to our tent for much needed sleep.  During the night we heard lions huffing and elephants bugling, which was quite unnerving.  We learned in the morning that the elephants had broken the water pump so there was no water in the camp.  Scary thinking they could have just barged into the tents as well.

We would spend another day in Tarangire viewing the many animals.

The "Bachelors"

Crazy termite mound

Forget the name, but awesome bird

 cape buffalo

some kind of eagle

love ostriches

We would spend the next two nights in another "tented" camp near Lake Manyara National Park.  The tent was nothing like you would ever expect.  It had a nice porch with two benches to sit.  Inside they had put two double beds together for us and there was another double bed, plus a sitting area which included 3 chairs and a table and then a desk area.  The bathroom area was huge and the shower was great.  There was a nice patio near the bar and restaurant where you could enjoy the views of the lake (which sadly is drying up) while having a drink.  Dinner at this location was pretty special.  The waiters were dressed in suits and served fantastic food.  We have noticed the African food has a spice that we weren't sure of and when I asked our guide, he checked with the chef and they gave us a list of all the spices they use in cooking, which are spices we use.  Very sweet of them.  The only bad thing we encountered was that we could hear loud speakers from the town, which was fairly far away.  We thought it was a political rally, but rumor has it that it was a disco.  Very weird and annoying.



Our next day would be spent in Lake Manyara National Park.  This is a fairly small park, but we saw many new animals, including wildebeest, hippos, velvet monkeys, and a large python, in addition to all the previous seen animals.  The forest here was lush, much different than the open plains of the other parks.  It was great to watch the monkeys and baboons moving throughout the trees.  We saw a family of elephants in a dried up river bed scraping for mud to put on their backs while a lion watched them from a distance.  Two times while driving in the park, elephants burst out of the bushes into our path.  Thank goodness our driver was on top of things and we had no accidents.

Velvet monkey

Baby baboon climbing in tree

Elephants in mud with lion in distance

As we were leaving the park, we saw 2 small children dressed in uniforms sitting on a stump.  Our driver asked if we would mind driving them to the orphanage.  Apparently the only way these children can go to school each day is having one of the many tour operators or people that work in the park pick them up in the morning and take them home at night.  It is a given that somebody will take them home at the end of the day.  Very sweet kids and it broke our heart to see where they were living.

The next day we would first travel to the Ulduvai Gorge on our way to the southern Serengeti.  We first stopped at the gorge where we would have our boxed lunch, visit a small museum and hear a discussion on what Louis and Mary Leakey discovered in the gorge.   Very interesting.

Skulls in the museum



Birds wanting to eat our boxed lunch

The Gorge

We would arrive in the southern Serengeti to find it very muddy.  We passed a truck with two men in it who were stuck beyond belief.  Our driver was sweet and pulled them out.  Our first new animal was a baby wildebeest who was so cute!   Next we saw two cheetahs lying in the mud sleeping and then several heart beasts.  We saw numerous lions who were much closer than the others we had seen.   What a great start to this part of the Serengeti.



Heart Beasts

First sights of the wildebeest migration

We were staying at the Ndutu Lodge for the next two nights.  Our room was great as it was a stand alone building at the far end.  The Serengeti stretched out in front of our room so we were able to see zebras, wildebeests, gazelle, dikdiks and many birds right out our window.  The first night we could hear wildebeest outside our door and sure enough in the morning there were footprints everywhere.  There are resident Genet cats that sit on top of the fireplace which was pretty cool.  This was a great place to stay, although the fact you didn't have a choice of entrees, but had to eat whatever they served wasn't really ideal.  They served lamb one night, which is definitely a turn off for me and I would imagine many others.  Otherwise, the food was good and the lodge very cozy.

view from our room

better stay close to the paths

resident Genet Cat

Nightly campfire, complete with popcorn

We would start our second day at Ndutu Lake after a huge thunderstorm all night long made the roads just about impossible to drive.  Many of the trucks were crossing a river as we heard there were lions on the other side, but our driver felt our truck was too heavy and we would get stuck.  We found several male lions, and then a whole pride of lions and were able to watch them for a long time.  We eventually followed them to where they were trying to set up an attack on wildebeest, which by this time numbered over 1,000.  There were also hundreds of zebra in the mix.   The sounds the wildebeest make is awesome.  Our driver had set our truck up near a wildebeest laying by himself.  It was amazing to watch one of the females lions walk along, spot it, pounce on it, and then bite it on its neck to smother it.  The cubs came up and were trying to bat the legs which were flailing around.  In the end, we learned it was a sick wildebeest so the lions did not eat it.   They attempted to trap another wildebeest and it was so exciting to see them scout around and set up the right spots, only to have it ruined by a tour group in a truck driving right between the lions and the wildebeest.  Horrible!

We headed back to the lodge for a hot lunch instead of the boxed lunch and on our way, got stuck in the mud.  It took our driver about a half hour to 45 minutes to get us unstuck.  The whole time we were watching outside so that some wild animal didn't come after him.  We had about a half hour drive back to the lodge and it was raining hard and the paths were a muddy mess.  Our driver had to move or get stuck again, but had forgotten the roof was still open as well as all the windows.  Mud was flying in all over us and we couldn't stop laughing it was so funny.  The rain didn't stop so we opted to not go on safari in the afternoon because it would have been a waste of time.  Our driver spent the afternoon helping to pull other trucks out of the mud.  One truck was stuck for 2 days.

View of muddy road

Amani and our muddy truck

The next day we headed to Central Serengeti.  The first thing we noticed was the lack of animals.  Apparently the migration hadn't arrived yet, and since the area is so vast, it looked like there weren't animals.  Everywhere you looked, it was just open plains.  Amazing! 

We stopped for lunch and there were hyrax everywhere.  On the ground in the trees, and very unafraid.  One walked right over to the railing near us and proceeded to do his business which Greg thought was super funny.

We visited the hippo pool, which was great fun listening to the noises they make.  There were hundreds of hippos.  We even managed to see some crocodiles.

Our night was spent at the Kati Kati tents and when I saw the tents my heart fell since the previous tents had been so nice.  This was a mobile tent, where they were only allowed to stay for 6 months and then had to move to another location.  The tent itself was a nice size inside, with two twin beds (a first!) and a separate bath area, which was fairly large.   In order to get a shower, they had to fill up this huge bucket full of hot water and when you stood in the shower, you pulled a chain and it filled up the shower head which came down on you.  They asked that we conserve water since it was so tough to bring in, so we both managed to get a shower with one large bucket of hot water.  If you needed more water when showering, you had to yell "more water" and they would refill your bucket.  Quite interesting!

dining area

bar

Super noisy yellow birds

Awesome sunset as we sat around campfire and had drinks and popcorn

Amazingly enough, this place had the best food we had thus far.  The chefs produced the best soup, chicken marsala, lamb, veges and potatoes.  After a nice dinner they walked us back to our tent.  We could hear hyenas during the night.  Creepy!

After a wonderful breakfast, we headed out to the Serengeti.  We were able to see a leopard very close up in a tree and then see him come down, and also saw 3 lions in trees.  One of the lions tried to attack a baby cape buffalo which was awesome to watch.

Lion in a tree watching the buffalo

lion going after a baby cape buffalo

Topi

Awesome leopard

Love warthogs

Lion back in the tree after a failed attempt

During our lunch break this day, we were taken on tour of a small museum regarding the migration, the various animals in the park and display of various bones.

We left the Serengeti for a long drive to the Ngorogoro Crater, which is the place Greg had most wanted to see because of the black rhinos.  Along the way we passed the migration coming through which hadn't been there the previous day.  It was incredible to see the millions of wildebeest and zebra everywhere.  There were also hyenas, African crown cranes with babies and the secretary bird along the way.  Leaving the park was much better than being in it due to the number of animals we were able to see.

On most driving days we were able to stop and give the Massai children the food from our lunch boxes that we did not eat.  The children all run along the road waving and asking for food or money.  Their living conditions are horrible and the children work by managing large groups of cattle and goats on their own.

Our driver mentioned that the Massai hate the migration coming through as the wildebeest leave behind disease which kills their cattle and goats which is devastating to them.  He said the Massai string up "pepper bugs" and the noise they make scares the wildebeest away.  Greg and I looked at each other and shrugged.  Greg then asked how big the bugs were as they would need to be big to make so much noise.  The driver looked confused and then opened his bag and showed us a plastic grocery bag and asked what that was.  A plastic bag we responded.   He said "no", it is a PAPER BAG, and they string them for the noise.   OMG, we could not stop laughing thinking that they were stringing up bugs, when he just meant a plastic bag from the grocery store.   We would think about this various other times and couldn't control our laughing.

Crown crane and babies

Migration

Hyena

Secretary bird - love the stockings and mini skirt

We arrived at the Crater at almost 7 p.m., which was a huge bummer as we wanted to be able to sit and have a drink and watch the sun set over the Crater.  This was definitely the nicest lodge we stayed in on this trip.

The lodge was huge and the dining area had beautiful windows overlooking the crater.  We could only get hot showers until 8 p.m., so we made a mad dash for showers and then came back for a buffet dinner.  Although there was lots of food, it was one of the worst meals we had.  We ended up eating spaghetti!

We started out early in the morning down into the Crater.  Saw jackals right away and then a male lion walked right beside our truck.  A little further down we saw more lions who we thought were stalking a few cape buffalo not far away.  The driver said these lions eat well every day.

The Crater is full of animals every way you look.  It was a dream come true.  We got to see 10 rhinos, which is amazing as there are only 15 in the crater.  We saw bat eared foxes, an eland, a golden jackal and boat loads of every animal except giraffe who don't live in the crater.  There were hyenas sleeping everywhere and baby zebras and wildebeest frolicking.   An overall great experience.  We stopped at the hippo pool for lunch and then left for our last night at a lodge near Arusha.

bat eared foxes

right outside our truck window

golden jackal

eland

Greg imitating the hippo picture I missed



We were sad to leave the Crater and wish we would have spent another night.  As we drove down this creepy little road to our next lodge I had major trepidation, but was pleasantly surprised.  The Tloma Lodge is owned by a local person and was beautiful.  It is located on a coffee plantation and the gardens, swimming pool and buildings were beautiful.  We had a great stand alone room located in the gardens.

main lodge

gardens



our room

The lodge had a nice deck where we had drinks, and yes, more popcorn!  There were large groups of people at this lodge which made it extremely noisy.  They had a beautiful area outside set up for dining where there were 2 fireplaces and an outside campfire.  When we went to eat, we found that they set us up a table inside, facing a corner, next to a group of 20 people.  Needless to say, Greg flipped!  He insisted they find us another table, but since there weren't any other options, they moved the table out on the deck to where we had drinks.  Not ideal, but certainly better than inside.

During the night we were woken up by a small animal chewing wood up on the roof.  It chewed all night long.  We tried yelling, throwing shampoo bottles at the very high ceiling, but nothing helped.  Not a restful night for our last one.

After a leisurely breakfast, we headed toward Arusha where we would stop at a school.  We had brought a bag of school supplies to hand out.   The school was started by a Massai man who wanted to provide an education to Massai children to prepare them for public education.  The school is run by donations, which we found out is why they were so interested in having us stop.  The children wore uniforms and were very quiet around us, with the exception of the kindergarteners.  Each child got up and sang a little song about who they were and where they come from and then a little dance side to side to say they were in kindergarten.  SO SWEET!  We learned that the teachers make a salary of $2,400 annually. Amazing!

One building which needs replaced





Newer school building built by donations





We asked Amani if we could stop at a restaurant for lunch so he took us to a place that he frequents.  He ordered a typical African lunch which consisted of baked bananas, corn meal and beef.  You had to wash your hands in the middle of the restaurant as they don't use silverware and the dish is shared among all at your table.  You would eat a little banana, followed by beef, and then take a glob of the corn meal, roll it in a ball, and add it to mouth after putting in some beef.   The beef was tough by our standards, but all in all, an interesting lunch.  With 3 sodas, and the food, the bill was $11.  Amazing.

Although we had many hours until our flight, we were dropped at the airport to begin our journey home.  After over 21 hours in the air, and layovers in 2 airports, we made it home safely.  Amazing journey and one we will never forget.